Tricky Situation. Need the communities help on this. Need Creative ideas. HELP! !!!!

[BizDetox]

Hello Moz Community .

I currently work with an e-commerce company who is the health and beauty sector. The company is about 7 years old and been online for only 2 years. Income comes from 90% from wholesales/retail stores ( owned by franchisees ) . The entire worldwide chains generate about 300 to 400 sales per day with an average sale price of $125 per sale.

The problem i have had for the last year is the boosting online sales. ( we are a very unknown brand ). I have missed about 40% of my target goals and its becoming frustrating.

There is my current dilemma and i need some creative ideas.

The wholesales have a hold on the current market and sale prices of the products. We need to make sure we ok the prices with all the wholesale franchisees before doing anything. We cannot do promotion upfront on the website because the wholesales work with a discount tactic to sell products in the store. Although it is unorthodox , it works for them. My Dilemma is we have a potential 300 to 400 customers per day i can convert to online customers, but i cannot market to them in the store what so ever. I cannot ask the wholesale franchisees to get their email address because they will screen from the mountain tops that we are steeling customers from them .

My question to you guys is , what creative way can i grab customers attentions and of course Email - Addresses to potentially switch them over to online customers. Just a reminder i cannot Do anything in the stores, but however i can do anything i want with the product.

And yes we have our website address on the boxes and products and we even have a life time guarantee on products when they sign up online, But we convert customers at a measly 3.5% with that gimmick .

I had thought about putting a little tag on the products or a little booklet inside the packaged boxes and basically invite the customers to order a free sample set of our products. I wanted to create a landing page and then have them input their information. Then i thought about magnifying the procedure by stating " invite your friends to receive Free samples of our products. " and having them input their friend and family email addresses.

I do feel its a solid idea i have but i wanted help by asking some of the communities creative mind.

If you have any questions about anything please feel free to ask and thank you in advance for all your help.

Best Wishes,

Hampig M.

[BizDetox]

Ezami. Great input. Skin care industry has some awesome numbers for online sales. And again my point is to get customers " that already purchase " our products in our stores to go online , without marketing to them directly from our retail stores " cannot do so because of code of conduct with our wholesalers"

[BizDetox]

Chris thanks for the input awesome response. But the products and field we are in is a multi -billion dollar industry online ( skin - care ) So there is no disconnect there. Again my point was to engage our current customer base that is coming and PURCHASING in our store to go online and build out database up to potentially provide them helpful info and convert them to online registration from store. 22% return customers in our stores vs. 58% return online. see my point . Contractually i cannot market in our retail stores. codes of conduct. Sucks, but thats the situation and i cannot change it

[BizDetox]

Great idea. same idea i had. We are currently having contest on our Facebook pages. Works great and awesome interaction with NON customers. but not the target audience , We get people who enter contest not people who want to purchase our products. oh btw we are not and Cannot " contractually " market contest or promotions in our retail stores .

should have mentioned that before

[BizDetox]

Dana great input. Thank you so much . There is definitely a disconnect from Web store experience to actual store experience with ANY product. Our goal as i explained to EGOL was to eventually be a full retail store, but we cannot be successful with this brand since its so expensive and we cannot " currently at this point " loose our retailers by changing and lowering prices. It is just not a possibility . Excuse my french " this will cause a shit storm " so we are being counter productive and coming out with a new line. First initial thought were GREAT AWESOME , but we have a so called " oomph and power " with our current line. Its like trying to reinvent the wheel over again and i know there is no choice so i will bit my lip on this. So my current engagement process is to get the " current customers " who purchase our products to go online to our store and give us their info. Bottom line.

Marketing efforts on ROI with current brand is off the charts , because our products are so expensive .

[BizDetox]

EGOL. yes way beyond SEO. this is more conversion strategy than anything else. And i mean conversion strategy in a sense that it is not merely about letting the dragon loose to do whatever it wants.

To kind of go back and answer your answers to better understand the situation

The company is about 7 years old and been online for only 2 years.

Your franchisees have probably been online a lot longer.  You have arrived late the the fight and should not expect them to step aside to give you top rankings.

Our fanchisees and bound by contract not to sell anything online. The people that own stores CANNOT sell online. So technically we have fully been online for about 2 + years. So our retail side is still week.

Income comes from 90% from wholesales/retail stores ( owned by franchisees ) .

For this you should give thanks.

