Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

Nobody can answer???

It would be handy to know what your current marketing strategy is. It simply doesn't make sense to go to the expense of building a couple web sites THEN creating strategy: the reality is, Strategy and web site design should be working together.

OzAuctionBroker, “OzStock” and “Ozab” (I know this name is from the initials of Ebay account name, but if people are not told that you are doing Ebay business, they will have no idea what this name is about. This my first impression yesterday while seeing the site in your card.)

Here are your positioning to your sites:
OzAuctionBroker:
OzAuctionBroker is an Australian seller.
All our items are stocked in Sydney.
No risky postage from overseas.
Prompt & Friendly Customer Services.
(It occurs to me that you are using Australian local heritage to sell your products. Cos you are located in Australia, all the business buying clients make will be safer than from overseas)

www.ozab.com.au: Better, cheaper, faster
(This is a common name, just using initials. If you want to sell stuff from this site without Brand Identity linked to your Ebay business (OzAuctionBroker), it will be really hard. Specifically, it will be difficult to separate this site identity from Ebay one. Besides, your “Better, Cheaper, Faster” slogan seems to complicate your Ebay identity, using Australian local heritage advantage to sell. Of course I know you are a big seller experiencing nearly 10 years on Ebay. But I think there are still too many benefit presentation. My advice is to reduce to just one single key thought.)

www.ozstock.com.au: Ozstock will present you with one product a day (365 products a year) at a price that will be too good to refuse.
(As you told me yesterday, your strategy is to import products from China and sell cheaper in Australia online. In my mind this strategy is closing to Wal-mart’s “Low price everyday”. In addition, this site name is much better than “Ozab” and it can be a separate Brand from Ebay account. But the thing is that this Ozstock site is also linking to “Ozab” site. That is, Ozstock is a low-price site and Ozab is a “better, cheaper and faster site”, so I’m a little confused what the site’s main purpose.


In sum, OzAuctionBroker, www.ozab.com.au and www.ozstock.com.au, they have their own different identity and now they interwine each other so that it’s letting your site losing your focus. So I don’t know you are using Australian location edge or employing the low-price strategy. So I’m gonna ask a question: What’s your single key though? What you stand for?


Those above are ideas I made for my boss when I went throught the first impression of his Ebay business and his those two Ozab and Ozstock sites. I don''t know if I made sense, can anyone please give me some precious thoughts?~~ Really thanks~~

You state the strategies of the different websites well in your follow-up E-Mail, but they are not apparent on the websites themselves. In other words, the USP of each website is not clear.

Consider making those strategies clear on the websites. A powerful way to do that is with a video front and center on the landing page. There is a man based in Australia, Gideon Shalwick, who offers training courses for website videos. His free content gives you a good feel for the video process and its possible sales impact. (Search his name on Google and YouTube and also look at www.rapidvideoblogging.com)

The "product of the day" is an interesting concept. Can you tie that into social media? One product you associate with a charity (percentage of revenues given to it); another product with some kind of contest; a third with Facebook advertising targeted at a specific group, and so on for Google +, LinkedIn, etc.

What benchmarking have you done about loyalty programs, benefits for repeat buyers (equivalent to frequent flyer miles)?

A last point is that research in the U.S. indicates that, at least there, the longer the guarantee a) the more people are inclined to buy and b) the fewer returns you get. (A short guarantee creates a sense of urgency -- need to decide NOW if I want to keep it.) The "gorilla" guarantee of all is by Land's End, cf.
https://www.landsend.com/cd/fp/help/0,,1_36877_36883_37024___,00.html

Regards,
JH

Thanks for your instant advice, it''s very helpful!

Hey, professor Jay Hamilton-Roth, I have the same concern as you did. That is, our Ebay business has been to too wide product range, to become selling everything from Electronics, Computers, instrument music, jewellery, swimsuit, book&magazine to toys. So, this can easily lead to lose focus. Is that what you mean?!~

Therefore, I planed to suggest my boss to cut the selling category and focus on a couple of main categories, like only selling electronics and home appliances and to be dominate this category in this category .

However, on the other hand, I also discover that Supermarkets like Wal-Mart or Woolworth in Australia are also selling everything. They are supermarkets, distributors, they are doing well. They are dominating the Supermarket category but selling everything. So can we. We wanna be Online supermarket (Selling everything like Walmart but cheaper) in Sydney and, in the meantime, we still hang in our "One product one day" strategay.

How''s this???

Sincerely hoping to hear from you!!