Darren Contardo's Netrepreneur

Fastest Way to Get a Best-Selling Product Online

This has got to be the easiest marketing/sales tip of all time. Think of your online store as a real bricks-and-mortar store. How do you get an incremental sale at a retail store? Checkout! So if that's the case, why not offer an add-on item to you customer at the point of checkout? Something small around $5-$10 should do it. Experiment with it and I'm sure you'll see that one item sky-rocket up the charts to #1.

Got an item that you want to sell, but think the price point is too high? Could you sell a small sample of it for a buck? That might be a good way to get trial of that item and convert that customer into a more profitable customer later on. Something to consider as a sales tactic.

Are you a Designer and Want to Sell Online?

Don't bother paying a web designer to build you a website (or if you're one yourself you don't even have too) because you can have your own product line with fulfillment, logistics, and accept credit cards immediately!!! The solution is CafePress and it enables creative people to have a turn-key website where you can display all of your creative wares.

More importantly, CafePress has spent a lot of time tweaking their checkout process to drive sales higher (conversion rates). By increasing conversion rates you can sell more of your products without increasing the traffic to your site. So if you're thinking about having your own site to sell your product, then give it whirl.

MarketingSherpa Wisdom Report

The 2006 MarketingSherpa.com Wisdom Report is now out and jam packed full of great lessons on Marketing. Learn from over 110 Marketers and Agencies on what works and what doesn't. Oh, and pay close attention to lesson #7 from yours truly. By the way, the report is 48 pages of completely free lessons. Get yours now!

Is Content King? If you

Is Content King?

If you want a website that will generate traffic and keep people interested, then you have to go for content. Even online stores need content to persuade their visitors to convert to buyers. Basic buying behavior suggests that a person does the following:

1. Problem Recognition
2. Awareness of "your" solution (sees an ad of yours or word of mouth)
3. Interest (digs for information at this point)
4. Evaluation of alternatives (look for like products/services) to see if anything is better
5. Purchase decision
6. Post-purchase satisfaction/remorse (this will dictate if they buy again or go to the competition)

As you can see, the "interest" step is critical to nail on the head in order to persuade your visitor to take action! If you don't answer their question, they'll go somewhere else to find it. Remember, your competitor is just a click away (or search query).

Customer Motivation Online Designing an

Customer Motivation Online Designing an online store is really all about focusing on customer goals. Usability, scnenario analysis, conversion, etc. These are all terms used for the science of getting a customer to the ultimate goal of purchasing your product or service. So let's define the customer experience online and how to make it a bit more structured:

The customer experience is the sum of the tasks and objectives carried out on the site. The motivation is temporary (usually 72 hours) and really compels the customer to carry out the tasks to reach their objective or goal.

Let's take a look at an example:
Customer has a specific motivation (i.e. to become more attractive)

Task 1: Search for cool shirts
Task 2: Sort by customer rating
Goal 1: Find popular product

Task 3: Read review and compare prices
Goal 2: Buy the most flattering shirt for them

Buy understanding customer goals with your website, you can prioritize, organize, and truely identify content that will help your customers achieve their goals and satisfy their motivation.

If you want a good example of a Site that does exact thing, go to futureshop.ca (Canadian electronics retailer).

Internet Retaling. Is Price the

Internet Retaling. Is Price the Bottom Line? OK, you've decided to set-up an online store. You've selected your product or service, you have a fulfillment center ready, your merchant account is approved, and you're design is solid. But wait?!?! What about your brand? Are you going to compete on price or focus your efforts on building your brand?

Let's look at Dell and Apple. Both are computer giants, both have hundreds of millions in revenue each year, but both do not follow the same strategy. Which one has more staying power? Well, personally I believe Apple does. Why? They've built a community, whereas Dell has herded a bunch of price sensitive consumers their way. You see, price sensitive shoppers aren't loyal. I'd say that most of Dell's customers are Late Adopters and Laggards who are holding out for a good buy on a PC (heck, my parents just got their first computer and it was a Dell).

In fact, Dell customers are brand promiscuous...which means they'd easily buy from their local computer shop if they provided the same level of service as Dell does. Service and expediency is Dell's core competency. The only way they can offer lower prices and great service is due to their Just In Time (JIT) inventory management philosophy.

