sell-hard-goods?So why do 99% of small business online retailers (called "e-tailers" or "e-stores") fail?
Hi, Curtis and Marge LaPiere here and we’ve been there - did that! ….. We tried to sell-hard-goods on the net and we became one of the 99% that failed! Hard Goods? E-goods? We use the term "hard goods" to mean anything that can be touched. These are physical products that cannot be transmitted "via the Net" but rather are shipped by mail or courier. For example, an oil painting, but not an electronic scan of that painting (that would be an e-good)...... On the other hand, we use the term "e-goods" to refer to electronic products. You cannot touch them since they are purely digital. Examples include e-books, digital photos, software. They are shipped by e-mail or direct download from a Web site. This site does not discuss e-goods. Let’s talk about why 99% of people that want to sell-hard-goods fail as Marge and I once did. So why do 99% of small business online retailers (called "e-tailers" or "e-stores") fail? And why is this little-known and unreported, disastrous "99%-fail" statistic good news for you? Because you're going to learn how to do it right! Year by year, both retailers and shoppers are moving ever more online. Online retail is suppose to be the low risk, easy, efficient way to sell. And, for shoppers, it is the ideal way to buy (fast, convenient, reliable, endless variety, and cheaper). So……do you want to be successful and sell-hard-goods online? Want to be part of the 1% (the "Site Build It! 1%") who succeed? Of course you do!......... The key to success in "e-tail" (sell-hard-goods on the internet) for the small business person is to master a niche. The Web, when properly used, is the marketing-and-selling vehicle. It is literally the ideal situation for small business e-tailers this is what Marge and I didn’t do. Unfortunately, 99% of e-tailers as well as Marge and I don't do it right. They are trapped in the old-world, offline mental model of "putting up a store." Navigation. Design. Merchandising. Merchant accounts. Shopping carts. If they even think about traffic, they figure they'll solve that little problem later. After all, traffic is easy to solve in the offline worlds -- it's all about "location, location, location" in the offline world. Put your attractive, nicely merchandised store in a mall or on a high-traffic shopping street in town and the result is instant traffic. In the online world, however, no one just happens to walk past, see your store, and enter. NO... in the online world, people look for information, for solutions to problems. Your job, your challenge, well before you make your first sale to a customer (often well before that person is even aware that s/he is shopping!) is to provide the information that people are searching for, in a way that Search Engines like. This is a real MUST DO! The 1% of Site Build It "PREsell" (more on this concept later) through excellent content about a niche/theme related to the concept of their store. The 99% that Marge and I were a part of build a store and somehow figure that traffic will show up. You can Not Build A Business That Depends On Others - instead, Build An E-Store That Is Yours If you’re going to sell-hard-goods and succeed online, you must build your own business... and that means building your own traffic... your own clientele, from the ground up. Depending on the offline concept of "location, location, location" is fatal. Traffic Is Everything To E-tail...... There are a very few high-traffic portals that can provide small business retailers with a few visitors at a high price (ex., Yahoo! Stores and Amazon ZShops). This should only be seen as a supplement. Why? Because you build a dependency on the traffic of others. And because there are limits to how many visitors even the highest-traffic portals can send to hundreds of thousands, millions of e-stores that sell-hard-goods. There are literally hundreds of thousands of beautifully designed e-tail sites that sell-hard-goods that are crippled, dying or dead by a lack of traffic. They were expensive to design/build (thousands of dollars, often in the tens of thousands), and they do look great... So you think that they must be getting flooded with visitors. Unlike the offline world, what you can't see is that "the lights are on, but no one is home, and no one's visiting." And that is the situation of the 99%. It's a boring, sad story, so it doesn't get press coverage. But it's the reality. Marge and I know all this from experience! We admit it!…..we did it wrong! It really doesn’t Have To End In Failure It's a shame, because joining the 1% who succeed is not hard -- and that is where your opportunity lies. You will have a significant edge over the 99% who die quiet deaths of online desperation. You will build your business correctly, from the ground up. Site Build It shows you how to do it better than just "right" or "properly" -- it shows you step-by-step how to do it perfectly. When you finish reviewing Site Build It….. you will know why 99% of small e-tailers are doomed to fail... before they even start..... you will understand the "power of the niche," and how and why it works....... you will know how to use the "power of the niche/theme" profitably. You will understand why the most cost-effective way to join "the 1%" is to use Site Build It! ("SBI!") to get there. This radically different approach, with all the tools to do it, is necessary for a small business person to build a successful store online that will sell-hard goods. Site Build It does not pretend to be "The ONLY Solution." However, it is the only product that provides you with the process and all the tools