Marketing and Product Sourcing During Recession Times
There are a few key points to consider during tough economic times. Most of these points have to do with common sense, which is unfortunately, always in short supply during a economic crisis. Well, as you can imagine and attest, the first segment who feel recessions and economic slowdown and recession is the consumer segment. Usually the consumers see first hand as gas prices rise, food prices rise, and also everything that they usually spend on a steady basis. So all these rises and anticipation that the worst is coming with prices have a terrible effect on households budgets. The point you want to drive home is that your customer is going to spend less simply because they have less to spend.
Your mission during tough times is to survive like anyone else, in order to do that, you have to start thinking as your customers do during a recession. Being competitively priced is going to be one way that you could survive, and this article we are going to see some ways to be positioned with the best wholesale prices for your online store. This has a lot to do with finding the best wholesale sources for supply your business, you have to start being smart with your purchases while at the same time streamline your product sourcing process.
There are only 2 ways to make money when you sell something on your store. The first is that you make money on the difference between your cost and the selling price, so you make money with your retail price. But, what most people don't realize is that you also make money with your wholesale price, in other words, you already made money when you bought the product and you paid far less for it. Now is the time to make sure that you are really paying genuine wholesale prices, now is the time where you need to be really sure that you are working with real factory authorized wholesale suppliers and not with "middlemen" - scammers that are posing as real wholesale suppliers. Be smart in all aspects of your product sourcing for your business and you will survive this recession.
You have to pay attention to your current marketing model to keep from losing business. So keep in close touch with your customers, this way you can maximize your conversion rate and the same time you will build repeat business; remember, even during an economic slowdown you still have to deliver the positive shopping experience your customers crave, that means that you still should be addressing issues that could keep them from coming back and shopping in your online store. You have to create and cultivate customer satisfaction and loyalty by focusing on the basic operational issues that affect your customers. This way you're positioning your Internet business to prosper, regardless of the current recession.
Make the most of the customers you have. Your current customer is a tremendous opportunity to make more sales without incurring the costs of finding a new customer. Even better, if your customers are happy about how you care for them, specially during a recession, that means there’s a great chance that of they will start giving you many referrals for your business. If you want to recession-proof your business, you can't afford to ignore the potential profits of adjusting your sales focus to include established customers. Treat your customers like royalty. Your customer relations will encourage people to come back and spread the word about your product. By the way, one way to care about your customers is not padding your shipping charges to boost your profits or inflating your shipping charges to give the false idea that you are offering lower product prices. As you can imagine, if they discover this, that would be an unpleasant surprise and they will leave forever.
Also look for new market opportunities, recognizing that when the business climate changes, customers are looking to make changes in their buying decisions. That may mean new opportunities will open up for you. So keep analysing the market trends, ask your currents customers, be creative. Start offering products that you have never offered, like information, or how-to products that supplement your business. For example, you could start testing the waters of affiliate marketing. Then re-adjust your marketing focus and look for new niches or micro-niches.
Another point you could consider is your inventory management practices. Maybe you could reduce inventory costs using drop ship in your business and at the same time eliminate shipping and warehousing costs. A legitimate Drop Shipper is a manufacturer or a wholesale distributor who will send products one at a time directly to your customers for you, from the warehouse. You never have to buy inventory up front, and you never have to pack and ship products yourself.
There's absolutely nothing that will make your online retail business one hundred percent recession-proof. But implementing the above practices will help ensure your online business survives recession times and even you're positioning your online business to thrive, regardless of the current times. WorldwideBrands will help your business to have accurate and up to date information about legitimate Drop Shippers and Light Bulk Wholesalers. Worldwide Brands will give you access to a ton of information about product sourcing, market research, with this and much more expert training, they will teach you "How to Beat the Recession with eCommerce".