The Price at The Pump and Online Success |
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Written by Michael Ferrantino
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Saturday, 20 June 2009 08:14 |
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In 2006, we noticed a periodic drop-off in commerce (traffic) and eCommerce (sales) for many of our client's websites. At first, we attributed the drop-off to poorly funded advertising campaigns (and to a certain extent this was true). In the mean time, there was a lot of buzz about the success of free viral marketing techniques, like blogging, chat and social networking websites (everyone was trying to reach the "tipping point" via MySpace at that time). However, while viral marketing efforts and advertising dollars remain a constant to the success of any online business (particularly eCommerce), there were and are, much bigger economic forces at work.
Notwithstanding the direct negative affect that the News Media has on consumer confidence, these bigger forces are primarily: The Price at The Pump, The Cost of Food and Wall Street. It doesn't take reading an academic article in The Economist to know that if you're paying more for food and gas, there is less to spend on everything else.
Fast forward to this past week: Wall Street was down, the Price at the Pump was up, and all of the businesses that we regularly observe dropped off steeply and in some cases, came to a complete stop. Examining my own finances over the course of a 3 week period, I spent $40 in gas 3 weeks ago, $52 in gas 2 weeks ago and $75 this past week. My mileage remained the same. Let's put that into perspective: 2 weeks ago, I had $12 less to spend in disposable income and this past week I had $35 less to spend. To illustrate, the difference between spending $40 a week and $75 a week, adds up to $1,820.00 a year.
As a final note, "studies" show that people hit their threshold at $4 per gallon (meaning that they stopped spending on other things). However, based on our observations, the threshold is much lower, at $2.48 per gallon. To put it another way, if you own a small or medium sized business, make no mistake about it, you're online success is at the mercy of The Price at the Pump. |
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The Best Time To Start An Online Business Is In A Down Economy! |
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Written by Michael Ferrantino
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Friday, 09 January 2009 23:59 |
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Eventually, the economy is going to turn around and things will get better. Between now and then you have the opportunity to position yourself for better economic times by starting that online business you've been dreaming about. The good news is - it's never been easier to start an online store. Out-of-the-box shopping carts like CS-Cart, and the willingness of manufacturers and suppliers are abundant. At Blue Lab, we can help you get your store up and running in just a few short months. Contact us today to discuss the possibilities. |
Are Your Terms and Conditions Helping or Hurting? |
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Written by Michael Ferrantino
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Friday, 11 July 2008 00:00 |
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I sat down to write a blog for one of our sites, KidMotive.com, about encouraging parents to motivate their kids to spend more time active and outdoors by getting them involved with gardening. In a lot of the blogs I write, I'll often link to relevant and/or helpful websites. In this case, I wanted to link to a very popular garden supply website. However, when I read the T&C's (Terms and Conditions) on the site, it was so heavily laden with legal language, conditions and warnings, that I decided to skip our gift of free advertising for this particular garden supplier.
Don't Fret, There's Always Another Company That's Ready To Step Up!
As I mentioned, when I write a blog about a particular product or recommend a service, I will link to either a company that I really like (but get no financial benefit from) or an affiliate, which we do get a financial benefit from. In this case, I really wanted to recommend to our readers a full service garden supplier, so I decided to login to one of our affiliate accounts, LinkShare.com to see if I could find a reputable garden supply company, -and sure enough, there there were, ready, willing, eager and waiting for our business: LandscapeUSA.com (click their logo below to check them out).
 
I'm not by any means saying that Terms & Conditions aren't necessary, because they are, but there's a fine line between being legally protected and completely discouraging commerce with T&C's that are akin to a flat-out legal threat.
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The Secret To Online Success |
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Written by Michael Ferrantino
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Thursday, 10 July 2008 01:04 |
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The secret to online success is: Know who your customers are, and then design your site for them. You'll know you're successful when your customers start to act like they own your site.
What I'm really talking about here is building an institution. Anyone that has ever loved a high school, a gym, a college or even a bakery will refer to it as, "My high school, my gym, my college or my bakery." With online companies, I'm sure you've heard, "my MySpace page" or "my Amazon wish list" or "my shopping cart."
To achieve a customer sense of ownership, you'll have to give away some of your site - for free. That means getting your customers involved interactively. The best companies on the web give a lot away for free - from email addresses to web pages. In fact, they make their websites indispensable.
Start thinking about how you can get your customers involved with your site and product. It can be as simple as the bookmark button you see at the end of this blog.
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