necessary for you to grow a profitable, professional online store that will sell-hard-goods, supplemented by other income streams. Yes, the range of product niches is indeed limitless. This infinite variety is one of the major advantages for online shoppers. And your ability to reach that worldwide audience is a huge bonus for you. The variety of hard goods sold on this planet is infinite... hand lithographs of Nova Scotia seascapes wooden toys by an artisan in Bristol, England propagator and vendor of rare cacti in California porcelain vases sourced from China juggling balls and paraphernalia golf sculptures and figurines seeds for exotic plants from around the world Yes, the range of being able to sell-hard-goods product niches is indeed limitless. This infinite variety is one of the major advantages for online shoppers. And your ability to reach that worldwide audience is a huge bonus for you. The opportunity is unprecedented. Now you can reach the world via your art studio, workshop, greenhouse, warehouse (or garage!)... heck, even from an actual retail store! As you can see, the entire concept of "e-tail" stands "retail" on its ear. The possibilities of what to sell are limited only by your ability to either... 1) make products of value to consumers, or... 2) source interesting products and present them in a way that visitors will buy. Which brings us to product opportunities for online stores that want to sell-hard-goods. Which Of The below Situations Fits You Closest? #1) Do you make your own products (ex., artist, woodworker, manufacturer, etc)? If so, sell "direct-to-end-user" through a Web site. #2) Perhaps you source your products (the Net is a great way to do it) from a third party, the original producer? Either develop an exclusive arrangement to be that party's online vehicle (ex., an online art gallery for a talented artist) or represent that party on a non-exclusive basis and aggregate with complementary products from other artisans (ex., seaside crafts). #3) Or do you source more widely and create a unique store? Find a wide range of interesting products that fit within a single niche (ex., golf sculptures and figurines from fine sculptors, crafts people and manufacturers from around the world). In a sense, when you "aggregate" a unique collection of products, your "product" becomes the store. #4) Are you already a retailer? If so, open an e-tail version of your offline shop. After all, you have already set up much of the "system" and infrastructure (from sourcing to inventory to warehousing/ storage). An e-store is a powerful way to leverage what you have built offline which sell-hard-goods. Increase sales, build new clientele (far beyond those who enter your physical store), and "go global" at near-zero extra expense and effort.
#5) Are you at the "merely thinking about it" phase? If selling something you love excites you, the Net makes it easy to open your own niche store online -- become an e-tailer! ….. And sell-hard-goods It's far less risky, and potentially more remunerative. SBI! starts you down the right road, and keeps you on that perfect path to success every step of the way. No matter what you want to sell online, or how, regardless of your "retail experience," and no matter how you want to source your products, the Net makes it so easy. But not "automatic"... Just load that shopping software with all your products into a great looking store, write some snappy product description copy, secure the ability to clear credit cards online... ... and wait for the profits to flow, right? Hey…….Marge and I were told that’s all you have to do!! Actually... no. You'll be part of the 99% who fail, as we were, so miserably. In quiet desperation. That no one sees. And then, one day, you stop paying the $50-100 per month for your online store and call it quits. A year of your life, and your dreams... gone. (It could be worse, of course -- an offline retail failure can cost you over $100,000 and several years of your life!) Instead.... if you want to be in the 1% that actually do it right and build exciting, rewarding and profitable online stores, please read on. Yes, the store and product selection is important when you want to sell-hard-goods, obviously. But it comes second. (The 99% ignore the first part, which is why they are doomed before they start.) You are about to discover a process that is so simple and logical, you will know that it's right as you read how to sell-hard-goods. As stated above, sourcing and product selection are important. And of course, it's critical to aggregate your products into a creative, appealing store (best if it's a themed store that fills a well-defined niche). And it goes without saying that you have to be able to clear credit cards in real-time and avoid fraud. But, before you do any of that, before you collect your first dollar in sales, you're going to need a site that WORKS. A site that works for you. If you don't attract free, targeted visitors via the Search Engines, if you don't convert them into warm, willing-to-buy customers, if you don't build that into your site from Day 1, you are going to end up working for your site. You will have to pay for advertising to build traffic, more than you can afford and that’s what doomed Marge and I…… In short... if you put the shopping cart before the e-horse of traffic, you will be one of the 99% who are doomed before they even start. And why? All because you simply followed the wrong process. Worse, like most people, you followed a process that works in the offline world (put up a great store and get the cash register ready!), but not in the online one. What a major, and unnecessary, disappointment. Right at This