Just take a look at every Dell piece of advertising. Free CDRW, Free upgrade on RAM, $500 off. Every week they have a new offer related to price! All this does is target the late adopters or the first time buyers who are very price senstive. Good strategy, but not for long-term growth. Why? Because competition can always compete on price...always. This my friend is what MBA's refer to as a low barrier to entry in the marketplace. Dell basically is leaving the gates wide open. Do you want to do that with your online business?

Anyway, I'm getting off in a rant here. Let's look at Apple for a second...

Apple focuses on "fostering" the brand. Everything is consistent, clean, builds community, and targets the Early Adopters and Mavens. You see, people who pride themselves on being computer savvy or "want" to be computer geeks will buy an Apple computer. They use Apple computers as an identity to their own geekdom (if that's even a word).

Do you ever see Apple have a sale? Do you see them competing on price with PCs? NOPE. They put their marketing dollars towards building their brand equity. Every ad is consistent, true to their positioning, and a result they can charge a premium. That is a competitive advantage that has a high barrier to entry.

So, what's my point? Internet Retailing is a numbers game most of the time. Dell, eBay, Amazon, and others compete on price more or less. And, until other businesses can figure out how to create operational efficiences to drive costs down, they will do just fine. But it's temporary. What you should be thinking about is driving your margin up, not down, building your brand, not your list of SKUs, and gearing up for long-term sustainable competitive advantage, not a quick buck.

Word to the wise. Competing on price invites competition. Don't compete; LEAD.

Thinking about using a product

Thinking about using a product feed?

Some of the best ways to sell your goods are through online store directories like Bizrate.com (now ShopZilla), Shopping.com, Yahoo! Shopping, PriceGrabber.com, and Froogle.com. They're PPC (pay-per-click) models that only charge you pennies per click for a qualified shopper. Basically, if a shopper goes to these sites, finds your product, and clicks on it, they are very, very interested in your product. So much so, they are beyond the "consideration" and "evaluation" of alternatives stages; they are HOT!

Some of these sites are very effective at driving traffic and some seem to take a bit more effort. But if you're really not sure if this is for you, what I would suggest is opening up a Google Adwords account and try some TEXT PPC. Once you've done that, you qualify for Froogle for FREE! That's right, kind of a two for one! From there I would suggest Bizrate, Yahoo! Shopping, Shopping.com, and PriceGrabber.com in that order. That's the least expensive to most expensive (from my experience anyway, but that would depend on your category).

Now go get some hot leads and have fun bidding!

DC

EBay bound... So your store

EBay bound...

So your store is a specialized shop that caters to a specific niche. Your business plan is good, your location is prime, and the merchandise is outstanding. So what's the problem? Why are you struggling to pay the bills? One answer.... traffic.

Let's put it this way, if your store caters to a specific market it probably needs some targeted advertising to reach your clients. But that's expensive and often doesn't work because it's hard to breakthrough the clutter. The word takes awhile to spread, so how do you do it? Simple, eBay! eBay generates about 42 million visitors a day! Imagine that! If you get even 0.1% of that traffic at your store that's 42,000 visitors at your store. Say you managed to sell only 5% of those visitors on your merchandise....that's 2,100 customers a day. So let's day each item costs $50. $50 x 2,100 is a whopping $105,000 a day in revenue. See the power of eBay now? This example is purely for demonstration purposes only, but you get the idea.

Don't have a product? Try dropshippers or wholesalers to find product. They'll white label and ship out the product for you. No hassel, just profit. You just need to focus on the promotions. Now isn't that the way it's supposed to be?

If you really want to make a go of it, you can open up your own storefront on eBay and try it out for free for 30 days. You don't need any technical knowledge, just a desire to succeed and sell your product/services to millions of people worlwide.

If this sounds intimidating and you're still not sure what to do, eBay offers eBay University.

Now you can reach more buyers, which = more $$$. You can pay the bills and then take a vacation. Oh and by the way, you can manage your store anywhere in the world...

Think Big,

DC

Top-notch eCommerce Site for Low

Top-notch eCommerce Site for Low Cost?

Here's a good article on how to get up and running right away on your own online store: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/0,4621,309001,00.html

There's usually more to getting up and running online, but the article is very easy to understand.

DC

Increase your ROI Here's a

Increase your ROI Here's a simple challenge for you to figure out. How do you increase your ROI by not increasing your online traffic to your E-commerce store? I'll post the answer January 3rd, but I'm open to some comments on this...ideas?