How Small Businesses Can Compete Successfully with E-commerce Sharks

admin — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 13:31:23 +0000

A large corporation owner does never have to bother with search engine optimization, content writing, advertising, or web marketing because there are huge departments within the corporations that will take care of that. On the other hand, small business owners who have to confront themselves with the bigger corporations need to take care of the marketing aspect themselves. Competition is tough, and for a small business to stay afloat and be able to actually compete with greater businesses, the correct strategies need to be implemented.

Small businesses must have big plans

If you own a shoe store for example, and you have brought your business online by having a presentation website, in order to keep up the competition with Amazon shoe sales, you need to be highly innovative. Always offer something new to your online visitors and customers. You could, for instance make a week plan as follows:

On Mondays – all women’s shoes 5% off
On Tuesdays- all men’s shoes 5% off
On Wednesdays – special accessories at incredible prices (belts, purses, etc.)
On Thursdays – this is the day when coupons and vouchers can be used (you will send the coupons or discount vouchers to a few of your loyal costumers through email). Advertising that Thursday is Coupon day on your website, will most likely bring you even more loyal customers
On Fridays – Weekend specials – here you can add categories of shoes for sale with huge discounts (especially those items that usually do not sell too well). Get rid of the old stuff, make room for fresh merchandise. It is also risky to keep a line of collection for too long on your site, because you risk to loose visitors. They come in every week to see what’s new, and if you don’t offer anything new, they will search elsewhere.

Image Source

This is only one example on how you can become innovative; it certainly depends on how much you can afford to offer discounts, coupons or other special offers. Most importantly, keep in mind that you need to be versatile, offer something new and something interesting every day. Especially if you are new to the online market, this is the only way you can make your breakthrough.

Build yourself a trustworthy team

In order to be successful and continue climbing that ladder, you need to be surrounded by a few agile minded people. Therefore, make sure that you hire good professionals for the tasks that you cannot handle. For example:

1 professional call center agent – who will take care of your customers, and who will be available online from 9 to 5 to handle any problem
1 professional content/copy writer – advertising is everything, and most of the times the right words can work wonders.
Hire the services of an SEO company to build you an excellent presentation website. Selling shoes on blogs is not quite what you can call a small business.

Expand your business with slow steps, and never venture for something big from one day to the other. Make sure you can accept credit card payments on your website, as this is the most trusted payment method. You will need to setup a merchant account, which will let you accept credit cards, and you will be able to keep track very nicely of your profits, because you will receive personalized statements and reports.

Image Source

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Credit Card Processing Fees Irk Merchants

admin — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:05:38 +0000

Rewarding Cash-paying Customers
It cannot be denied that credit card processing fees are a necessary evil in the world of economy but just how much can consumers and merchants take? More and more merchants are getting irritated by the exorbitant costs of card fees that they have taken initiatives to fight back by awarding cash-paying customers with attractive discounts.

Take one Diane Chung for example. The Boston Globe reported that this enterprising lass has started to wage a silent war against MasterCard and Visa to protest against burgeoning credit card processing fees. Diane crafted a discount plan called “Sunday Maki Madness” at her Japanese restaurant in Brookline whereby cash-paying customers can enjoy scrumptious maki rolls for up to 55% off. Customers who use plastic are excluded from enjoying this discount. She initially wanted to get back at these credit card giants for imposing huge fees each time a customer swipes his or her credit card but it seems that her plan is working like a charm. Customers are raving about her food and how affordable it is to enjoy good Japanese fare. Diane added that she does not like “giving away money” to huge credit card companies and instead preferred to give back to her customers to retain loyalty.

Revealing a merchant’s many grouses
Diane’s actions may have brought her good business but we think that not all merchants have taken the same proactive steps. Others took the hard way out by refusing to accept credit cards.

“But what can we do?” Lamented one merchant. “These swipe fees have gotten so costly, even in the economic downturn. Not only do card issuers do not want to negotiate, they also raised the fees, much to our horror!”

Business owners are also complaining about the complexity of the entire credit card professing fee system. The statements were deemed too difficult to comprehend while fluctuating charges caused many a headache amongst merchants. Casey Sewall, who runs a chain of electronic stores specializing in HDTVs, says that approximately 70% of his customers use plastic whenever they make purchases. This forces him to pay $75,000 annually based on the $4 million spent by him customers. Casey has tried to talk to Visa and MasterCard but to no avail. To counter skyrocketing fees, he too has followed Diane’s initiatives by offering attractive cash rebates for customers who pay in cash.