Internet 202
It would always be available and offer as wide a range of products from all of the vendors in our industry. The product information would include pictures, written information, and video demonstrations. A brick and mortar location in the consumer's area would be associated with the site. that would allow customers to see exactly what they are buying before they buy it. If they didn’t want to go to the physical location, they could order actual frame and fabric swatches from the site for free. The site would also offer access to a live person to help with design. An area of the site would be devoted to Community discussions to help consumers make decisions. Prices would be very competitive. Products would be available for immediate delivery or pick up from the associated brick and mortar store. Returns could be made back to that same store. Delivery would be through reasonably priced “white glove” delivery services. The seller would have a brick and mortar presence along with an A+ Better Business Bureau rating, a liberal return policy, and a spelled out information privacy policy. Warranty concerns would be handled by the site or the brick and mortar store.
In that same blog, I said such a web site would require a partnership between retailers and vendors. Here’s why. Let’s look at a web site and business that is the epitome of success: Apple. Their web site offers everything a tech nerd could want, as long as it is an Apple product. They have videos which describe how all of their products work. If you have a question about a product, they have web communities on their site which can help a buyer make informed decisions. They do traditional e-tailing or you can order on the site and pick up the product at any one of their almost 400 physical locations throughout the world. Finally, no matter how you bought their product, their stores and customer service phone centers are there to help you work out problems. I ask you, is there a specialty casual furniture retailer in our industry that can do all of this? Or, is there a casual furniture vendor who can? The answer is a resounding, “no.”
However, let’s assume a retailer or vendor existed who had the resources to do this. What obstacles would they face? If this were a site run by a retailer, vendors would have to give it the right to sell outside of its trade area. Vendors on the site would have to agree to provide services such as sending free swatches to consumers or drop shipping at no extra charge. These are big hurdles to overcome.
If this site were run by a vendor, they would have to have brick and mortar locations where consumers could sit in the furniture before their purchase. Those locations would have to able to assemble and deliver furniture sold on the site as well as repair product damaged in transit. Also, there has to system that allows for returns, even if for not other reason than, “I don’t like it.” I’ve seen lower hurdles at Olympic track events!
In my mind, this web site requires so much from the retailer and so much from the vendor that it has to be a joint venture. There is no one retailer with physical locations throughout the country. There is no one vendor who offers the breadth and width of products that consumers demand. Imagine a web site that combines the marketing areas of all outdoor specialty retailers in the country with the resources of all of the manufacturers that sell into that market. It would have the largest selection of products of any web site on the Internet. It would also allow consumers to go into a local physical showroom (if they want) to see products in person. Or, if it more convenient, they could deal with a trained sales consultant over the phone and/or Internet.
Sounds ideal to me - - - but who can even begin to count the hurdles it would have to surmount to exist. First and foremost, which store does the web site partner with when there are several competing retailers in a trade area? How does the retailer in the consumer’s trade area profit when a purchase is made over the Web? If a retailer works with a consumer who then buys from the web site, how does that retailer get paid? I could go on and on.
Let’s, then, approach this from another direction. Suppose one vendor tried to do this. I realize they couldn’t offer as many products as a group of vendors; but, if their line was long enough, it might satisfy many consumers. Their e-tail web site would be differentiated from their existing web site. Consumer inquiries would be handled by an in-house staff of specialists and the vendor’s existing retailers. Order fulfillment would be through participating dealers. If there are no participating dealers in the consumer’s area, the vendor would fulfill the order from their factory. Participating dealers would be rewarded with a percentage of the sale. That percentage would probably be based on the costs of handling the order plus whatever profit the vendor would have made on the sale.
Sounds reasonable. One problem, this has been tried before (Gloster comes to mind) without success. Retailers never really like vendors going into competition with them. No matter how is it explained, if it walks like competition, smells like competition, and talks like competition, it’s a duck!
