Shopster's Dropshippers, eCommerce, and Selling Online Blog

Contradictory advice

There are some nuggets of wisdom for business which seem to contradict each other. One says that success is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. In other words, the key to success is nothing more than good, old fashioned hard work.

Yet another oft used statement commands “don’t work hard, work smart.” Meaning hard work is not as important as doing the right things, following formulas that work although they may not be based on working your butt off.

So, which is which? Is it better to work really, really hard? Or is it better to have an ingenious plan and follow it strictly, even if it does not require you to work to the bone?

Oddly enough, both contradictory bits of advice are right. If you want your online store to succeed, meaning you want it to earn you more than enough to just get by, then you have to devote a lot of man hours to the task of making it work.

But working hard while following a wrong plan won’t cut it either. You have to have a sound business plan for your online store to generate decent to excellent income.

There are a lot of business gurus out there who can show you the road map to your promised land, whether you are a casual investor or a committed entrepreneur. Warren Buffet quickly comes to mind. Some of them have written books which detail their no nonsense approach to making it. The great thing is that their books, or at least the best parts, are available online for free.

Take the time to read what the sages have to say. Sometimes, all you need is just one little tidbit of knowledge to get off the ground.

Judging the economy and the market

When market weakens, another one strengthens. Remember this when you review the products or services carried by your online store.

The global economic meltdown of a few years ago is a case in point. Real estate sales sank like a rock. But smart realtors knew that if sales of new houses would be tough, and with foreclosures being so widespread, then countless homeowners would be forced to downgrade their standards of living.

This meant that owners whose homes were foreclosed would have little choice but to look for affordable rentals. Or those with large houses would have to settle for simpler ones.

The fall of the housing market is an extreme example of one market segment weakening, while another segment’s fortunes rose. The same is true for cars. Whenever the price of gasoline rises, sales of fuel efficient cars rise, while during good times when pump prices are low, gas guzzlers have an eager market. Some years ago, it seemed that everyone wanted to own a Hummer. Now, even the used ones are hard to dispose of.

A cursory review of the economy, paying closer attention to your immediate vicinity, will tell you what products are likely to sell well, and which ones are likely to suffer. So if your online store sells jewellery, focus on the high end ones when the economy is relatively strong, and offer more of the low end ones during hard times. Whatever happens, there will still be couples getting engaged and married. There will still be anniversaries to be celebrated. Thus, there will always be a need for your jewellery, or your baked goods, or your pet supplies, or your sex toys, or whatever it is that you market.

Remember: In good times and in bad, the global, national and local economies will simply keep moving, no matter what.

What everyone wants

Everybody enjoys getting bargains which we define as paying less for a product or service than what others normally pay for. Bargains can be offered to the general public, or to special clients.

With this in mind, you can create bargain sections in your online store. The lower-priced-than-usual items can be offered to anyone who visits your store, or you can be more selective on whom the products are offered.

As an alternative to lowering the prices of the goods you sell, you can give freebies for every order. If you sell shoes, for example, you can throw in a couple of free socks. If you sell cakes, add a few cookies. If you sell watches, include a free strap.

Consumers love getting something for nothing, or next to nothing. This is why big department stores can include free gift wrapping for select items during holidays.

The gimmick also works for the service sector. If your site offers a swimming pool cleaning and maintenance service, think of giving away a beach towel or umbrella (with your company’s logo, of course) during a specific period when business traditionally goes down. Like to colder months.

You may notice that when stores advertise their specials in newspapers or any other media, they call attention to the freebies, even when the value of the giveaway is not all that high. They know that consumers are drawn to giveaways like ants to picnics.

Think of a simple but inexpensive freebie that you can offer anyone who buys anything from your online store. If it’s attractive enough, you will probably see a noticeable increase in your sales.

No, no, no to spam

Everybody hates receiving spam, whether as email, as SMS on their cell phones, or as messages in their Facebook accounts. If anyone has ever tried to convince you that spamming is the best way for your online site to be known, don’t believe him.

