Trig Point Marketing and e-Commerce Consultancy
10 Mill Road
Westtbourne, Nr. Chichester
Sussex, UK, PO10 8TH
Email: dave@trig-point.co.uk
Phone: +44 (0)1243 374559
Mobile: +44 (0)7834 32 40 31
Trig Point Marketing and E-Commerce Consultancy
Welcome to Trig Point Marketing Consultancy, providing Marketing Support and Consultancy across the South East of England including Sussex, Hampshire and London our specialism being Marketing Strategy for SMEs. You can now follow us on Twitter, where Marketing Strategist Dave Cousin will be giving his latest thoughts on Marketing and keeping you up to date with all new news and developments on this site.
Can E-commerce businesses simply add extra destination countries as an option and get extra sales.
You might think that selling online has the huge advantage that you can suddenly sell to anyone who goes online as easily as you can to the people on the same street as you: it isn’t that simple though. Even selling within one country can have a few complications such as extra postage costs to highlands and islands in the UK, or equivalents in other countries.
There is a lot more to think about when selling to different countries other than postage of course but postage costs are a big issue if postage makes your items very expensive or if you need to arrange separate couriers for each country, there are of course some couriers who cover most destinations.
As a marketing consultant the main thing I want to write about is the difference in your overall offering when selling to other countries. The very products you sell online may not be very popular in other countries, many Fast Moving Consumer Goods have different packaging and different formulas in different countries to meet local tastes but you are unlikely to be able to do this.
Of course selling something that isn’t available in another country or is valuable because of where it’s from can be a good marketing strategy. Products made and sold from the UK will in some, but not all, countries command a premium. Products that are quirky because they are different may well also be profitable niche products in some countries as imported US candy and Japansese gadgets are in the UK: but they still aren’t mainstream.
Your website itself may well need to be different as well, not even considering language and the hours you have customer service open. You will find that in some countries the conventions of website design are different and some countries’ e-commerce sites tend to have a lot of information and few pictures while others are much more visual.
In some countries the amount of customer service expected will also be different; in certain places a large percentage of people will phone up customer services even before selling relatively small and cheap items, if you can’t provide customer service at the end of a phone then you may well lose out. It is important to remember that in some cultures people tend to be more risk averse, providing a very clear and generous returns policy will be essential to make sales in some areas. The popularity of price comparison sites, the popularity of different search engines and more will all affect your offering to each country you target as well.
Other considerations not strictly related to to your marketing include that you may find that in your agreements with suppliers you can’t sell to certain territories. You may need to offer certain terms in your returns policies and allow for local distance selling regulations, if you think those in the UK are complicated many are far worse and less fair to sellers.
There may be other laws you need to consider including declarations on packages and of course what you can and can’t legally sell. Sometimes you can send items but can’t guarantee they will get through to customers; Somewhere like Saudi Arabia all sorts of products are banned and rules on packaging are very strict: a Yoga DVD with a typical cover would probably not get through Saudi customs for example.
Self promotion: a one day hands-on, on-site course or attend a half day seminar ,
Taught by Dave Cousin this course will show your entire organization how everyone can get involved in promoting your business cheaply and effectively on a daily basis.
Dave can either spend a day with you at your company giving you specific advice to suit your business or we will be holding a seminar in the near future where Dave will aim to give you the information you need to go back to your organisation and roll out a culture of everyday promotion by all.
Ten songs about Marketing
A little bit of fun, this list was actually harder than I anticipated so Marketing lesson number one is: it seems songs about marketing don’t sell. I just about managed to come up with ten, though some with more tenuous links than others.
1. Keep the Customer Satisfied by Simon and Garfunkel
Marketing lesson: “You’ve got to keep the customer satisfied, satisfied!” Self explanatory
2. Can’t buy me love by The Beatles
Marketing Lesson: “I don’t care to much for money, money can’t buy me love ” they don’t however mention if a well executed brand awareness campaign can.
3. Love For Sale by the Talking Heads
Marketing Lesson “You can cash my check if you go down to the bank, You get two for one for a limited time.”
4. The Price of Love by the Everly Brothers
Marketing Lesson:”The price of love, the price of love It costs you more when you´re to blame ” I think this means that the market for love isn’t very price sensitive
5. Money for Nothing by Dire Straits
Marketing Lesson: “We got to install microwave ovens, Custom kitchen deliveries, We got to move these refrigerators, We got to move these colour T.V.’s” Meaning that adding extra service, such as deliveries and installation is important for retailers of electronics and white goods, Comet should take note and use this as a way to deferentiate from online retailers
6. Opportunities (Let’s make lots of money) by The Pet Shop Boys
Marketing Lesson: “Oh, there’s a lot of opportunities, If you know when to take them, you know? ,There’s a lot of opportunities, If there aren’t, you can make them, Make or break them” So ‘find a unexploited niche or carve one out if you can’t’ it seems is the advice from Neil and Chris
7. Lost in the Supermarket by the Clash
Marketing Lesson: “I’m all lost in the supermarket, I can no longer shop happily, I came in here for that special offer, guaranteed personality” So make sure you understand what your customer is looking for including the intangible part of a product and core benefits which are often emotional benefits
8. The group who couldn’t say by Grandaddy
Marketing Lesson: “They’d won some kind of prize for selling way more stuff than the other guys, they were the shrewdest unit movers so their bosses bought them tours of the countryside” This song is of course about incentivising your staff, especially sales staff
9. Material Girl by Maddonna
Marketing Lesson: “If they don’t give me proper credit I just walk away” Understand what your customers expect and what adds value: especially if it has a minimal cost to you
&
”Cause the boy with the cold hard cash Is always Mister Right,” Some consumers really are as shallow as many adverts assume, not all though so be careful to segment
10. Mars Bars by The Undertones
Marketing Lesson: “I need a Mars Bar, Hey raid the Spar To help me through the day, I need a Mars Bar I’ve had total fun It helps me – makes me – work rest and play, It helps me – makes me – work rest and play” If you can create a brand that is loved enough that a band will create a great song about it completely voluntarily including your slogan, then you have a lot to be proud of.
If you want to listen to these then I’ve created a Spotify Playlist: , it doesn’t contain The Beatles though as they aren’t available on Spotify and if you don’t have ‘Can’t buy me love’ somewhere in your record collection then shame on you anyway. Click here: Marketing Songs