There are many small shops online that despite its obvious quality do not take off. The technology component can make us forget that operates an online store for the same reasons that a physical store, offering one of the classic advantages, price, variety, expertise or comfort. Recently I found surfing the net a message Sinconexcion.com creator of the blog Movizonia, a shop selling mobile Internet wondering aloud “what we do wrong in Movizonia?” The author explains that profits are well positioned in search engines and have enough traffic, but sales took off, and finally concludes that his product is not suitable for the Internet.

It will be me who says that absolutely everything can be sold online and perhaps the author is right, but I know other small online retailers and I think they have similar problems.

In my view all that surrounds Internet technology, usability, search engine optimization, etc.. can finally hide that essentially operates an online store for the same reasons that a physical and to offer some of the traditional advantages (price, variety, expertise or comfort) is a prerequisite.
If all do well why not sell more?

It is amazing that many of the smaller online stores despite its limited resources are mounted really well, especially compared to some of the major to which they involve many resources.

Normally creators of these businesses are a small team of authentic SUVs, people who are up to date in many areas, from technology usability through search engine positioning.

Many small online retailers are better positioned in search engines than large ones, some of the founders are real experts in positioning that in the absence of large capital to clearly understand that advertising is the only way to bring traffic. The usability of these sites because of its simplicity is usually the least acceptable and often even good. The customer is usually very quick and efficient, and know that the mouth ear is critical for growth.

Through this small job well done online stores are up and running, get traffic and small benefits, but do not grow as one would expect, where is the problem?

The initial question

A shop is still a shop and hence the original question is so basic that it sounds ridiculous formulate

Why people will buy from your store? What is the advantage? “Price, variety, expertise or comfort?

To think that your website as a store and that the very existence and function well people are going to buy there is risky. Internet now is a fantastic sales channel only in potential.

To change the channel must have a reason and most people still have not found it, the people who buy on the Internet is still a minority. Over time will be second nature to everyone, but today it is not.

Good usability can double sales, but only if there are sales to double. Usability is not miraculously going to sell to an online store selling 100 meters if the same thing better price.

For someone to change is about half an advantage. The idea is very simple to understand, but very complex to perform.

Do you have much variety?

Having it all or nearly all, in different colors, patterns or characteristics can sell more. The advantage is “Here is EVERYTHING.” It is often said that the department store El Corte English, “we go there for sure they have it.”

This is usually the weakest point of small online stores, a variety of products extremely small, even the corner store can have more variety than an online store.

To think that because the potential market is large, you can do business with few products would be true if consiguieses million visitors, making it impossible for a website with a few products. By pure statistics with fewer products reduces the chance of visitors and then convert these visits into sales.

Grow very fast and catching a big business that allows you to offer a large stock is considered almost silly after the explosion of “the bubble” when in fact one of the basic models to start a business selling online.

Are you good price?

Actually the most important of all, the biggest advantage you can say your site is “We are the cheapest (or at least one of the cheapest) and it is true, of course. There is no better lever for getting people moving from a sales channel to another.

Here we see the airlines selling tickets to hundreds of thousands of Internet, how bad usability, server errors, hours looking for …? Who cares? If I can get a much cheaper price there’s no better motivation than that. Consumer satisfaction and word of mouth therefore is not comparable with any other strategy.

With little ability to purchase a small online shop is impossible to get a good price from wholesalers. Small online retailers are aware of this handicap and despite their problems often struggle to obtain average prices or marginally cheaper, but does not mean cheaper. The key is not to be a bit cheaper, but to be “significantly cheaper, although” enough “depends on the sector and product.

Enter later in the point of shipping costs, which depending on the total order cost can turn something wildly expensive cheap.

In any case we return again to see that the bubble theme, “Become big and fast, get so much money and do not care if you miss the beginning, not stupid. The only way to flourish is a new market by offering benefits and the best of them a good price, which usually means losing money until they reach a really large mass of customers.

The most recommended for those with little money it impossible to offer low prices is “Specialize in hard to find and where price is less important.”

Do you offer something very specialized?