So, problems, problems, problems everywhere. As the Pollyanna of our industry, I have always thought that problems are there to be solved which, in turn, allows us to excel. I truly believe if we don’t solve these problems, we will have “met our enemies, and they are us.”*
Yours in confused retailing, Bruce
*Walt Kelly, The Pogo Papers, June, 1953
Murat commented:
Only for you migraineThis will help you.The dinefrfece of the migraine with the headache, is that it is more complex.They do not want that they speak to them, look for the darkness, walk with the eyes I happen enclosures, nauseas, they cannot stand to see television and any physical alteration they increases the trouble, (it gives them more frequently the women).I suffered from migraine since I have use of reason.I went to several doctors and they did not solve the problem, with the years I learned of my own experience.My problem is with the food and accelerates the by situations of stress, (the being inclined to the migraine, already produces stress, for it inopportune).That it is necessary to avoid:Yellow cheeses, stuffed (it he seems for the preserving ones, seemingly the Nitrites), grains, eggs, yogurt, chocolate, coconut, fast food (Hamburgers, hot dogs, pizzas, Arturo's chickens.etc).How I discovered it?When I suspects in a food with coconut, stop eating it for one week, I turned to eating and THE MIGRAINE come again. This way I tried Migraine with others food. The worst thing, the migraine does not remove the hunger and it could continue abusing..It is necessary to to spread the consumption of this food.With a soft diet I could eliminate the migraine and already I do not suffer for it, for which when they give me, eventually, they are medical in case of emergency:Tablets for the headache that they combine acetaminofen, acid acetilsalicedlico and caffeine (Atamel Forte).Eno Fruit Salt.Pepsicola or Coca Cola (you relieve the erutar)To be sick (I do not recommend it)To be purged.Do not stop taking a one coffee in the morning.I do not drink, because of it I cannot refer to the alcoholic drinks,Escuse my poor EnglishI am from VenezuelaLuck
Aila commented:
argument may have wkoerd 20 years ago, but it falls over flat in the face of realities today. Large companies are just as likely to go under and stop product support, be acquired and force a transition to a new product, whether or not the customer asked for it. Oracle is the primary example of this latter behavior, and there are lots of examples of the former. Large companies do not provide peace of mind in that rapidly changing business conditions will often result in critical to some-business' product going away, without support.Moreover, in a world where all chips are effectively Intel or AMD, all hard disks are effectively the same, all boxes (you know, from the big vendors) are actually built by 3 contract manufacturers it is hard to make a reasonable argument that there is larger risk in adopting better technology, than there is in adopting branded technology.The cheaper portion isn't the only or primary aspect. But it is important in the mix. Our solutions represent less risk as they are open, and based upon open technologies, so if we go under, others can support them. Try that with our competitors proprietary boxes.At the end of the day, any closed/proprietary solution represents a risk and business dependency danger in the face of un-forseen business changes on the part of the supplier. Suppose Sun is successful in getting a world wide shipping injunction against NetApp. How happy will the proprietary NetApp customers be, when business conditions forbid them from getting support/service? At the end of the day our solutions offer lower overall risk and lower overall cost, as well as higher performance. The argument that peace of mind occurs with the other vendors is weak. We have support programs we have designed to address the fact that we don't have a world-wide support organization. How do you solve the problem of fixing a remote machine in the event of an issue? Turns out the solution is quite easy, and lower cost to set up and operate than the 24x7x4 type solutions. Our customers seem to like it better, as the time to solution is measured in minutes in most cases, not in hours for first callback, and days for actual solution.So with all due respect, I disagree with your premise.
Bosy commented:
Good ceommnts from @stu there Yes just take a look at Calvin Zito @HPstorageguy if you want to see what you can get up to whilst blogging at HP although a slightly different example Calvin is in the storage group so his main task is spreading the message about HP storage products. Also @HPsisyphus is an acquired' blogger in the storage division. I'm @AndyAtHP, although don't get to spend as much time doing social as I'd like to, due to day-job commitments (I drive the AllianceONE program for HP Networking).To some degree our services colleagues have a lot of latitude to use HP or non-HP kit as needed to get the job done. Obviously you'll need to think HP first for campus or data-center networking but customers with an installed base of another vendor can continue to use that other vendor; and for functions we don't address we have an array of , along with skilled folks inside HP to manage that kit. (There are more than are listed on the AllianceONE page above )Personally, I think HP needs more honest, open, technology-savvy bloggers who can tell our story in buzz-free, down-to-earth, real-world blog posts, to help connect with real customers in the trenches.Flexibility & work/life balance through home-working can be good (although this obviously depends on local manager/customer needs of course). One more example of big-company value is we're all empowered to spend 4 hours/month of company time volunteering for a if that's your thing Andy (who works for HP, but who's opinions are his own )
B Laule commented:
great article, a very relevant topic. How is the traditional store supposed to compete with online retailers or vendors for that matter? If a vendor decides to sell online, there is no way for the many stores to be competitive with pricing, especially when it comes to adding items such as shipping. I think vendors should offer more "exclusive" products for their top re-sellers. This is how we keep people employed!
