This post is really dedicated to those who want to run an online retail store. Obviously people call this e-commerce online and it’s a huge industry. As I said in my previous post there are a number of things you can do to make yourself standout from the crowd and be successful. I previously discussed simply writing your ads in an effective way to get an emotional response from the customer. This is a great idea and I suggest you put it to work for you right now.
There are, however, other ways to really jump start your success if your currently running an online store and selling products. Before getting into this to deeply let me share with you what I think we all know about online shopping:
1. Millions are spent in online shopping each year.
2. Most buyers typically look for a toll free phone number on the website before purchasing.
3. Most buyers will call the toll free number and order over the phone rather than actually ordering online.
Ok so with that we know that money is spent online and customers really want to see a toll free phone number on your site simply because it adds validity to your business. Most people will actually call the phone number to order or at least to make sure your operating a real business. So when I started my first retail business online I knew these three things. I also knew the following:
1. Most businesses close between 5pm and 6pm each day.
2. Visitors to my business would be coming from all different time zones including international customers.
So armed with this information I realized that MOST businesses were closing at 5pm so if that business was on EST they were actually closing down for the day at around 2pm PST. That means the average working person in California would have no way of calling this business and ever reaching a live person. Knowing that most people want to speak on the phone before making a purchase I figured that this business was losing a ton of money because people on PST were probably not buying from them. I worked out that same scenario for all different time zones and realize a lot of businesses were losing a lot of customers.
My big idea: 24/7 TOLL FREE ORDER LINE
That’s right. I was dedicated to being successful and making my business jump to the top of my industry, fast. You need to be just as dedicated to your success if you want to really accomplish great things. You see while everyone else was closed I was open and I knew if a customer had the option they were going to call me rather than wait until the next day to call the other companies. I also knew I didn’t have to worry about “price matching” near as much because I could always tell people that our support separates us from the others in the industry, and most people would agree.
This idea catapulted my business to doing millions of dollars in a small niche industry on the Internet. The great thing is customers become repeat customers! So you want to get as many as you possibly can and they will stick with you as long as you provide great support and great prices. Doing this allowed me to build a huge customer base and a huge income. I realize I had to give up a little of my time to get this done, but it worked and built my business really fast.
This is just another lesson in why it’s so important for you to stand out from the crowd if you want to have a successful business of any type, especially an Internet retail business.