Spam is easy to recognize, by the way. The words used are pretty similar. Congratulations, you’ve just won a prize. Thank you for replying (even if you’ve never heard of the sender). We want to share a secret with you. Etc., etc., etc.

Blasting your message is a valid way to market your online site, however. If you have excellent bargains, it is your job to make sure that as many people as possible know about them. Specifically, you want probable buyers to know about your online store’s bargains for the week or the month.

One of the things that you should do is to make sure your message is your own, not a variation on the old themes common among spammers. This means you have to personalize what you send out.

If, for example, you sell accessories for dogs, show a picture of yourself and your dog. Tell them its name and why you’re crazy about him. Then say why you think your fellow dog lovers like the ones getting your message may want to know about this new canine product that you have. You, thus, become a pitchman for your own products, and you are sending out personalized messages. Not spam. Again, everybody hates receiving spam. But most people wouldn’t mind receiving messages about a product or service that is of interest to them.

Regaining lost customers

You know the saying, you can’t win ‘em all. It’s absolutely true. Not all the customers of your online store will be one hundred percent satisfied with the product or service they got from you.

Does this mean that you write them off as one-time only customers? You can, but you don’t have to. Not if you have some spunk, some fighting spirit that tells you not to give up after one failure. And not if you can turn that failure into a future success.

If a customer has given you negative feedback about your service – too slow to deliver, too difficult to order, too many extra charges – it would work in your favour if you were to explain why your service was the way it was.

Nobody likes to feel cheated. Since cheating anyone was never your intention, a rational explanation can be more than enough to clear the misunderstanding between you and your first-time customer.

You can promise to improve in the hopes that he or she will give your online store another chance. If there is little that can be done about the complaint, you can still explain why. If you do, the disgruntled customer might have second thoughts about never ordering from your online store again, maybe even see your point.

The former customer can tell himself, “this online store charges too much for delivery, but at least the owner took the time to explain why. Maybe I should order from him anyway because he seems to really care about his business and his customers.”

Maybe not all, but at least some lost customers can be won back with just a little extra effort on your part.

Your area of coverage

If the products you sell in your online store come from drop shippers, you have the widest possible area of coverage. This means that even if you are based in California, for example, you can have buyers as far away as New York or Alaska or Hawaii.

If, on the other hand, you sell goods that you make yourself, or which come from local suppliers, then your area of coverage will necessarily be smaller.

Going back to the California example, you will probably have to limit yourself to the Golden State alone, or just the northern or southern part. This is especially true if your products can spoil after a few weeks or even days.

There are advantages and disadvantages of having a limited area to cover. The main advantage is that your service can be more personalized. You can have plenty of customers who are within driving distance from your place. If you opt to deliver the sold goods yourself, the close contact can mean plenty of repeat business. Meeting your customers face-to-face can result in their becoming regulars.

The disadvantage will of course be your lower gross sales. Starting small is therefore your easier path to growth. This is the ideal path if your online store is only a small source of income for you, rather than a primary one. Great, if you’re a retiree or have physical limitations, but not exactly ideal if you set lofty goals for yourself.

Whatever you choose – wide area versus limited area of coverage – your online store can take easily take the place of the regular nine-to-five job and its fixed income.

Improve and innovate to survive and prosper

If your online store is doing well enough for you to live comfortably off the income it brings in, you can be content for a while. But do not presume that your store will run on auto pilot for an indefinite period. In all probability, it won’t. Sooner or later, your competitors will eat into your market share if you do not defend it.

The automobile industry teaches us some lessons about the need to constantly improve and innovate products, otherwise the leadership position can be lost. Ford may have been the pioneer among auto manufacturers, but it didn’t take long before General Motors became the market leader. All GM did was to create slightly better cars and trucks. GM, however, did not stay on top for long, after the likes of Toyota came along with even better products that captured the public’s fancy.

Whatever your products or services sold, keep in mind that the market can be quite fickle. Customers can change loyalties very quickly if they feel that they get more value for their money from your competitors.

