One of the things I found with my tool store was that when someone is buying from an Internet stores they want it CHEAP. We spent all day quoting prices as low as 10% over cost [you'll go broke at that rate] and we were still to expensive.
This is sort of a thread drift, but it's interesting that BIGDOG is thinking of a retail store on another thread and brings this up here. BD, what I quoted from you above is another thing my friends down here in FL told me about the difficulty of the retail part of their motorcycle accessory business. They just couldn't compete price-wise with internet catalogs, not to mention ebay. Plus, few customers wanted to go to their store, order something and then wait for it to arrive at the store, then go pick it up, when they could pay less on the web, and have it show up at their door in 5-7 days.
Since this is Spiderman's thread about a proposed internet sales venture, BB, I'd say to be sure you're able to compete with say, J&P Cycles and a whole bunch of other web-based sales sites that make it really easy to get what a rider wants, cheaply and fast. I think going head to head with them with the same products is going to be very difficult. On the other hand, I'd say you need to have something they don't, product-wise, that enough people want to make it worthwhile. That won't be easy. As much as I'd like to talk about customer loyalty and service, for most folks it's going to come down to price and delivery every time.
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Topic: How much discount to gain your business (Read 4653 times)