It can be fiercely competitive in the e-commerce world. Larger companies with strong buying power can undercut even wholesalers and the small company can really struggle to survive, unless they have a good niche. Many e-commerce companies have to make a loss in the first year just to gain a customer base and earn some buying power, but there are other ways to attract business and it isn’t just by lowering the prices.
1. Reactive and Proactive customer service.
Twitter Search - a powerful tool
One thing larger companies constantly seem to struggle with these days is a good customer service. You can offer this. React to customer queries and complaints urgently and avoid getting into any arguments with the customer. Remember the age-old saying, “the customer is always right.” Be proactive and use social media to pursue feedback. Search.twitter.com can be a very powerful tool.
2. Building a community and engaging users
Please read my blog post on User Engagement. By building a community and engaging with users, your website is seen as a place of resource and information. This gives you the opportunity to then convert these users into paying customers.
3. Becoming the “go to” for product information and advice
If you build yourself a community and allow users to engage with each other, you are 90% of the way there! By becoming an authoritative figure for the products and/or services you sell and showing that you know what you are talking about, people will come to you knowing that if they buy off you, you can help them if any issues arise.
4. Product Personalisation
I will be blogging about this soon, as it is a great topic to talk about. If you can offer customers a way to personalise their products, they have the opportunity to make something truly unique and their own. This makes your products perfect gifts for people and easily justifies the higher price. Printing machines aren’t as expensive as you may think.
5. Adding value to your products
When you buy from your local shop, they can offer more than just the product. They can offer someone to chat to should they need any help, they can set it up for the customer and show them how to use it. This is difficult to do online, but there are other ways to add value. See my blog post on making more profit from a first order – simple things like adding a couple of small freebies to a package can go a long way, as well as being available on the phone, e-mail and social media channels.
What about you – how do you decide what to do when you just can’t lower your prices any further?