Selling Online - Golden Rule

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed and also download your free ebook on Article Marketing. Thanks for visiting!

Selling online requires techniques and business sense just like in the retail environment we live in. Here’s a story yesterday which hits this home.

My wife’s been quite annoyed lately. Nope it wasn’t me. She needs to have one of her wisdom tooth took out. So she visited 3 dentists near our area. The first one cost HKD1,100. The second one cost HKD1,000. Both places looks professionally furnished and the receptionists were very helpful.

Still she thought it was quite expensive and visited a third dentist. The decorations in this place was also nice. Clean and friendly. However, the receptionist was the dentist himself.

Feeling a bit strange my wife approached the desk nevertheless and asked about the price. The dentist had a quick look at my wife’s tooth and said HKD400. Yipppeee…a hell of a bargain compared to the other 2 dentists.

My wife said thanks and ran out. She chose the 2nd dentist.

Her choice was solely based on price since none of them were recommendations from friends. So why didn’t she choose the cheapest dentist?

The fact that the Dentist himself was the reception made her feel a bit uncomfortable already. Nevertheless, she gave him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the receptionist was out for lunch etc… However, notice that the first impression this gave my wife was not a comfortable one.

Next the price was far too cheap compared to the market. It was LESS than half the price of the cheaper dentist. Immediately, the thoughts that raced across her mind was “This guy is desperate for customers. Either he’s a very new Dentist who needs the practice or he’s hardly got any customers due to bad word of mouth”.

I seriously doubt that Dentist will survive very long with the current situation he’s in.

Study this story. It applies to selling online with your own business a lot. The first impression your visitors have of you is very important. Make your website look professional. Don’t save money on this if you’re not a good web designer. Have someone to do it for you. If you want to make money online, at least spend some money on it.

Look at the graphic header on my internet marketing blog. It was done professionally because I can’t do a good graphic header to save my life. A good graphic header needs talent and I don’t have it.

Once your visitors have a good first impression of your website, it makes selling online a lot easier.

Next is the price. Everyone loves a bargain but if the price of your product is way below the market price, you’re going to lose the customer. You get what you pay for. Prospects know that. But sometimes there are bargains to be found. If it gets ridiculous like in my wife’s case, the quality and service will assume to be inferior.

To improve your performance on selling online, base your price slightly below the market rate. Also if possible, give reasons for it.

The way this dentist can gain more customers, is to increase his price and maybe explain next time why he’s the receptionist If he told my wife the price was HKD900 instead of HKD400, I’m quite sure my wife would have made the appointment on the spot.

The make money online market is the same as a brick and mortar business. Have you thought about increasing your price to improve your selling online?

Share This

Tags: make money online, selling online