Why Do Retailers Do Marketing?

Retailers with YouTube videos are proliferating, especially in the musical instrument trade. I think this is brilliant! Not only do you get to see what's on offer - you meet the staff, see the shop, hear the instrument being played, feel safer in going to the shop therefore.

This is one genre - if I were selling power tools from a shop I'd do this.

That makes sense to me too. But careful you don't compete against yourself! Been there, done that.

How about Bonanza or eCrater? They seldom get a mention but I think I have now sold more product on the latter than on 4 or 5 Amazon platforms put together. Bonanza has a storefront option too.

Not sure I have any aversion to commoditization. Adding value is, to me, a knee-jerk response whenever I list a product.

If the target is easily defined, and your positioning can be made better, and the value is good - so an all-round good offer essentially - then it sounds like all the elements are in place for success. But if the market is saturated or becomes so it's time to list a new product or pursue a totally different scheme. For me, anyway.

I have this problem right now and it cannot be solved without much hard work. So why solve it? I think I'd rather have some fresh but surmountable barriers to deal with as opposed to flogging the proverbial. Hey, a pun!

Talking specifically about products, I think the exact opposite needs to be understood.. and as much as smart selling is a good thing... I think smart BUYING is even smarter.

When you go out and research reselling online there is this push specifically in the Amazon marketspace to find something that sells and to make it different or better... Really dig deep in this and you start to see this wave of failure when you do this. Granted there are some success', but there are simply far more failures.

Understanding the most basic principles in economics; being buy low and sell high takes you a long way. Buying say a pair of Nike shoes that sells on the market places for say $50 and thinking because you bought them for $40 that you will be able to upsell the shoe because think you can add value is silly. Buying them for $15 and then turning around and selling them for $50 is smart buying, and I have yet to find an instance where it doesn't work. ( Phone cases being an exception for me personally - it wasn't so much a failure as a long drawn out process )

As much as this sounds like a good idea... it really isnt - for the better than average marketer. I will add a caveat here if you are selling a niched something, this may work in your favor... but even then it is a hard road.

So why do i say this. Look I know what I am doing... and the real nuts and bolts fact of the matter is it is cheaper for me to sell from the platforms than it is for me to sell from my own site. The postage advantage on eBay vs my own site alone makes it not worth it.

Another almost over the top variable in this is buyer confidence. People TRUST when they are buying on eBay and Amazon etc that they will get the product, and at the very least get a refund if they do not. Sending a customer to your site and YOU then have to develop that amount of TRUST in buying from you, and its not such an easy thing to do.

I personally have stopped the effort of developing a "Site" when I sell things. It simply makes more sense to place all of your efforts into driving traffic to your products located on these platforms. eBay in particular has a sweet little known setup that allows you to direct traffic to an item, and not pay the percent of sale fee when you do this. When you do this that means there is NO expense in terms of the sale out of your pocket CC fees etc AND then you get the discount on the shipping - it really becomes a no brainer.

There is literally very few reasons to have a site of your own to sell things... counter intuitive, yes. But I suggest that having a "Site" is counter productive in the grand scheme of things. You simply spend more money and time promoting the site than you do selling the items on the platforms they are actually selling from.

And don't take just my word for it look at Nike, or Beats, or any other major brand that has a presents on all of the major selling platforms. They are there because it costs them less to sell from there than it does from their own sites. And when you do say buy from Nike on eBay there is no little card with incentive to visit nike.com - if they are not doing it why should you?

Jewellery (or jewelry) is a great seller. On eBay it's a piece of cake. It's known for being a good thing to get into as an online retailer.

Drop shipping from the EA countries used to be good but since China throttled the free/cheap postage rates things have changed.

Still, there's loads of ways to sell Jewellery. You can make a surprising amount of money just from selling ball chains and box chains and suchlike. You can add a charm or bauble if you want. Few returns and pleasant customers is a plus.

