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— Your Hot Commodity
---
At ramforless.com things
are moving along pretty well. You've sent out a survey to your top salespeople to gather
ideas and learn more about your customers. Even the vice president of sales has some
ideas:
To: E-commerce team
From: Steve in sales
Subject: Effective practices
In response to your email asking about our most effective sales practices, here's what
I have for you:
Our customers' biggest concern is the compatibility of the memory chips with their
systems. They never seem to know the SKU or model number of the chips they want, even if
they've ordered with us before. Usually they'll tell us the brand and model of their
computer and expect us to know what chips work with it.
Staying on top of this stuff is an ongoing process. There are more than 7,000 computer
models on the market today, and new ones are coming out all the time. Last year I had Max
in MIS put all this info into a database, and he turned it into a configurator application
for our call center. This makes it easy for MIS to give advice and recommendations to our
customers. Do you think you can use it?
The second major concern our customers have is cost. Computer memory is pretty much a
commodity business. If the price is right and you can ship it, you get the order.
I train the sales reps in the call center to always up-sell. You know, if a customer
calls in looking for 32 MB, we offer them 64 MB at a discounted price. We make better
margins on larger orders. (That way they can afford my bonus commissions at the end of the
year!)
-Steve
As Steve said, you're dealing with a commodity product like books or
CDs. When it comes to memory chips, people just need to know that it works, that it's
reasonably priced, and that it can be sent out immediately. This means you should strip
your site of all extraneous information. It should quickly connect the customer to the
correct type of chip and let them know how much it'll cost. (Don't forget to tempt them
with discounts if they buy more.)
You forward Steve's requirements to Denise in the design department,
and in a few days, she replies:
To: E-commerce team
From: Denise in design
Subject: 1-2-3 Buy Now!
Check out my recommended design for ramforless.com.
It's a configurator like the one MIS wrote for the call center. The difference is that
this one is self-service; it automatically tells customers which memory chips are right
for their types of computer. I wanted to make it look like a direct-mail postcard: very
easy to use and blatantly obvious that we're selling memory at a great price.
The whole site consists of three pages. On one you choose the items you want to buy; on
another you fill out your shipping, billing, and credit card information; and the third
acts as a receipt. 1-2-3 Buy Now! It's fast and easy.
I also mocked up a few banner advertisements per Mark's (in marketing) request.
-Denise
P.S. Laura in legal: You need to send me that legal disclaimer stuff and our money-back
guarantee for the policies section. I guess we'll have to expand the site to four pages.
;-)
Denise came up with a pretty slick design. Let's
take a closer look at it on the next page.
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