Internet succeeds in selling specialized products and extremely difficult to find, where price is of little relevance. If you have a large capital and therefore can not compete either in variety or price is easy to get seduced by the idea

It is really very good idea, but we must mention that the very nature of a specialty product lies a problem. Things are hard to find that very little demand and therefore it is difficult to earn enough with them. The theory is that although demand is small locally, having global reach online store could attract sufficient demand. The key is to detect a rare enough product, but with sufficient demand.

The article The Long Tail explains brilliantly as the Internet is the perfect medium for selling products of low demand. That is certainly true, but we must bear in mind that if something is so rare that only sells a few a month weird things your catalog should be as great for the sum of all such sales to stay afloat, so we return the problem of large stocks.

Are you more comfortable?

Thinking that buying on the Internet is more convenient because it avoids automatically move is overly simplistic, whether or not, depends on the case.

Buy a ticket is much more comfortable, keeps you moving, long queues in the agencies and as I get home before the flight date, you do not care if electronic and, even better. It is also more comfortable buying on the Internet that rare product that you know that you need to go at least 5 stores.

Buy an mp3 player through the Internet is not comfortable. I can see, I can not play and I can not take away. Also not move so upset because browsing through the electronics store is always nice.

Actually the worst in online sales is that instead of strengthening it is great to get the product on hand, shipping takes at least three days and comes with a surcharge for shipping and handling, or lack not only strengthening but There is a penalty.

The shipping cost more than justified (handling, packing and transport) is much more than it would to go to the store, at most 1 or $ 2 subway.

The question is clear What are the benefits to offset shipping charges and waiting for mail delivery?

Got a new product or idea?

If you offer something new that nobody else has because you’ve invented your or no competition. It’s just completely unpredictable.

Being unknown seekers stay outside, at the mercy of the ear and mouth of your skills to have an impact on media in spite of your little money. The idea is that people really like. You can not say more because every idea is a world.

The question remains, Does your site before any of these benefits?

The traffic is not everything: Informing and selling are two different things

The online sales web sites are up for the lack of contact with the product with much detailed information, photos and comments from other buyers. This is really very good, to buy without seeing or touching one must have lots of information and better yet if it is information from independent sources. But not indispensably need the information in the same place where I will buy. Report and selling are two different things.

A very complete contents usually generate much traffic from search engines. Actually generate content is a great strategy, but needs to be put in place. The contents tend to be increasing over time, increasing traffic, but also the conversion ratio of visitors to client falls because most of these visitors are people who simply want information, not even sure they want to buy something. Do not think being without letting customers buy because it is not.

The more traffic “informative” more sales. Of those who come to watch whenever there is a percentage that may end up purchasing or can remember your site the next time you need to buy, but is a small percentage. If you have millions of page views this percentage may be the basis for your business, but with a modest traffic will be insufficient.

For the same reason we can deduce that advertising will increase traffic to your site and therefore sales, but will not increase the ratio of sales.

Increase sales ratio depends on offer some of the traditional benefits, price, variety, expertise or comfort. Obviously getting traffic is essential, but unless it reaches astronomical numbers will not solve the problem so easily.

What if I do not have much money, how can I do?

Difficult but not impossible. There are different ways of approaching this problem and offer advantages despite the limitations of small online stores.

The classic choice to offer some of the advantage is to get much capital as was initially at the time of the bubble. In other countries remains the standard procedure, but in Spain for various reasons do not access the online stores to venture capital. Let us therefore other options.

Becoming a Broker

Access to a great stock, but without the management costs and maintenance is the objective, ie to become a broker, a middleman.

There are several options, but the goal is always the same, keep the stock is yours. Reaching agreements with physical stores or wholesalers may be an option. This allows access to a wide variety of products at good prices, two of the classic advantages.

Partnering with whom the stock has reduced the risk for both parties. For a larger amount of online sales platform would be something very expensive and beyond their knowledge. For a developer set up a stock mean the same thing.

Imagine all wholesale database with thousands of references in your online store would be a dream. Even at more modest if you associate with a physical store, prices might not be as good, but to reduce your maintenance costs to nearly 0, almost everything you sell and you take your benefits will be calmer growth.

In my opinion to be associated with a wholesale or better shop to go alone with the idea is to show the online store and mounted. If you’re also well positioned in search engines your arguments will be much more powerful. Something that everyone understands is the value of being the first to Google.

Lowering the price

Besides becoming a broker, there are other options, but are more complicated.

