Pushing Product: How to leverage the Web to move more merchandise

Posted on Categories Myrtle Beach Web Design

Okay, there are plenty of mom and pop, brick n' mortar stores that sell products locally – to drive and foot traffic – but they DON'T sell online. Heck, a lot of them don't even have a website.

My question to you is WHY? Why wouldn't you? Even if you only sold one thing a day, or week, or month…it's worth the sale. Right? Of couse, let me explain.

First, if you sell products of any type or description (unless the logisitics of shipping or pick-up are unsurmountable) you should definitely sell online as well. Web design, development and e-commerce solutions have become quite affordable, so cost really isn't an issue. There are even no upfront cost e-commerce solutions, like Pay Pal, that cuts out even more of the cost. However you should know, if you choose a no money down solution, like Pay Pal or Google Checkout, your cost per sale (the percentage(s) these companies take) are much higher than those merchant service solutions that require a setup and install fee. So, short term, feel free to use the cheaper solutions, but for the long term, go for the pay solution. After all, if is your intention to save money, you'll end up paying out more with higher per sale percentages.

Checkout ICND's e-commerce merchant service solution, which is scalable and intergrates with Authorize.net (the largest and best known service online) to process and store your credit card transactions.

Once you've crunched the numbers, and still need convincing that you should sell product online, consider this. If your business stays alive and thrives just off of drive and foot traffic, can you imagine what you could do online. In a local market (and depending on how "specialized" or "unique" your product line is, you could be fishing for as little as 5,000, or even 500 people. Now open that up to the national or even global market. There's nearly a quarter BILLION English speaking web surfers online. And if just one half of one half percent are looking for your Blue Widget online, you could see thousands of sales. Can you really afford to ignore that much possibility?

Also, you can push your product out along social media networks as well, and through PPC campaigns (pay to play), and appropriate Seach Engine Optimization campaign. But it all starts with a website. If you are a business of any kind, you have to get online with a website – even if it is one page.

Intercoastal Net Designs can handle any and all of these solutions, so do some browsing and if you have any question, don't hesitate to contact us.