What I'm saying below is Sales 101, but still a lot of store owners ignore them...
More and more people try to find you online these days... When someone wants to buy something from you, he has 2 choices:
- see the merchandise face-to-face
- see and order it online
And then, "online ordering" comes very much in handy. Why? Because coming to your office is quite a lot of bother. Lets just mention traffic and parking - need I say more?
The physical office is a lot of bother :
- For your customers
- it can be hard to find
- parking
- standing in line
- it has a time-table (opens at time X and closes at time Y)
- can be hard to search
- for asking detailed information, he might have to wait inline, until some clerk becomes available
- For you
- rent - this is volatile, it can go (usually) higher
- you might need to move to a new office (this is the worst, especially if you've built a customer base)
- virtual office = online store
- easily searcheable
- customers can access it anytime
- customers can order online
- customers can ask queries in a simple manner, and you can answer them effectively
- rent is way cheaper
- moving to a new office - will never happen
3 comments:
As you said, V office works as long as the customer is familiar with the product to be bough. Also a matter of time spent to go and buy the product. On the other hand, guess spending paper money pointless ("shopping") is something beyond reason, and does not fit in your equation :)
Yes - as long as the customer is familiar with the product. But just how many times are you in that situation? :) Also, in the long run this works even if a product is recommended by someone else, or you saw the product at somebody else, etc. All in all, it saves time - and since we're having less and less of that, as a customer, I surely appreciate the V office.
About your second point:
I assume you're talking about supermarkets here ;)
That is indeed besides the point in my discussion :)
When it comes to food (supermarkets) you can't actually TRY the product in the store either, even if you are there. You can't just wrap the packaging and have a bite. So there's no difference...
If you talk about clothes... Well, I think an online store for this is stupid. I mean you can't just buy clothes without trying them. "Try before you buy" really applies here. But they could have pictures with presentations of their products online.
Else, c'mon... If you talk about an electronics / computers online store, or whatever else besides clothes, this is a lot easier...
And not to talk about the BILLS... They could be paid online. But I'm sure John will write a later post about this :)
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