Bear in mind that no matter how great or how seemingly superior are the products you sell, there is always room for improvement. Sometimes, the innovation that catches fire can be little more than a change in color or a tweaking of style. Other times, the first to adopt the latest technical innovations surge to pole positions.

Remember Commodore computers? What about Wang computers? These former market leaders bit the dust when they failed to recognize that the public’s taste was changing. A wise owner of an online store knows that the only constant is change. Keep pace with the market if you do not want to fade to oblivion.

An example of a perfect niche marketer

A recent news story tells of an American who opened a store where everything sold was “Made in the USA.” The products in his store ranged from wooden toys to maple syrup.

His eclectic selection of products could be considered odd, even unwise by some experts.

Some thought that the store was doomed to fail. Instead, it became an instant hit.  He had apparently struck a raw nerve with the buying public. The American man’s nationalist streak was triggered by seeing some of his friends and relatives losing their jobs because US manufacturers were seemingly surrendering to foreign competition. Either that or the manufacturers themselves were farming out their production to overseas companies. Our man rightly believed that there are still numerous US-made products to be proud of, and that his fellow Americans wanted to buy those products if only they knew where.

He simply put one and one together, and came up with a winning formula. He had tapped into a market that was always there, but which no one had recognized as well as he had. Perhaps many other businessmen had thought of the brilliant idea, but no one took the necessary action of actually putting up the Made in the USA store until he came along.

We say bravo to him, a classic example of a niche marketer.

And he hasn’t even gone online yet, but we can expect him to do so in the not too distant future. Meanwhile, the smart entrepreneur is considering opening a few more branches of his all American store in the coming months.

If you have what you believe to be a brilliant or inspired idea for your online store, you can take the cue from him.

An example of a perfect niche marketer

A recent news story tells of an American who opened a store where everything sold was “Made in the USA.” The products in his store ranged from wooden toys to maple syrup.

His eclectic selection of products could be considered odd, even unwise by some experts.

Some thought that the store was doomed to fail. Instead, it became an instant hit.  He had apparently struck a raw nerve with the buying public. The American man’s nationalist streak was triggered by seeing some of his friends and relatives losing their jobs because US manufacturers were seemingly surrendering to foreign competition. Either that or the manufacturers themselves were farming out their production to overseas companies. Our man rightly believed that there are still numerous US-made products to be proud of, and that his fellow Americans wanted to buy those products if only they knew where.

He simply put one and one together, and came up with a winning formula. He had tapped into a market that was always there, but which no one had recognized as well as he had. Perhaps many other businessmen had thought of the brilliant idea, but no one took the necessary action of actually putting up the Made in the USA store until he came along.

We say bravo to him, a classic example of a niche marketer.

And he hasn’t even gone online yet, but we can expect him to do so in the not too distant future. Meanwhile, the smart entrepreneur is considering opening a few more branches of his all American store in the coming months.

If you have what you believe to be a brilliant or inspired idea for your online store, you can take the cue from him.

Push vs Pull Method

In marketing your online store to your target consumers, you have two choices. One is to reach out to them through various means. This is sometimes referred to as the Push Method. The other option is to do everything to make them come to you, also known as the Pull Method.

There are distinct advantages to either way of bringing in paying customers. With the Push Method, you have to go out and aggressively introduce your site and its products and/or services to your would-be customers. You do this through such means as linking up with other sites, having stickers, flyers and posters made giving the name of your site and posting and distributing these all over town, soliciting the aid of your friends and relatives to tell their own networks to head to your site. In other words, just like the field-based salesmen of old, you go out and sell, sell, sell.

The Pull Method, on the other hand, is equivalent to having a store with various sales gimmicks, tons of flash to make the public take notice, and a lot of enticements once they’ve entered your facility. So instead of you going out and selling, it is you luring the buyers to come to you. Car showrooms do this frequently by having festive atmospheres with balloons and barkers, free food, carnival rides for kids, live entertainment, etc. They also resort to newspaper ads and TV and radio commercials.

So you either go out to sell, or pull them in to sell. Done properly, either of the two methods works. You can apply one or try a combination of both. Whatever you choose, the point is to sell a lot of your products or services.