I, like most of you, did my fair share of online shopping this holiday season. For me, professionally, these experiences are gold. I get to see a wide variety of online retail marketing plans in action. It also allows me to experience things from the customer’s perspective & see how my clients measure up. This season was pretty easy. I have one gripe though &, in my opinion, it could have been avoided if basic marketing tactics were utilized.
I have been buying my mom these hand-carved wooden Santas over the years (the past couple I actually haven’t because I forgot their name & couldn’t find them…more on that later) from Great American Collectibles. This is the kind of kitschy stuff you see at the mall in places like Things Remembered. Only Great American pays fine attention to detail & their variety of Santas is the best I’ve found. It’s the one gift I know I will nail each time. Buying is simple (as all online shopping should be) – browse through the collections by year, pick what you want, add it to your cart, & check out. I received my confirmation email & then nothing else for a couple weeks. After I contacted them via email, I received the following…
You most certainly cannot control spam filters. However, you can ask recipients (in the order confirmation email) to add your email address to their trusted sender list or Address Book. It’s also possible to monitor email blacklists & your email server &/or web site domain are not on them. Perhaps you should contact someone (like me) to help you with growing your business on the intertubes. You’re impossible to find in search (unless you search exactly for Great American Collectibles) & don’t seem to get the basics of online customer service.
There is nothing more frustrating than a failure to execute the fundamentals. This becomes even more important in the face of difficult financial times (R.I.P. Circuit City). You have to go out of your way to acquire new customers & retain existing. Now is not the time to blame things you think are out of your control.
Yikes, how bizarre. I had a similar experience with Target.com. I ordered a pair of running tights. When I ordered, I knew that they were on backorder for about two weeks, which was fine. Only after about a month after I placed the order did they tell me they were out of stock.
I love Target the store, but haven’t had great experiences ordering with them online.
It’s interesting to see how channel-specific transactions & service can drive you to choose either in-store, online, catalog, etc. There is far too much channel conflict at most retailers for them to shore up their operations & consistently give customers fluid & positive experiences, however they choose to shop. Of course there will always be mistakes; it’s impossible to expect every single order placed online to go from purchase to fulfillment without some hiccups.
Email marketing is my preferred way of selling products coming from the affiliate programs that i have signed up with. it just takes time to get a good mailing list
At first E-mail marketing seems to be a very tedious and time consuming task of promoting affiliate products. But if you get used to E-mail marketing, it is as easy as PPC advertising.