_Great i even said great . It keeps the company afloat. and beyond to support its retail ventures. But its not the end result we want. The margins for retail and margins for wholesale its a big difference. Potential profit level of retail is tremendous in this market. _

the wholesales work with a discount tactic to sell products in the store

For this you should give thanks.  Most businesses on this planet try to give their customers a sweet deal.  They are willing to take a lower profit to make your merchandise fly off of their shelves.  If you don't like this institute a MAP policy or raise the wholesale price.  If you do that you might not like the results.

_EGOL its a Gimmicky tactic they use. And we get a bad rap about this all the time. Customer complaints. and since we have a retail side of things they use our website as a reference. I had originally suggested lowering prices completely off the board, raising brand awareness and brand value and not offering ridiculous 70% off discounts.  Great they make the sale and great they make sure they reach quota but its not the way to do business this century even from a wholesale perspective. " Old School mentality owners " and we can't risk loosing them " NOT JUST YET _

And yes we have our website address on the boxes and products

Smart.  This gives you an enormous opportunity. Are your products any good?  If the customer has a poor or lackluster experience with what they purchased they will not be visiting your website.

_Here is where its tricky. The product is AMAZING and works wonders and we sell them at a such a high retail price that orders are far too many apart and not so frequent. but the unhappiness from my perspective comes from people feeling swindled into buying something they don't need and its happened way to often. and i cannot yell at them and say " you have a the choice of free will here moron. " so i fold my hands and move on . and yes its a smart decision but our search value of the name is greater than direct traffic via entrance of URL. _

But we convert customers at a measly 3.5%

How much landing page testing have you done to improve your conversion rate.  Are the products on your website easy to find and properly described.  Does your checkout work smoothly.   I bet that 3.5% would increase if you got some consulting from someone who knows how to convert visitors into buyers.

_3.5% conversion was testing we did from store to online. not online purchases . online purchasing we are changing our entire testing and purchasing format so we are about 2 months way from imp changes. This conversion is Store purchasers to Online registerers. _

I had thought about putting a little tag on the products or a little booklet inside the packaged boxes

This is a good idea... but I would make it an enticement for visitors to come to your site.  I would not offer a free product because you will probably be swamped with people wanting it.  Have you heard about the huge "free stuff" culture that is out there?  Huge.  You might be really sorry if they get the word out on your free offer.

The idea was to create a booklet to offer free test samples of our products " with them choosing which items to receive for Free, with flat shipping rate $2.99 . and IGOL come on that is GREAT if i am swamped . This is what we want , we want to convert people who purchase our products in our store to go online and visit our site and give us their info ( BOTTOM LINE END GOAL )

i wanted help by asking some of the communities creative mind.

The normal advice given here is to work on increasing your visibility through improved rankings and greater keyword reach.  We might also advise you to get moving on social media.   Your situation seems to have problems (or perceptions of problems) that are outside of SEO.

I am a retailer and my advice to you would be to do everything that you can to help the retailer.  You said that they  are driving 90% of your sales.  Instead you are trying to figure out ways to eat his lunch.  My suppliers generally bend over backwards to help me because they know I am doing the job that they either can't do or are not willing to do.  If these people stop selling your product, you will be out of business.

_They get great support amazing pricing and they make a lot of money selling our products. and for the _actual effect of our wholesale stores customers to convert online is LONG away . it will take a tremendous effort and years until we have actual effects of stores closing " which btw we would love to have a full retail based business " i mean who wouldn't and then have 20% affiliate or wholesales. " this is our goal . To be frank the goal is not to steal them . My explanation is off, i want to build database not to MARKET WITH DISCOUNT but to send helpful info. Btw return customers to our stores are 22% where online its 58% .. see where i am getting at .

[Ezami]

I know beforehand that my answer is going to make things worse for the Retailers/Store Owners along with the experts here; but I personally feel more & more Businesses will move ahead with the same strategy as you're talking about now. The world is in economic crisis and thus businesses are looking for the ways which will let them earn more profits.

Going ahead with the business managers deciding to start online sales through their website, there may be many reasons..one being the "Brands getting higher share of online sales every year". There are many businesses which are having their own websites and getting a lot of sales even though physical stores are there to sell the products. Same seems to be the case with Beauty & Health business we're dealing with here..with more people turning to online sales, eyeing over Online Sales is better option.

As you've already invested 2 years over the website and internet marketing strategies to get the website in better position, you can go ahead with the Customer Services rather than focusing over the Sales segment. No business wants to have "dis-satisfied" customers and if you provide the customers a better solution online, then you'll surely get better conversion for the online sales as well.

What you can provide as a part of Customer Services?

a. Better 24x7 Customer Services.

b. Online chat system with Live Customer Care Executive.

c. An option to "Call Back" (this is really required as many customers can't explain their problems in a better way).

d. Enabling the customer to submit tickets without requiring "registration".

e. Customer Profile creation & management options.

f. "Forums or Community" for the customers over the website.

