Standing out from the crowd...

I was asked an interesting question yesterday by a website owner who runs an ecommerce store in a competitive field.

It was:
"what can I do to stand out from the crowd?"

He then went on to say he offers broadly the same product range as a hundred other stores, and at broadly the same prices - so what could he do to make people choose his shop over others.

It had me a bit stumped! Any ideas?

Tim

Re : Standing out from the crowd

Be everywhere!

Get your company/product sold as many places as possible. Ebay, amazon, buy.com, etc. You can sell from many places, and not just from your own website.

What about buying groups, or places that sell similiar items? Partner up with them. Sure, you might have to help them, but it pays off big for everyone in the long run. What about discount sellers? would it be worth losing 10% on profit to gain 100 more sales each month/week/etc?

Start a newsletter where you offer specials on mulitple products.

Last thing, make your site so easy to use and make the best looking out of all of them. A site makeover is about the cheapest thing you can do to impress people and that makes you look credible. Who would you rather buy from, someone with a nice, easy, clean website, or a free yahoo website?

See for yourself what we did recently:
Here was our old website: http://www.midwestsoftsolutions.com
Here is our updated site: http://www.quick-charts.com

Any other ideas out there?

Good luck!
Alex
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Alex Niswander www.quick-charts.com

Re : Standing out from the crowd

Standing out:

- Have better customer service and or customer/attention care.
- Offer better support or delivery tracking or both.
- Be quicker.
- Have something unique and different from the other e commerce stores such as a 'Live Person', but called 'Personal Shopper' instead.



Amanda

Re : Standing out from the crowd

I agree with Vlahakisa. You could also offer some incentive schemes
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Re : Standing out from the crowd

Thanks for ideas everyone - I'll pass them on

Tim

Re : Standing out from the crowd

'Live' support on websites is certainly a good idea - I've used it a few times with a range of sites and it is so much better than sending an email and getting back a non-reply several times.

Chris

Re : Standing out from the crowd

For me the biggest thing an ecommerce site can do is simple, literally: keep it simple.

So often I go to a site knowing what I want to buy, but cannot find it easily - so I just give up.

The other big must is a search engine that works well. Quite often I've been to sites and the search has turned up no results for a product that I know they have in stock!!!

A good search function is worth its weight in gold.

Lianne

Re : Standing out from the crowd

I have to say that strikes a chord Lianne - I often find search facilities on ecommerce sites rubbish; I'm sure it would be worth the investment getting them to be a bit more intelligent particularly for companies that are 100% online and have a large order base.

Tim