Translated by 半月

After talking about challenges to overcome in the process of E-commercialization, Brenda went on to talk about some cases and the keys to success.

Case I:  Lowering the threshold

There’s a traditional OEM Biotech company mainly produced teeth whitening strips. Their targeting market is small but royal. Since people who need this product had to buy it, the company was doing well. However, when they tried to get E-commercialized, it was almost impossible to sell even one set online. In physical stores, they had samples and testing service which were not available online. In addition, the strips were sold in 3-week package with treatment set. It was difficult to convince consumers online to purchase that large amount. Brenda suggested them change into 5-day or 7-day package, combining with promotions to lower the threshold. It turned out that the sales grew 67% within two months.

Case II: Installment

“Would anyone choose to buy diamonds online? Well, my clients wanted to get E-commercialized anyway. “ The second example is a jewelry store, when consulting this client, Brenda and her team found that this kind of luxury goods does not have discount often and seldom pay by installment. Brenda suggested this company to provide 0% Interest Installment Payment Plan. Thus, the company exchanged the cost of online advertising and interest of payment with the consumers willingness to pay smaller amount by month.

Case III：Story-telling

One common problem for E-commercializing sellers is that they are unable to properly present the product.One company pot-selling company, for example, made a beautiful multi-media product introduction. However, consumer could not get the product specification and what is special by the introduction. When Brenda and her team arrived in the store, they found that the problem was  brand positioning. They used 10 indices to check the company’s long-term plans, current status of digitalization, proportion of sales and resources…etc. These are criteria to meet to tell convincing stories in E-commerce.

Who is your best client? Women. Woman loves buying is a law in marketing. Young women buy thing for themselves. Mothers buy things for children. When selling things, it is best to begin with women. Even better, they come back often, too!

“Do you consider E-commerce as new channel or a serious investment? If you plan to be a part-time online seller, you are unlikely to succeed. Most successful online sellers take this as a full-time job.”  Here, Brenda talks about four important aspect in E-commerce: Front-end product exhibition, sales and operation, online marketing and customer value.

Front-end product exhibition

It is all about the website. The front page is the first impression of the store. Products and prices should be clearly seen. This is what Brenda considered “inevitable cost”.

Marketing and Operation

Good service is defined by the satisfaction of the customer. And this, has to do with operation and marketing. Christmas is around the corner (the forum was at December), How many of you have started decorating?  What is the next thing to celebrate? She said, marketing is about the things you can do at certain timing.

Daily operation is important as well. “You have to update the website even when no one comes. We have to prepare for tomorrow, right?”  Also, she had something to say about cost structure, especially the one people often forgot — the cost of returning. On the internet, customers still have the right to return the products within 7 days (except for food). Generally speaking, rate of returns falls in the range of 5 to 8 %.

Internet marketing

You have to LEARN. There are tons of tools to know, examples to learn from and classes to take. What you need is to learn, to learn and to learn more.

Finding customer values

There are three key metrics of customer values. Customer flow is the amount of people visiting your site. Conversion rate is the proportion of customer who actually buy things. Finally, the amount that each customer actually pays matters.

“Here are some numbers you should notice. The attrition rate of registered clients that do not purchase within 3 months is 50%, almost 100% if they don’t purchase anything within 6 months. Besides, if the repeat purchase rate is lower than 10% within 3 months, 20% within 6 months, there are problems to be fixed.”

Resource accumulated offline as your Muscles

At the end of the lecture, Brenda restated the importance of the resource accumulated offline. When getting E-commercialized, one should take the advantage of both online and offline service to help you stay focused on your product and get the reputation of your brand.

She compared this process with human muscle and nervous system. “Offline resource you accumulated, your experience with the product, the reputation of your brand, the channels and prices,  is like your muscle. The E-commerce system is like neural network, responsible for selling, supply chain management etc. Proper combination of the two leads to success.”

中文版連結

• 電商「兼著做」只會失敗，傳統商店的電商轉型是一場全新的投資布局 ─ FunCity 執行長談電商（下）