B2C E-Commerce
Selling on the Internet
Alan Barefield
University of Tennessee
Agricultural Extension Service
What is the biggest problem with
selling to consumers on the
Internet today?
Inexperienced people with overinflated expectations who
create online stores with the belief that once they’ve done
the work, the dollars will roll in.
(Carroll and Broadhead, page 3)
A majority of people who start a business . . . assume that
once they open, customers will flock in without any
marketing or promotion. Unless you are McDonald’s, this
will not happen.
Pat Bishop, The Daily Oklahoman
If this won’t work, what will?
Think about how
the traditional “bricks and
mortar” business model became successful
Utilize these principles to develop an online
marketing strategy
Implement that strategy
Constantly monitor, assess, and update this
strategy
What are we talking about?
An Online
Marketing Plan!
Traditional Marketing
Considerations
Provide a
product or service that somebody
needs or wants
Provide superior customer service in the form of
technical assistance, product information, etc.
Develop a relationship with the customer
Strive for satisfied customers and repeat
business rather than new customers
Internet Marketing Components
E-mail
World Wide
Web Site
These are the typical online marketing components that are
within the reach of today’s typical small business. There
will be others in the future.
Let’s look at e-mail first
Why is
It’s
e-mail so great?
everywhere
Enables the business to maximize its relationship
with the customer
Who are the most valuable customers?
Offers individualized service
Establishment of meaningful dialogues
It’s about communication
Let’s look at e-mail first
Why is
It’s
e-mail so bad?
everywhere
Spam is everywhere. Spam is unsolicited, usually
commercial, E-mail sent to a large number of
addresses (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary).
Spam is the tele-marketing of the internet.
Why? Internet service is a cost to us, not the
merchant.
The customer wants to be in control
E-mail advantages
It’s proactive –
websites must wait for visitors
It’s timely – customers can be notified in real time
It’s personal – no two e-mail inboxes are alike
It’s cost-effective – costs less than telephone
calls or mail but not everyone has e-mail
It’s measurable – response activity can be
measured and tracked; you can see what works
and what doesn’t
E-mail myths
Asking people what
This
they want never works
is not a myth in the offline world
Works on the internet because you are delivering
value to your customers based on their wants and
needs
Tell them why you want the information
Only get the bare essentials at first (prove your worth)
Make it easy to unsubscribe
E-mail myths
I
have only one chance to ask my customers
questions
Remember,
your goal is to strive for customer
retention
If you retain them, they will come back and you can
get more information
If they don’t come back, you are not meeting their
wants or needs
E-mail myths
My
customers will not want my e-mail
Your
customers will want to hear from you
occasionally, but regularly, if you provide them with
information that they deem valuable
If you have nothing of value to give them, you have
bigger problems than can be addressed in this
conference
E-mail myths
E-mail
marketing is easy
Sending
spam is easy
Providing personalized service can be extremely
difficult and time consuming
You have to plan to provide this type of service
Requires both marketing and information technology
expertise if the customer base is large
E-mail myths
E-mail
If
marketing is free
the customer base is large, you will need to develop
or purchase e-mail marketing software
However, unless spam is your goal, a continous and
effective e-mail marketing program requires a great
deal of time and management
Are you saying that your time is worth nothing?
E-mail myths
Information technology will
just install some software
to run our e-mail marketing programs
There
is no off-the-shelf software to do this
Even if there were, each company’s needs are unique
While information technology support of some type needs
to be present
An e-mail marketing strategy is a marketing function
Permission marketing
Since an
e-mail strategy is proactive, get your
customers’ permission; otherwise it is spam
Rules of permission marketing
Permission
must be granted – it can’t be assumed
Permission is selfish
Permission can be revoked as easily as it’s granted
Permission can’t be transferred
Permission marketing
Tests of permission marketing
Does
every marketing effort encourage a learning
relationship with the customer?
Does it invite customers to start communicating?
Do you track the people who have given you
permission?
If a customer gives you permission, do you have
anything to say?
Levels of permission marketing
 Intravenous
treatment – the emergency room
 Green stamps – frequent flyer miles
 Personal relationships – neighborhood butcher giving
you ribeyes instead of sirloin at no charge
 Branding – people usually choose the known over the
unknown
 Situational selling – a sales clerk recommends a video
 Spam – calling a stranger at home during dinner without
permission
E-mail design
 The
subject line is critical
 Get their attention in the opening sentence
 Deliver value
 Layout/design should be readable & professional
 Personalize to the degree you can afford
 Provide a clickthrough as the response
 Carefully design the landing page
 Test & measure, test & measure, test & measure. Then
refine.
Types of e-mail designs
HTML design
Types of e-mail designs
Plain text design
Ten ways to fail at e-commerce
Spread
the responsibilities of converting to ecommerce among several people
Form a committee (particularly a committee of
busy people)
Develop the simplest approach possible
Choose vendors who are dismissive of your
traditional business, but whose abilities you are
the least capable of assessing
Ten ways to fail at e-commerce
Operate the
same way on the web as you do offline (after all, the Internet is just a tool)
Insist that the e-commerce venture meet every
existing company standard (cost controls,
recruitment sources, purchasing policies, etc)
Don’t encourage different units to cooperate;
reward each one separately
Ten ways to fail at e-commerce
Compare
performance with traditional industry
competitors
Give employees tools that they are unable to use
and require changes they are confused about
making. When the these take too much time and
make the work harder, punish the employees.
The company, not the customer, is in the driver’s
seat
Components of an on-line store
Display mechanism
Commonly
thought of as the website
Provides a place to display your wares
Registration system for
customers
Transaction and Order Processing System
Shopping
cart
Order processing system
Secure transaction path to “payment gateway”
Effective on-line store
considerations
 Image
and appearance
 Content
 Reliability
 Credibility, trust, respect
 Product information
 Design and navigation
 Order information
 Shipping information
 Exchanges,
returns, and
warranties
 Pricing information
 Checkout procedures
 Customer service,
support
 Channel integration
 Market research
E-commerce ideas
Don’t
put your entire store online
Turn your inventory over as quickly as possible
Customers like to see what they are buying
Keep shipping costs to a minimum and don’t
blindside your customers with them
Use the Internet to know your customers and
their demographics better than ever before
Developing your website
(online store)
Visit
several commercial websites to determine what
you can do with an online store:
 www.allhishorses.com
 www.williamscreekretreat.com
 www.ezhauling.com
 www.sweetwatervalley.com
 www.honeyjelly.com
 www.gardens2grow.com
 www.slawsa.com
 www.radioshack.com
 www.amazon.com
 www.landsend.com
 store.yahoo.com
 www.coach.com
Sources
 Brondmo,
Hans Peter. The Eng@ged Customer. Harper
Business.
 Carroll, Jim and Rick Broadhead. Selling Online. Dearborn
Trade.
 Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. The Tenn Deadly Mistakes of WannaDots. Harvard Business Review. January 2001.
 Rapp, Stan and Chuck Martin. Max-e-Marketing In The Net
Future. McGraw-Hill.
 Stern, Jim. World Wide Web Marketing (3rd Edition). John Wiley
& Sons, Inc. www.wiley.com/compbooks or www.amazon.com