Have you seen How To SELL Anything?

This incredible sales handbook distils an expert's lifetime of sales and marketing experience and hands it to you on a platter, in a simple, easy-to-follow format. With existing customers being the most valuable source of income for any business, this book will teach you how to increase your return business and make more profit from your most loyal customers - and even how to reduce the costs of dealing with your least profitable customers.

Get it on Amazon (Kindle/Print)

E-retail's future hangs on better insights

The survey found that that seven out of ten consumers (70%) shopped online because they felt it was cheaper than shopping in the high street. It was clear that, when it comes to looking for bargains, pure online retailers have had the advantage over traditional multi-channel retailers in a recessionary world - and the worldwide growth of pure online retailers has mainly been enabled by their ability to offer low prices without the overheads of a high street presence.

But while this might seem like an obvious strategy during a recession, is it the only way to succeed in the long term, and can a reliance on low prices sustain a competitive advantage for online-only retailers? The study concluded that long term success will ultimately be achieved by those online retailers that can tailor their offerings to each individual customer through an understanding of their specific needs, and which can optimise their products, pricing, promotions, service, communications and channels accordingly.

The key enabler for this approach is the effective use of transactional and behavioural data to drive a more relevant engagement, according to Meinert Mellows, global head of analysis for Emnos: "The way to win long term is to be relevant to the needs of customers. An insight led approach is an alternative conquering strategy to just being the cheapest. It's about building trust and loyalty through the right offer to the right customers."

Given the ability of online retail to offer a huge range of choice data insight can enable e-retailers to personalise the online experience and ensure the offers and products are optimised to individual customer preference. This enables the retailer to increase impulse purchase and cross selling opportunities through relevant product suggestions.

In addition, predictive analysis can ensure pricing and promotions strategies are targeted through intelligent communications to improve their effectiveness. Price sensitive customers can be identified and targeted with promotional pricing. On the other hand, those customers that value convenience, quality or access to particular services can be addressed differently, for example, through priority in delivery or support.

However, despite the success over the past decade of this approach, many online retailers are yet to make the switch in thinking. A recent review of the UK's top online retailers revealed that 80% are failing to gather even basic contextual information at sign-up. A survey undertaken by Emailvision suggested that a failure to harvest data such as gender, address or date of birth reduces the ability of these online retailers to have a more meaningful and ongoing engagement with customers.

"In the online world, retailers should be doing more to combine their data to gain a holistic view of the customer. Shopping transaction history, combined with visitor behaviour and other contextual information provides the insight to create a more relevant experience; suggesting relevant cross-sells, impulse purchases and informed promotions that make sense to that shopper," concluded Mellows.

Have you seen How To SELL Anything?

This incredible sales handbook distils an expert's lifetime of sales and marketing experience and hands it to you on a platter, in a simple, easy-to-follow format.

With existing customers being the most valuable source of income for any business, this book will teach you how to increase your return business and make more profit from your most loyal customers - and even how to reduce the costs of dealing with your least profitable customers.

You'll learn to sell yourself, sell your products, and sell your brand on the internet, writing high-conversion landing pages, social media posts, and more. You'll start attracting customers you didn’t even know existed, and learn the top trade secrets for customer retention.

You'll become a lean, mean selling machine. See how the experts do it and learn to adapt what they've done for your own profit. You'll learn to write strong, powerful, effective sales copy, whether it's for a sales script, sales letter, flyer, insert, advert or just about anything else.

You'll learn how to sell whether you're selling by telephone, by mail, or even meeting prospects face-to-face. You'll find out how to size them up, present yourself, nail down their true needs, close the sale, and learn to tackle the tricky ones.

You'll discover the biggest secrets of successful direct mail sellers, sales letter writers, and how to segment and choose the right prospects for each campaign.

Get it on Amazon (Kindle/Print)