Moment, a Prospective Customer Is At Google...Will Yours Be The E-store That Is Found? With Site Build It!, you don't need to be lucky to be found. Because you'll be good at rising to the top... The Top 1% that sell-hard-goods. The secret….which is really not a secret ……..Build Content, Which Builds Traffic, Which Builds Business…… You can get results by using SBI!. Do it before your competitors do, because the Net is becoming the way to shop. And it's the only way to compete with the "big boys" (ex., Amazon). Build a niche/theme and "own" it. It doesn't matter what you sell, as long it fills a niche and provides the opportunity to provide useful, valued content about a theme related to your niche. Perhaps you already know what you want to sell, maybe not. If not, let your imagination soar. To sell-hard-goods the opportunities are infinite. Choose something you love and brainstorm from there. Here are a few more examples to get you thinking... a teenager selling her own keychain and DVD of a Caribbean island! a fine craftsman who creates hand-made and painted Japanese netsuke -- suddenly, a worldwide market! a distributor of million-dollar medical imaging equipment -- he generates his own leads, more than his (former) parent company's site ever could or did! an art/craft store that carries over 700 items, all built on the strength of its content an e-tailer from Chicago who sells children's bedroom stickers The following is a true story by Derrick Isomura: It brings back a memory before my daughter, Jessie was born. We were looking for classic Pooh wall stickers and couldn't find anything at the usual wallpaper stores. I couldn't be bothered with the yellow pages as I wasn't interested in wasting time calling a bunch of places only to find out that they probably didn't have it or they would have no idea what we would be talking about We went to the internet. At least there you could see exactly what you are buying. Well long story short we ending up buying it from some dealer in Chicago of all places. It was the first place we found when we typed in Classics Pooh wall stickers. Derrick Isomura Vancouver, Canada disomura@telus.net Please re-read the last line of that letter... It was the first place we found when we typed in Classics Pooh wall stickers. That says it all. And that is what the SBI! process and tools will do for you. As an e-store owner, that wants to sell-hard-goods, anticipate two kinds of information-seekers... 1) Shoppers looking for product information So naturally, you provide information related to the products themselves. But not the short, sales bits of sales copy, picture and price -- that's for your shopping catalog/cart. Create real content... reviews, experiences, "the history of," and so forth. Real content gets found. Product listings don't get found at the major engines like Google. And they get buried among thousands of similar listings in the "comparative shopping engines" (ex., Froogle, shopping.com, etc.), which only send dribs and drabs of traffic compared to the major engines. Surfers who look for product information (ex., model numbers, trade names) are close to buying. So take this advice seriously. 2) Surfers looking for information about a related topic These people don't even know they are shopping... yet! They seek information about topics related to the niche/theme of your e-store. This approach converts surfers into interested visitors (because SBI! masters the knack of scoring highly at the engines).
Then your content converts visitors into warm, PREsold customers (and they didn't even know they were shopping!). That all-important first purchase may not happen on the first visit -- they sign up for your e-zine, visit your site a few more times because of the excellent material. But people buy from people they like and respect. So you'll make that sale... and then another. Bottom line? Do what less than 1% of all e-stores that sell-hard-goods do. Build a site that will be searched-and-found by prospective new customers... hundreds of them... then thousands every day, steadily building as your site gains in reputation and relevance at the engines. In other words, build a site that works (in both senses of the word!). Keep Looking At Your Site From Your Customer's Point Of View Your site is not all store, store, store... "buy or bye-bye." No, your site is a high-value content site that provides what people what... information. It also happens to have a store that sells products related to your content. So... They visit your site a few times and read your e-zine. They notice and check out your store once or twice. And then... new customers! You also, of course, benefit from increased loyalty from existing ones. And, if you like, your business can generate additional income streams through new monetization models appropriate to your business (more on this later). No tricks, no games, no magic formulas or "never before revealed secrets." SBI! works "behind the scenes" so that you can take care of your business… Net Result? Power Your E-store With SBI and Join the 1% Who Laugh SBI! is the ultimate online store-building process and system of tools. Merchants who had never been able to build traffic to sell_hard-goods ... now welcome thousands of visitors per day. Those who had previously been dependent on Yahoo! Stores or other portals to sell-hard-goods report that they now generate greater volumes of their own traffic. More importantly, e-tailers are now in control and own their destinies... If you haven’t done so yet, Marge and I encourage you to read all about the process now…….
sell-hard-goods how-to website by SBI
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