I occasionally try and post tips relating to return customers. With the difficulties facing independent small business and web traffic, I think winning return customers is essential to a successful online bookseller. Entrepreneur (publishers of the magazine under the same moniker) now has posted an article with some interesting tips. Some of the things we have already tried, but the article gave us new perspectives on why we should be employing these tactics.
Online booksellers maintaining their own sites often have trouble with sustained traffic and/or traffic growth. One of the easiest ways to market a site is through email. However, entangled in this approach is the ethical dilemma of spam (what should be considered spam, etc). A study published in April 2005 gives some insight into how e-business sees email marketing, how it uses it, and how successful it is. The article is quite interesting with a multitude of graphs and quantitative data.
We’ve received many emails from sellers frustrated with a lack of sales beginning late March and continuing into April. There is not doubt there was some problems with Alibris during their transition to the new fee structure (caused in part by the massive uploads/inventory changes). In addition, this tends to be one of the slowest times of the year annually. We have suffered from the same slowness. On the positive side, though, things seem to be picking up. Fight the urge to banish online bookselling to a perpetual downward spiral. Find new ways to add to your inventory, take calculated risks, and always plan. Most importantly, use the extra time to take extra care of your customers. Slow periods often serve to highlight loyal customers, take time to recognize them - it’s worth it.
