Recently, I’ve been taking a deeper look at e-commerce for clients of my consulting practice, especially in the B-2-B environment. At the same time, more and more of Linda’s and my personal business – from bill paying and banking, to buying entertainment, western boots, Christmas presents, and designer dresses – is transacted online.
What I’m learning has prompted me to dust off and update a couple of articles I published in The Marketing Intelligence Blog over 2 years ago:
“Web Businesses Don’t Need Marketing – Revisited”
“Fundamentals of Marketing and Sales – Revisited”
There is plenty of relevance here for anyone who wants to market their business – online, bricks-and-mortar, or hybrid – more successfully. For instance …
1. Some products and services are natural for e-commerce: music, movies, books and magazines; information services; high value items from well know brands and suppliers, for example.
2. For other products, e-commerce just doesn’t make much sense – a candy bar, for example, or a relatively low value commodity item (like laundry detergent or paint thinners) that you can find in stores on every corner.
3. Many products thrive in a hybrid marketplace (often to the chagrin and detriment of the purely brick-and-mortar merchants), where the efficiency and convenience of on-line transactions can be coupled with a physical presence that permits hands-on test of look, feel, and fit.
