Archive for the 'selling-online' tag

This is the first in what may be an ongoing series of posts (depending on time availability and levels of motivation) about things that are broken or should be improved in the powersports industry. If you have any ideas about something that really needs to be fixed or could be done better, let me know.

This post is going to cover the issue of local search results for powersports products and ask the question:

“Why is our industry not doing more to help the local retailers when it comes to online product/shopping searches?”

A week or so ago I was at the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Francisco and after attending a few sessions on local search and the use of things like QR codes and Near Field Communication, I decided to write this and see if I could shake things up a little bit in our industry.

First, consider this staggering statistic… According to a study done by BIA/Kelsey nearly all consumers (97%) now use online media to shop locally. That’s an amazing stat and seems to be right on for our industry, where most enthusiasts hit Google for research about powersports products and see those shopping results sitting right there with all the rest of the little blue links. The “problem” is that all those shopping results lead to the mega e-commerce players and not the mom-’n-pop, brick and mortar dealers and retailers that make up the backbone of our industry.

Next, consider what is assumed to be an absolute truism in our industry:

“The entire powersports industry, up and down the supply chain, has a vested interest in, and actively attempts to support, the local dealership or powersports retailer.”

In my years in this industry I’ve heard things to this effect echoed over and over… This OEM, or that OEM, or this distributor or that distributor, will swear up and down that they are 100% behind supporting, nurturing, even protecting the mom-n-pop, local dealer.

I’ve got a great idea about a way that they can demonstrate this and put their money where their mouth is. Help the local retailers sell more product to people shopping online by leveraging the technical infrastructure that already exists! Now’s the time for the folks at the top of the food chain to support the retailers at the bottom that provide the very framework that makes our entire industry possible.

Here’s my idea by way of an example:

Tags:E-Commerce, ecommerce, internet, marketing, Powersports Industry, selling-online, supply-chain

…And he just checked in to your shop on Facebook Places. Or on Gowalla… Or FourSquare… Or Loopt… Or Yelp… Or any number of “location based social networking” clones that are popping up all over the interwebs.

What are these sites/services? How do they work? Who uses them? Why should you care? This month I’m going to make an attempt to give you a primer on the subject that makes at least a rough pass on those questions.

Basically, the core of the idea is that now that people have gotten used to the idea of social networking by using sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, and a lot of those people are using “smart phones” that have fast(ish) connection to the internet and have some method of determining where you are physically located (GPS, cell-tower triangulation, etc.) it was natural that someone would come along and make the big connection: Combine the social networking experience with location-aware features while providing opportunity for the business location to participate. Except for the creepy stalker / exhibitionist aspect of the whole thing, it’s pretty brilliant…

Here’s how most of these types of services work. You sign up for an account with a site like FourSquare (www.foursquare.com). When you go someplace (a restaurant, a concert, a club) you use the application on your iPhone (or whatever device you have that is supported) to “check in.” You’re basically broadcasting to your social network (or at least the part of your social network that is using the same service you are) a message that says “Hey I’m HERE!” (and when I think about it cynically, you’re also saying to any potential robbers, “My apartment is empty, go for it!”). From there, depending on the service/site, a lot of other things can happen. If you have “friends” that are on the same location-aware social network, and they have also checked in, you can basically hook up, you can earn loyalty points (which I’ll go into later) from the business, etc.

So far, the big dog in this space has been FourSquare. They were the first big player that developed a large user base, got a lot of press, and captured the hearts of the VC’s. However, now that the concept is starting to prove itself, the really big dogs in the main-stream social networking space like Facebook (with Facebook Places) are starting to roll “check-in” functionality into their service offerings. It seems to me that now that Facebook is playing in this pool, where most people already have their social graph, sites like FourSquare are going to have a lot less room to move around. That is assuming that Facebook doesn’t eventually blow itself up due to privacy concerns.

Most of these location-based social sites like FourSquare have methods to provide incentives to people that check into a location a lot. The idea works like this: Business A has an account with the location-based social service and “claims” their business. Business A provides incentives (special services, discounts, free stuff, etc.) to people that meet certain levels of participation. For example, with FourSquare a user can earn points the more they check into the same location. Earning more points leads to various “badges” that tell the world “I’m a regular.” With FourSquare folks aspire to be a location’s “mayor.” Typically a business owner will provide more perks the higher up the ladder a user goes.

By themselves these location-based social services can be thought of like a game. But where they should be interesting to you is as a means to advertise your business, participate in the various ecosystems that will develop around these growing social networks, reward loyal customers, and so on.

Sites like FourSquare, Gowalla (gowalla.com), etc. are hot right now as companies look for more effective ways to use social networking tools and sites to market their businesses and make money. At the most recent Search Engine Strategies conference I just attended in San Francisco, it was very clear that businesses are becoming more and more disenchanted with the typical paid search advertising (if you purchase Google Ad Words, you know that our industry has managed to jack up relevant keyword prices to levels that are just goofy…). Display ads and other content network ads are proving to be very costly and difficult to measure except for companies that can afford complicated advertising attribution tools and services. Advertising on social sites like Facebook is reportedly not very effective for a lot of companies. Companies see the advertising and marketing opportunities that these new social networking sites offer because they mostly hinge around actually having live customers physically in their store. These sites/services may finally be the holy grail union between local, web, and social people have been waiting for. Or they may be just another flash in the pan web sensation that caters to narcissistic exhibitionists… Who knows? Some folks thought TV was a fad.