If I had a website I would definitely change my ways, but most of my buyers are unique. I could certainly collect email addresses. My list would, I guess, sell for good money due to the particular niche of the product/buyers but I can't be bothered. I can't say more as there is a risk of some marketers being horrified to death.

Some interesting observations here.

No real conclusions worth mentioning but I'd like to add a point or two to your comments - just facts without opinion for clarity.

I get what you are saying... but then you have to start looking at things like SCALE... Most importantly its their ( Nike's ) advertising budget vs the small guys.

Lets take a direct example of a shoe - this one for example: Nike Reax 8 Mens Training Shoes. I literally got my hands of some of these at $15.00 a pair and sold them for $65.00 on eBay. My store brand has absolutely nothing to do with the DEMAND for these shoes... it only has to do with the SUPPLY. Im not always going to have them, and im not always going to have Nike shoes.

So I think we might agree that a consumers BRAND affiliation is pretty strong... Once they buy Nike, they might buy the same brand again. Same is true with Converse or Puma, or whatever brand. BUT, its not just the BRAND it then becomes the model, and having the supply of that.

But lets take this even deeper down to the single purchase level. The consumer buys a pair of shoes from me, and I put in a simple thank you card VS a brand piece "Hey next time buy from us" The reality in this scenario is They just bought a pair of shoes and probably will not in the immediate future buy another pair.. the card along with the packing box the shoes came in will go in the trash... and this does what exactly?

Oh and then you want to place these people on a mailing list they did not opt into and oh do I know... mailing lists - the electronic e-mail kind has a cost associated to it. So now you are burning cash and resources in the chance you will have the Supply to meet the Demand 6 months to a year from now. VS listing your supply and allowing the demand to find your product when they are ready - and not worrying about the gap in the middle.

Dont get me wrong, I am a BIG proponent of BRAND... but NOT when it comes to online retail sales... go up and look at the @Claude Whitacre post made above... THAT is a solid BRAND strategy... a card that is going to be thrown away is not, the card is a waste of money... Claude's videos is a good use of time.

Branding is something you do to get a sale... it is not really something you do afterwards.

BUT again I will say this... In any instance I can I use USPS boxes to ship product - they are FREE. We do place a sticker on the box with our eBay store name ( which you cant search within ebay BTW - so the point of brand is mute ) and for those items that we do not use a USPS box, we do have branded boxes we use. And the reality here is it is CHEAPER for me to buy Branded boxes in bulk than it is for me to buy blanks.

Granted I am not your average eBayer / online platform retailor.. we operate 7 eBay stores 2 Amazon accounts, and a number of other platforms. Our current inventory listed across all platforms is something like 8000 items. I can say with a large amount of confidence that when selling on platforms such as the ones mentioned here in the thread, there is no sense in developing brand - it only makes sense to build up your inventory and list items that will meet the end consumers demand.

Here is a small add on to all of this... we started with Facebook / Instagram stores this year. we are doing pretty good with them - and they are a bit more brand oriented - but at any opportunity that I can leave a link to our eBay store for a particular account we may have we sell more through eBay, than we do directly from the Instagram / facebook stores.

And again.. little guys do not dictate demand.. they can only dictate Supply.. and the whole idea is to be in the right place at the right time when the paths of demand and supply meet - and THIS has nothing to do with BRAND.

Yes indeed the best thing you can do is to turn "Me" to "We" and take "YOU" right out of there.

Communicating from within a company out to clients is a bit of a art. Like an example it is my company policy that when we communicate with customers on our many sales platforms that whoever is communicating from our end leave their first and last name at the bottom of the message. Personable, and Accountable. And it helps cement on the customer end, that a real person answered.

The anti-branding thing... I dont look at it that way, its just they have developed BRAND around themselves.. and I dont think thats inherently wrong either. Look at the Pres of the United States... He is a self branded BRAND.. and when you hear him talk its "I" did this and "I" did that... annoying to many.. but I understand that he is so used to speaking like this from his personal BRAND perspective.