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Athena House
Donnington
Telford
Shropshire
TF2 8AJ
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What sells online?
There are some items that are well suited to trading online, and some that are not. While it is very easy to generalise, it is worth remembering that there are exceptions to every rule. Here are a few ideas for you to decide how suitable your products and services are to trade online.
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Products & Services
The terms products and services are interchangeable in this context. If you deliver a service electronically, CV creation for example, that can be considered a product.
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Are your products unique to your company?
People like unique and unusual items. What better place to buy than the Internet, and if there are no competitors, your market is unlikely to be overly price conscious. Beware that if your product is very unusual, you may have a hard selling job on your hands. Squid flavoured chewing gum may be unique, but the appeal is probably quite limited too.
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Can you sell them cheaper than anyone else?
Price isn't everything, but selling on the Internet should mean that you do not have the overheads of a traditional shop or premises. Passing this on to the customers will overcome many objections. Major e-tailors like Amazon, Dabs and others have built their whole business on this premise. Price is less important if your products are rare, hard to find or you do a better job of marketing than your cheaper competitors.
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Are they difficult to find on the High Street?
Amazon have such a huge range of books, you will be hard pressed to find a high street bookshop that stocks 10% of the range that they do. Likewise, the more niche the product, the bigger the price premium you can charge, and with the Internet, you are usually not limited geographically. Open a shop on the high street specialising in selling old maps, and you will struggle with enough passing trade to make a living. On the Internet, there are probably enough enthusiasts and collectors to keep a few shops of this kind going.
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Do people consume them and then want more?
People who buy a product once are good customers. People who keep buying are great customers. Ink cartridges and food products are a good examples. Customers buy, use and need to buy again. Gambling is probably the best example. Products like computers or furniture are bad examples as last a long time. The best you can hope for is a word-of-mouth referral if you do a good job.
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Is there a high probability that customers could return goods?
Clothing is a prime example. Customer buys a pair of shoes online, but they turn out to be ill fitting. Bad buying experience. Same goes for works of art and items where colour matching is important.
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Are they easy to deliver?
Again furniture is a bad example. Big + bulky = costly. The best example is information, delivered electronically like ringtones, downloadable software or online training.
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So whats the best product to sell online? Easy; online gambling. People try it, get hooked, and keep spending. The whole casino is fully automated, you don't have to be there. The only problem is market saturation. Hey, if we had all the answers I wouldn't be writing this article! If you are looking inspiration and some help, try this free business tips and ideas site.
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Lets look at exceptions. We built a site for a builders merchant with a limited geographical area he could realistically cover. Heavy products, bricks, blocks and paving etc. although they have a fleet of vehicles to deliver. This was bad. A selling point of their products was that they last a long time, another sign that trading online was not for them. Can you buy the products in the high street? Only at about 1000 B&Q stores, Focus DIY and Homebase sheds throughout the land! All these issues made us nervous that the client would be disappointed with their sites performance.
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Choosing the right product |
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The site has been a roaring success, but how? Our customers had a clear objectives about what they wanted from the online store. The site owners saved money by reducing the size of their ads in the local paper, printing their web site address, instead of a huge list of prices. They also got very busy at weekends. This meant that their customers had to wait around to get served. What their customers now had the option to do, was place an online order mid-week, when they got home from work. They could arrange a convenient delivery time and get started on their building project earlier. It also meant a few less customer in the yard, easing congestion at peak times.
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The over-riding factor of this particular clients success, is that they understood the issues they faced, used the technology to best advantage, and had a clear idea of what they wanted to achieve.
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If after reading these articles you would like to let us know what you
thought of them, we'll be happy to hear from
you.
Would you like to talk to us about your project? We don't charge for
advice, and if we get some business out of it - great. If we don't, we wish you
well and hope you got some benefit out of our discussion.
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