thinks

Lots of people talk about how to merchandise online effectively. Linda Bustos at Get Elastic and the folks at GrokDotCom do a particularly good job. But the simplest rule of merchandising came from a good friend: focus on the reasons your customer buys and display your offerings around those reasons. Some reasons?

• Customers who buy new (want the latest fad) vs customers who only buy used (like to get a good deal)
• Customers who only buy things on sale vs. those who like to pay full price (either to impress others or drive their own self-satisfaction)
• Customers who only buy domestic goods vs. customers who like to buy imported
• Customers who always buy name brands vs. those who buy generic
• Customers who buy things they need (required purchases) vs. customers who buy things they want
• Customers who buy things that are scarce vs. customers who buy things that are abundant (looking for good deals)

Any I’ve missed? Tell us about them in the comments. And don’t forget to subscribe to thinks to never miss an update.

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Related posts:

1. Quick review of online basics (Small Business E-commerce Link Digest - August 15, 2008)
2. What does an A/B test look like, anyway?
3. The single best way to get more sales (Guide to Small Business Ecommerce Strategy)
4. The rules of social media for business (Small Business E-commerce Link Digest - May 15, 2009)
5. Here's a great way to engage your customers

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 4:24 am and is filed under E-commerce. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.