Which Method Do You Use?

Certainly nearly all of us will agree that 2008 was a difficult year in eCommerce. Choosing which area to focus our attentions on in 2009 needs to be more than charting your horoscope! Thousands of brick and mortar and internet businesses will fail in this new year because they failed to see the changing economy and buyer trends.

Internet marketers must be prepared to make rapid and significant changes to their business model to be, or remain successful in my opinion. To accomplish this, I have created a list of must do things for my business this year.

1. Evaluate the past 12 months business results. Pay special attention to any changes made in marketing strategies or venues. Review sales and non sales alike. Make sure you understand what worked and what didn’t.
2. Research what your competition was doing! Be sure that they are doing the very same thing and looking at your results. This will require tools if you don’t want to do it all manually. I use Hammertap to research sales on eBay, but this information can be extrapolated across the internet as a whole. Pay special attention to listing type, price, quantity and length of listings. Other points to consider include the quantity of items currently available, and who is selling these items.
3. Review your niche. Are the products or items you are selling going to continue to be desireable? Is there something in that niche that might compliment your items or should you change your product line? As the economy tries to recover, buyers will be looking for items they need vs. what they want. Does your current product line fit this change?
4. TEST, TEST, TEST! I can’t emphasize this enough! Test any changes you plan to make in SMALL quantities and SLOWLY! If you make wholesale changes you will be hard pressed to determine which of those changes affected your sales. Testing different keywords, titles, images and descriptions can have a huge impact on your sales.
5. Don’t be afraid to test other venues as well. It is a very real truth that some products are better suited for different venues. Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Bonanzle, Onlineauction, eCrater, iOffer all attract a different type of buyer. While Amazon and eBay certainly have the lead in page views, the multitude of other venues each attracts their own special group of buyers. Craigslist and similar classified ad style sites offer ecommerce sellers a very real opportunity for local sales.
6. Your own website: I have changed my theory on business websites. For small businesses, creating and maintaining your own ecommerce site can be a very time consuming project. Maintaining inventory, security, SEO, shopping carts, and design is in and of itself a full time job. This leaves very little time for all the other aspects of your business. I used to recommend that individuals, small to medium sized businesses have their own ecommerce site. In today’s business environment, I am suggesting that these sellers have their own website, but not necessarily to sell from directly. Promote your business and products with your website, and place widgets to your products for sale on the venues you use. Why reinvent the wheel? Whether it’s an eBay store, OLA House, Bonanzle Booth etc, I now feel it is better to let these sites maintain the backend stuff like shopping cart, payment integration, inventory etc. I also feel that internet marketers should find a reliable website developer. Off the shelf website providers like Godaddy are fine for a personal website but do not work well in my opinion for business oriented websites. I have had excellent results with Scott Pooler of iBusinesslogic.com. Scott knows the needs of ecommerce sellers and can develop a website that will compliment your business at a very competitive cost.

Tomorrow I will continue this series with ideas that I feel will enhance your business and success in 2009! Be sure to listen to my weekly live internet radio program on ecommerce! ebay & Beyond: Basics  To Business can be heard every Saturday morning 10 AM to Noon ET and remember you can participate live on our chat board or call in and ask a question or give a tip! You can download past episodes to your Mp3 player from our website, iTunes, and Talkshoe.

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