It is a good question isn’t it? Should you have an on-line retail presence or not? At first thoughts it sounds great doesn’t it?
The extra sales. The extra revenues. The extra discounts you’ll get on your purchases.
BUT
Think again. Whilst your super keen website developer will be encouraging you to put a retail outlet onto your website (After all they’ll get more cash from you if you do) will it really ever pay back the return?
Think about it. You’ll have to:
- Maintain a complete list of all your products and prices
- Review all these products and prices regularly
- When you get an order someone will have to:
Pick the item from the shelf
Put it into an envelope
Take it down to the post office
Pay for the postage
Return back to the salon - Then what happens if the goods are damaged in transit, or not fit for purpose …
PHEW! What a lot of work! For how many orders again ….?
PLUS with the nature of the web as it is there WILL ALWAYS be someone who can sell the stuff cheaper than you.
So, what can be done? You want an online shop. You want to ‘dip your toe’ into e-tailing.
A far, far cheaper and easier way to grab your share of those sales is to become an affiliate of a specialist online e-tailer.
Typically, this works by you taking the relevant part of their website and replicating it on your own site. Orders for goods are then passed directly to your partner. They do all the fulfilment, billing, ordering and processing. You, in your part, simply earn a commission from the sale.
You, generally, never have to touch a thing. Simply look at your monthly commission payments and bank the cheque. Easy.
That’s not to say this process is without its drawbacks. You won’t get the bulk discounts for buying and selling the products. You might find that your partner sells products cheaper than you can in salon. You won’t get the lower priced tariffs from your credit card processing machine. And probably a host of other drawbacks.
But look at the upside. No maintaining of prices. No fulfilments. No returns.
It is a quick and simple way to enter the market at no or little cost to you! Now that HAS to be a better way of doing business don’t you think?
Plus, if your online selling really takes off then you can launch your own at a later date can’t you!
Of course you might want to sell gift vouchers for your salon online. But THAT’S another thing all together!
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