..and many more which you think better.

In the packages, you can replace the "Free Trial" option with taking part in Online Contests & SweepStakes through the website. This will help in getting more customers to the website and likely to increase the conversion rate as well. As you do not want to provide the products at the same rate as Stores have, the contests can be used to promote your newer products "Without Prices" i.e. for trial only.

[Chris661]

Some really thoughtful responses here that I agree with.

I noted your average sale is $125, so I would call this a high-ticket item and your customer is probably buying because they seek the quality of the product, not the discounted price. It is reasonable to assume the retailers are the ones who have been recommending the product and if you start a war with them, they will recommend something else.

I think the first commandment of wholesale manufacturing is "Thou shalt not compete with Thy Retailers". They are your most valuable partners.

Also understanding the demo of the client might help as Dana points out, some products just don't make sense on-line and you may have one here. Also if the customer skews older, they may not be comfortable buying on-line. You might even decide to launch the product in a new look and name just for on-line sales.

So I think Lesley has given great advice and insight. Seek out new customers and don't worry about those the stores already have, rather, be grateful for them as they will finance your pursuit of new markets.

Best!

[LesleyPaone]

@Dana Tan, thanks for the good words.

@Hampig I am more a marketing person than an SEO. From my perspective, you are missing the big picture. 13k people a month is nice, but unless your product is a super extra specialized niche product, you are tapping the wrong market. When I first started in this market I would take just about every client that walked in the door, now that I have more experience I turn about 50% of clients away. The reason being is they have hired me because I am an expert at something (even if it is just self proclaimed ) and if they do not take my advice, there really is no point in me being an expert. For that matter I could just be some salaried employee to them, that has no say.

That being said, I think who ever is making these decisions has not thought them through on the economic end. By trying to take the customer away from the store, the cost to acquire a customer is going to be at least double if not triple of what it is to obtain a new customer. Would it not be a feasible suggestion for the retail stores to keep their 13k customers a month and for you to get 13k new customers? You would essentially triple your gross income depending on what the mark down to wholesale is.

I am guessing you are like I was, a guy in a beauty industry, that has no direction. I have a client in this industry and let me give you some of my resources that I have used and tell you how they have worked.

Beauty boxes, there are a lot of them and if your product is cheap enough that you can give away samples they work awesome. The basic premise is that you give them a sample and a coupon for your shop. They send this out in their monthly boxes. The best thing about this is the reach. My rough estimates from a couple of months ago is their reach is between 250,000 - 400,000 boxes a month with the top several companies combined together. Basically what people do is pay between $12 to $25 a month, and every month they get a box of beauty products set to their home to test. Here is a huff post slide show about the top ones, I think birch is still the biggest. http://www.allure.com/beauty-products/2012/beauty-sample-services#intro

Reddit r/makeupaddiction is a good place to advertise, covertly post. The ROI I have from posting their is incredible. Spend 20 minutes thinking out a good post, and it picks up traction, I have posted 8k in sales off of one forum post. Don't be spammy though, it will back fire on you.

Specktra.net they are a large makeup community that has a great news letter reach. They send out season mailings like "Best products to buy for christmas" and things like that. They are strictly paid placements, so are their blog posts and just about everything on the site. But it doesn't appear that way, which makes them not a bad resource.

I have several other if this is a route you want to go, the ROI would be greater and cost to acquire a customer would be lower. It is a route worth pitching.

[BizDetox]

Awesome response . Again the goal is not to hit them with promotions and marketing . My top two options currently were to offer A. Sampler sets of products for free . B. build an educational resource to connect all customers together . Not a forum

[EGOL]

Maybe instead of creating a package insert to offer a "free product" you can hold contest (a random drawing) that awards a nice gift box of your products to one or a few people a month.  Or you could offer a kickass price on a sampler package of your products.

Another alternative (the one that I would use) would be to create a huge library of information that would be useful to people who might use your products.  How to select them. How to use them. How to get the best results.  Give people a huge incentive to visit your site.

You seem to be focused on getting people's email address.    It is better to attract people with value than hit them repeatedly with marketing offers.

[BizDetox]

Thank you guys for all the input but my question for specifically trying to convert the store sales into online customers without upseting out wholesale franchisees. How to I collect email addresses or have them come to our online store without having the stores doing it for us , because they won't cooperate . I  strictly talking conversion strategy from walkin to online . Now the conversion does not have to be a purchase . It could be form fill out , to registration to joining a list . The creativity aspect has to do with the product and how and what I can implement inside the boxes !

thanks again for all the input

[danatanseo]

I agree wholeheartedly with Lesley and EGOL. It sounds to me like you either need to find incremental ways to improve on what your client is already doing, or completely revamp the business model.

