At a gathering at a
friend’s place some weeks back, I was introduced to a businessman & his
sister. When the host introduced me to them, his immediate response was “Oh Digital
Consultant eh? E-Commerce and all that? But, does all this really work? My sister
too tried some of this e-commerce thing but nothing much happened you know?”
His sister went on to
explain how she had tried to expand her small family business online by listing
some of their products on marketplaces. They employed a few local artisans who
made handmade gifts with local designs which they then sold to some local shops
and foreign buyers who regularly bought a fixed quantity. Wanting to grow the
business, she had listed on 4 different marketplaces but sales were far and few
in between and she had almost given up on online.
My first question to
her was “So you listed your products on marketplaces. What did you do to sell?”
She had no answer. So I asked her how did she sell currently, and she said that
she didn’t and those who bought came to them and picked up a lot in one go
depending on the designs and then repeated the orders from time to time. They
bought regularly and so the business had been since decades. When she listed on
marketplaces she was hopeful of being able to showcase the products to a larger
audience and sell more and grow the business. But that had not worked.
So I explained –
“Imagine if you sent your products to one of the large retail chains in your
city to sell. What would you think would happen? Would your products sell?”
“Yes” she replied. “If they were visible and the sales people were trained to
explain the intricacy of the work and that it was all handmade, and if the
pricing was right, we could sell”. Then I
told her “Now multiply that one retail shop and the probable sales by a few
hundred times and more and that is what an online marketplace is. However just
like in an offline retail shop, in online too your products need visibility,
introduction, special pricing to increase sales, and a lot of other effort.” “All
you have done so far is list. Now try selling” I added. “Think as a potential
buyer would, and then go on to list your products. And this time list so as to
enable discovery, bring out the wow, don’t just show but showcase, price it
right and then go back and do it over again, and again till you get it right
and you will start selling.”
She took my advice
seriously and got back to me for more details later and did implement some of
what I had advised. Just a few days back I got a message from her that she was
now selling in a week what earlier took her more than a month to sell. And
this, while she had not fully been able to implement everything as yet (I had
recommended automating some things by implementing available software solutions
and a few other things that she was still in the process of finalizing).
I have altered the
story here a bit for the sake of simplicity and as I don’t want to name any one
person or brand but this is not the first time I had met sellers like her. I
have been approached by seller’s time & again, some existing brands and
some new ones, and the issues is the same. Excited by the digital story they go
out and list items on marketplaces, but sales don’t really grow much. Some had
even tried starting their own e-commerce websites and some form of marketing
too but it had not really helped.
The key problem with
most of such sellers in the online space whose business I have helped turn
around, is that they thought all they needed to do was to list. Of course there
are other issues such as delivery and handling returns and customer feedback
etc. but not selling is what I found common to most. And that is critical.
So if you are a seller
who is struggling to grow sales on marketplaces, my first input to you is
“Don’t just list. Sell.”
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