The semi-suicide is to reduce the trading margin to a minimum. With the alleged increase in the demand for really cheap prices, the purchasing power increasing, wholesale prices would fall and therefore would have more sales margin. This is quite dangerous, even this may be sufficient to provide a significantly lower price and can easily go into the red, which is fatal when you have a large capital to resist.

A better idea is to sell only lots or by the case. The individual selling low price products makes shipping almost cost more than the product. Besides reducing the price is almost impossible because there’s no room for the margin. But selling lots or boxes can offer a competitive price even if you have little purchasing power and also solves many logistical problems because they often ship a single product does not work.

Variety

Without a substantial capital, the only option for access to large stocks is to become a broker.

Specialization

It is perhaps the best alternative for a small online store that does not want to explore the option of becoming a broker.

If you hit with a rare and specialized enough demand, you have many choices of good luck. To ensure that the chosen specialty product is enough demand, you can perform some checks.

A mini-campaign on Google Adwords to bring targeted traffic not only to find out how many searches for that product there. It is also interesting to see that this is the struggle for position in the term.

A key is to analyze the usage scenario that product search. If the name is clear and differentiated positioning in search engines can be relatively easy. If instead the name is a variation of a generic product whose exact name nobody knows, it’s not easy you looking for a name or a generic term position yourself where the struggle for positioning is very hard.

Comfort

Engaging in products where the shipping cost is irrelevant or not in a hurry to receive it may be an option. In other cases there are ways to avoid sending, printing at home, send in digital format, allowing the collection in an office, etc..

In fact the most effective is to give away the shipping costs or included in the price, nothing more pleasing to the user because it means avoiding the penalty. If you can not always avoid at least prevent them in promotions, large orders, etc. can help.

If in any way you can avoid at least the shipments made through a reputable company and minimize delivery time, at least people will think that the costs are justified and reduce waiting time means reducing the penalty.

Information

As we mentioned above provide information is a complement, but not one of the classic advantages. Report is not the same to sell.

In any case generate information remains a great strategy, but create thousands of pages of information is too expensive when you have few resources. The best alternative can then be use to generate community, ie, capture feedback, ratings and reviews from visitors.

A strategy is peculiarly interesting sites that are initially only communities without a tent and then incorporated. This avoids the costs of initial stock sales and technology. You risk a lot less and the store is created only when you already have enough traffic that will ensure a minimum sale.

There is a paradigmatic example in Spain. The wine community Verema.com has thousands of pages of user-generated content, is well positioned in search engines and ranking on Alexa rather interesting approx. 12,000, which should mean in my personal estimate at least 1 or 2 million page views a month, if not more. The site includes a wine club (monthly reception of a group of wines selected by the site), but not a wine shop, which is perhaps indicative that traffic is not even enough to meet the costs of setting up a retail store individual wines.

Final Point

Above all this paper plans the long shadow of Amazon, in each of paragraphs could have been given as an example of good practice. But I wanted to avoid naming it for several reasons. First I did not want it to look like the typical article flattering to the industry leader, second, claimed that it did not appear very distant third, Amazon had a big business and has had losses for many years, which is beyond the reach of many.

This raises the topic of a hangover from “the bubble” Is it really crazy to lose money for years? It is actually the most natural thing in the world happens in many other businesses and is assumed to be natural.

It has been devastating in a country like Spain that the bubble countereffect have felt both. Although there has never lost so much money, it took so scared or more. None of the equivalent to El Pais in other countries was passed to pay arguing that the opposite was throwing money away. He was not alone, many free websites came to pay, when the market of potential customers had not even been created.

Suddenly all the strategies to deliver the classic advantages and incentives to early online shopping gone, and were regarded as barbaric. In fact even newspaper articles appear regularly blaming the outbreak on the same topics. The collapse was not due to low prices or freebies, but mismanagement and waste.

In conclusion I would like to set an example online shop “Made in Spain” successfully, Barrabes.com. No one can say that their design is particularly brilliant, nor usability or other technical factors Why so successful? It is no coincidence that Barrabes.com begin from the physical store of the same name that is synonymous with cheap prices, huge selection and quick shipments.

Am I saying that all else equal? Not at all. If Barrabes improve these elements probably double or triple your sales, but the key thing is that Barrabes has never forgotten that online or physical store is always a store.