What is the purpose behind the goals that have been set for the Web sales? Is it a long-term strategy of wanting to eventually move all sales there? i.e. becoming a direct to consumer business? Is there the belief that the Web site gives customers a better experience than when they purchase the same product in a store?

Since you mentioned that the product is in the health and beauty sector, has your client done any market research to determine how many customers would even consider buying it online? Depending on the product, it may be something that people may just not want to buy without trying in person. I'm a big fan of Paul Mitchell and Lancome products. The only time I've ever purchased those products online instead of in a store was when I lived so far away from the nearest store that purchasing online was way more convenient...however, I only purchased products I had already bought in a brick and mortar store at least once. I would have never made my first purchase of those products online.

Granted, I may be a different persona and the products might be entirely different but the motivation could be identical in your client's case. When Lesley said "The people that are the furthest away from the store will be the low hanging fruit, I would push more marketing effort in to them..." I think that's a brilliant tactic and one that could accomplish your goals without cannibalizing the excellent work that your resellers are already doing for you.

Good luck!

[EGOL]

This is a very complex situation with roots way beyond SEO.

The company is about 7 years old and been online for only 2 years.

Your franchisees have probably been online a lot longer.  You have arrived late the the fight and should not expect them to step aside to give you top rankings.

Income comes from 90% from wholesales/retail stores ( owned by franchisees ) .

For this you should give thanks.

the wholesales work with a discount tactic to sell products in the store

For this you should give thanks.  Most businesses on this planet try to give their customers a sweet deal.  They are willing to take a lower profit to make your merchandise fly off of their shelves.  If you don't like this institute a MAP policy or raise the wholesale price.  If you do that you might not like the results.

And yes we have our website address on the boxes and products

Smart.  This gives you an enormous opportunity.

Are your products any good?  If the customer has a poor or lackluster experience with what they purchased they will not be visiting your website.

But we convert customers at a measly 3.5%

How much landing page testing have you done to improve your conversion rate.  Are the products on your website easy to find and properly described.  Does your checkout work smoothly.   I bet that 3.5% would increase if you got some consulting from someone who knows how to convert visitors into buyers.

I had thought about putting a little tag on the products or a little booklet inside the packaged boxes

This is a good idea... but I would make it an enticement for visitors to come to your site.  I would not offer a free product because you will probably be swamped with people wanting it.  Have you heard about the huge "free stuff" culture that is out there?  Huge.  You might be really sorry if they get the word out on your free offer.

i wanted help by asking some of the communities creative mind.

The normal advice given here is to work on increasing your visibility through improved rankings and greater keyword reach.  We might also advise you to get moving on social media.   Your situation seems to have problems (or perceptions of problems) that are outside of SEO.

I am a retailer and my advice to you would be to do everything that you can to help the retailer.  You said that they  are driving 90% of your sales.  Instead you are trying to figure out ways to eat his lunch.  My suppliers generally bend over backwards to help me because they know I am doing the job that they either can't do or are not willing to do.  If these people stop selling your product, you will be out of business.

[LesleyPaone]

I have a pet peeve about these situations. I saw one posted earlier today that was really similar. I do not see why people would want to start wholesaling their products, then turn around and cut the wholesaler's out of the loop. I understand that your client more than likely makes more money selling directly to the consumer, but at the same time they do not have the reach that however many brick and mortar stores have. Plus if the companies are selling online too, they have even greater reach. What you are wanting to do is the proverbial "cutting your nose off despite your face". If the company is ok with that, just don't renew wholesaler agreements. Then you can have all of the market share.

Barring doing that, and going against good advice, give product away for free. Have an insert in the box with a code that people can enter online to get a free one of what ever they buy. Do it smartly though, issue a code range to each store, so you can track where people are coming to buy the product. Then you can create a map and see how far people are actually traveling to get the product. The people that are the furthest away from the store will be the low hanging fruit, I would push more marketing effort in to them.

Also, when you give the the free product, you might try to goad them into an automatically re-ordering system. Hype it up, so they know that they will get the product delivered when they need it. You might even have a survey of 3-4 questions to get the free product and ask them how often they purchase it. Then with that information, give them re-occurring options based on that. Also do a discount system with that, say you sell 1 bottle for $20 maybe do a 6 month subscription for $100.

What is the purpose of the company wanting to do this?