Promotion, marketing and sales of new technology and e-commerce
Archive for Sales
February 9, 2007 at 1:37 pm · Filed under Marketing and Promotion, Sales
E-Commerce is one of the most important aspects of the Internet. Under this umbrella we have websites with shopping cart functions, marketplaces and shopping comparison sites.
Ecommerce allows people to carry out business without the restraint of time or location. A traditional website can serve anywhere in the world that can log on! The cost per sale is reduced when you’re talking about e-commerce. No human interaction is needed, and errors are reduced as the customer provides all the information.
Customers can search for niche products in an instant, and if you are a seller of niche product, reaching out to the world can increase your sales volumes thus decreasing the cost of the item for you, the business.
The customers experience can be streamlined, they will spend less time over order discrepancies and there is an increased chance of cross selling as the products are just another click away.
So when as a business would you choose a marketplace such as eBay?
Marketplaces are great for customer acquisition; a marketplace such as eBay will spread your branding across the web quicker than any pay per click scheme. Marketplaces have high velocities, great for brand new stock and finishing lines. Marketplaces can also be places to test ideas or new products, you will soon know on whether a product is not going to do well or fly off the shelves.
Protecting your bricks and mortar:
Many traditional companies are afraid of marketplaces and the fierce price wars between competitors. They are afraid of a detrimental effect to the brand, their brick and mortar shops not being able to match the prices and keeping up with the demand of a high volume marketplace. Fear is a great controller, and you must know your enemy. Many high street businesses trade under a pseudonym, access to the product, but it causes no cross over in their high street stores.
As for prices, well the competition for the product types are already there. Many will browse shops muttering that they can get it cheaper on eBay. I know I do. You have to join the race, not shy away from it to stop your competitors getting ahead. Brands are more dilute when it comes to e-commerce; smaller brands come into their own. This trend could start creeping into the high street as broadband gets faster and cheaper and the payment gateways more secure.
Protecting your brand!
As with any new route to channel, you have charlatans to go with it! Is someone trading as you? Using your brand awareness to gain sales? Even if you are not e-commerce active you need to make sure you regularly check your brand on the internet. Reputation is everything to a business and with the anonymity of the internet is easy to impersonate a leading brand.
Advertising on the Internet
Back in the days of the dot com boom all you needed was a website and the traffic was yours. But the giants like Google and Yahoo forced us to search their ay and the fight for natural search was on! To fund their world domination these two titans have their own search marketing schemes or pay-per-click advertising to drive traffic using keywords. Large advertisers can spend thousands on pay per click advertising (probably wasting a lot of it due to bad management) Marketplaces are an active way to do this. For instance on eBay you are advertising as well as physically selling an item. The marketplace has done the hard work for you
February 8, 2007 at 10:45 pm · Filed under Sales
One of the most simple and useful articles I have read about marketing a service to fellow businesses is this article from entrepreneur magazine ‘Hit the sweet spot‘ by Kim. T. Gordon. An excerpt from the article reads
‘For many business owners, marketing to fellow entrepreneurs is job one. The challenge is, entrepreneurs are time-strapped multitaskers who are also relatively risk-averse–making them a difficult audience to reach and persuade. Sound familiar?’
This article explores a ‘common sense’ approach to marketing and designing a business to business product or solution.
What do businesses want? According to this article:
- Increased sales - does your solution provide that?
- Safe Choice - do you have a content rich campaign with customer feedback and cases?
- Maximum Convenience - is there a huge amount of work the buyer has to do? Is this included in the solution? If it needs 20 hours work on the clients side is their an alternative?
- Ways to save money - Can you add features? Bundle products together for a ’special price’?
- Do it yourself solutions - businesses love low cost self service solutions but if again time is an issue. Free customer support in the bundle is a great seller!
- Reliability and Performance - What guarantees or warranties does your company offer? If something goes wrong are you their to help?
- Vendors they trust - Special events and networking are great to build trust with a customer.
The finishing line of this article is ‘What matters most is that you create an opportunity to build positive relationships’ Probably the most important statement for businesses I have heard in a long time.
February 8, 2007 at 4:49 pm · Filed under Marketing and Promotion, Sales
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January 8, 2007 at 8:03 pm · Filed under Sales
In this article I just first want to mention what the differences between these three entities are. A lot of my clients get confused between these three formats, which causes misinterpretation of what functionality is available to them.
Firstly, an eBay shop:
This is part of the eBay marketplace where all of your listings on eBay can be collectively viewed. You can make this look very much like a website (like the guys from creativebay.co.uk) but it is definitely NOT a website. You have 2 ‘marketplaces’ under the eBay umbrella. Core Listings which get a larger proportion of traffic and seemingly cheaper ’shop’ listings which do not form part of the eBay main search and depend very much on core listings to bring in traffic. Within an eBay store you have custom pages, categories and promotional boxes. With a shop on the eBay marketplace, search engine optimisation is done for you by eBay and your have instant traffic.
A Website:
A website can be custom built to any specification and purpose, as long as your budget allows. Websites need optimisation and maintenance usually by your design company to insure the security and smooth running of the site. As long as you are willing to pay for it (Some full e-commerce websites have been fabled to cost around £7000) a website can be built to perform any task and tick any box. Currently toast making websites are not available; you will always have to do that yourself. Get a toaster.
A Storefront;
Storefronts are commonly part of a bigger picture, but have certain limitations with functionality with regards to a custom built website which is built solely for your purpose. Two ’storefronts’ that spring to mind belong as extra functionality to a complete e-commerce solution. Channeladvisor and Marketworks are both auction and shopping feed inventory based order management systems which have the added benefit of a storefront to showcase your product.
Functionality will always differ greatly. For example, Channeladvisor provides a matrix inventory (product with dropdowns) whereas a Marketworks storefront does not. A storefront is part of a complete solution that you can market and treat as a website, but you will need to check with your provider if the particular storefront will give you the functionality you need.
Examples,
A Marketworks Storefront http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Bling-Bling-Online
A Channeladvisor Storefront http://Bling-Bling-Online.co.uk
These guys also have matching eBay dealings:
Marketworks: http://stores.ebay.com/findingking
Channeladvisor: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Bling-Bling-Online
Whatever you choose to sell your product please check testimonials of the stability of the sites and services and make sure you can attract a suitable amount of traffic. If you pay £7000 for a kick ass fully functional website but you have no buyer traffic…..well don’t make the mistake many have already!
