There are great opportunities with today’s fast Internet connections and smart phone knowledge in this post recessionary economy. An innovative e-commerce entrepreneur can run a business from his or her own home, without paying any overhead rent.
Now is time to reboot and reinvent the way to do businesses on the Internet, whether it is with marketing in Twitter, Google, Facebook, or other websites. Consumers can order items from your web pages. The orders can be delivered direct from the supplier sources to your customer’s home, in your name as shipper.
The retail giant Sears has developed a new marketing technique using mobile phone initiatives, where customers can send a product photo to Sears, in order to have the product identified and priced. Sears website then indicates when, and from which Sears location, it can be picked up. Web marketing is now changing the way to merchandise goods and services.
There is a lesson about Sears marketing that could be learned by many small businesses. In the “Book of Business Anecdotes,” author Peter Hay tells how Richard Sears built a multi-million dollar business from scratch. Sears, 23 years old at the time, was working for a railroad company. A shipment of watches was being delivered to a Minnesota jeweler, who refused to accept the goods, claiming he had not ordered the watches. Sears bought the entire lot of watches for a closeout price of $12 dollars. Within six months, he sold all the watches, at bargain basement prices, and still made about $5,000 profit on the deal. He then left his job at the railroad, in the 1890s, and moved to Chicago.
Some of the persons to whom Sears sold the watches came back to him, when they needed their watches repaired. Sears then advertised for a watch repairer, to work with him. The man he selected, Alvah Roebuck, joined Richard Sears, and together, Sears and Roebuck formed an alliance that led to the famous Sears retail chain of stores. Yet the real secret to Sears’ success came from its nationwide merchandising catalog.
Smart cataloging was to help a number of small companies grow. Some small manufacturers copied catalog ideas from Sears, even in order to sell Sears. One company I know printed separate catalogs of its storage products for Sears, putting Sears name on the cover of each of these catalogs. This was good business for both companies.
This small business supplier grew from a small mom and pop business into a much bigger business, due to its “private labeling” for Sears and other large resellers. That true story happened years ago, but the marketing landscape is still always open for new ideas. If you are unemployed right now, this is the time to learn about the Internet and the opportunities to sell on your own website. Many retailers predict e-commerce will continue to grow. You could grow with it, if you start now.
Small e-businesses look for niches. One online small business researches large retail box stores, checking to see what products, previously sold, are no longer being displayed. Then, that smart e-commerce marketer contacts the supplier, to check on making purchases. The e-tailer then advertises those products on its own website. When orders are received, the product is shipped directly from the supplier, to the customer. By being nimble and with low overhead, a small business can easily sell, with no muss and no fuss, by e-commerce, not only on a competitive basis, and most times at a full profit markup.
A local woman who is a web designer recently stated on my “Business Today Show” (appearing weekly on Biddeford’s cable Channel 3), that a web page can be designed by her for small businesses at only $30 a page. That’s a really low price. Often, you can start your own home-based business, with an investment of between $1,000 to $3,000, for equipment and operating monies. And if you need new sources of supply on the products you sell, an online supplier directory for domestic and foreign worldwide sources can be obtained from Alibaba.com, on the Internet.
It is estimated that more than 6 million people in this country are earning at least half of their income, from their sales on the Internet. Forty percent of those Internet businesses employ from two to five people.
Whether you are starting an Internet small business or already have an established company, e-commerce sales is another innovative way to merchandise products or services, and to grow new jobs.
”“ Bernard Featherman is a business columnist and past president of the Biddeford-Saco Chamber of Commerce. He can be reached by e-mail at bernard@featherman.com.
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