You should already be able to envision ways that you can leverage the functionality these sites provide for your dealership. Especially if your shop has, or could be made to have, a reason for people to hang out. You could also partner with establishments in your area that are hot hang-outs for riders. Here’s something to get the ball rolling around in your head: If you live close to a track, partner with the operators by offering free oil changes or something like that to the trackday-rat “mayor” of that facility. It’s a safe bet that a lot of tracks, especially ones that sit empty quite often, don’t have owners or operators that are even bothering to “claim” their business in sites like FourSquare, Yelp, etc.. Offer to step in and do it for them! I’m sure once you start using these things, more brilliant ideas will come to you.

In closing, I recommend that you keep a close eye on this area of the social web. It’s attracting a lot of attention, companies playing in this space are raising a lot of money from VC’s, and it’s already starting to develop some technical extensions and meta-level technologies that hope to provide additional value to the participants. An example of this is TopGuest (www.topguest.com) that links “check in’s” with a user’s loyalty programs (frequent flyer program for example) allowing them to earn points.

Tags:Column, dealerships, E-Commerce, ecommerce, marketing, powersports, Powersports Industry, selling-online, social marketing, social media, social-networking, web2.0

Imagine this scenario: You’ve survived the Great Recession. However to make it through the epic national blood-letting you had to dramatically reduce your shop’s staff. However, now that riding season is here you’ve got customers coming into your shop looking to buy gear or get information on vehicles. Unfortunatly, you don’t have the staff level required to give personal attention to everyone. What can you do to help mitigate this issue until you can get staffed up again?

Well, do you have a website? One of those fancy e-commerce enabled ones that you’ve never really been able to do a whole lot with or see a dramatic ROI?

Here’s this month’s mind-bending idea… Turn your web presence inside out! Set up a few obvious, friendly, comfortable locations in your dealership where customers can access your website and get information about vehicles, parts and gear.

The formal name for these would be Internet Kiosks. They are a great way to leverage a powerful asset that you are most likely not using to it’s full potential right now. It allows customers to do a certain amount of self-directed research or shopping in a similar way that they do now with a brochure (but you never run out) or with those stacks of parts catalogs (without all the counter clutter).

Kiosks are not just a band-aid for a lack of staff. They have proven to be worthwhile enough that major retailers like REI, Staples, and Best Buy have made them part of their stores. In addition to just having customers use the kiosks on their own, they are useful as a tool to have your parts or sales staff use with the customer.

By seeing how effective your site can be in a real-world scenario maybe you can justify spending the time and money to make your website even better. Merchandise your site and create useful product groupings to help customers in your shop and you’ll automatically have a website that will perform better out in its natural habitat of the internet.

So how would you pull this off? Well, there are companies that can provide you with ready-made internet kiosks (Google “internet kiosk manufacturer”) so you can just plug-and-play. If you have access to someone with adequate technical capability you could also whip these up yourself.

Browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome all have the ability to be run in a Kiosk mode. Kiosk mode basically locks down the browser so that the user is very limited in what they can do. There’s no ability to access the OS, run other programs and so on.

A basic PC from Dell or HP that would be suitable can be had for a few hundred bucks. You can even go for one of those new touch-screen based all-in-one models. A fairly stylish computer stand from Ikea will set you back like another hundred bucks.

You could even pull off this idea with one of Apple’s new iPads. Regardless of the computing device you choose you’ll of course want to make sure the entire thing is secured to avoid having it walk out of your dealership.

And speaking of security, you’ll want to either install filtering software on the PC or control access at your store’s network router to limit the sites that the kiosks can access. You don’t want customers surfing porn or, worse yet, visiting competing dealer’s or retailer’s sites!

Finally you’ll want to communicate to your staff what’s up with the kiosks. Make it clear that you don’t see the kiosks as a way to replace the humans in shop. Educate your staff that the kiosks are a tool that they can use to actually improve customer interaction when they have the bandwidth or as a way to allow customers to do a little “self help” when things are crazy. It’s better than having customers wander aimlessly around your shop twiddling their fingers waiting for someone to help them.

Don’t let the lack of staff be the only reason you try out the kiosk idea. Many top retailers have found that having shopping kiosks are a great way to flesh out a full multi-channel retail strategy. Maybe you’ll discover you’ve been sitting on a secret gold mine all this time. You just needed to look at it differently!

Tags:Column, dealerships, E-Commerce, ecommerce, Merchandising, powersports, Powersports Industry, selling-online

I’m a freedom loving American. I believe in the ideals of Capitalism and the efficient workings of the free market.

Sound like this is going to be some Beckian anti-government Tea-Party rant?

Nope. This is about something important that will actually matter to your real life.

I’ve got a few things to say about a little topic called M.A.P., or Minimum Advertised Prices (click here for a primer).

This is a long one. You’re about to see what happens to me without an editor!

MAP is a policy exerted on retailers by a PG&A OEM or distributor in an effort to keep a brand’s price (and ostensibly its brand equity) artificially inflated. OEM’s can’t, or often don’t try, to limit what you actually charge for a product, but they do try to control how you communicate or advertise a price.

If OEM’s are really that concerned with maintaining exclusivity and brand equity they should just be selling directly.

My position on MAP in the past has been that I don’t like it on principal or in practice, but if it’s going to exist then it needs to be enforced 100% evenly across the board: no loop holes, no selective enforcement, no games.

I’m also on the record in several columns that I also don’t believe running a cut-rate outfit is a path to long-term success. However, business reality dictates that specials, discounts, and other promotions (when used wisely) are an important tool in the box when running a business.

As a retailer we should have the freedom to run our business how we see fit.

I have now changed my stance on MAP. I don’t like it and I’d like to see it done away with.

Not only don’t like it, I think it’s harming our industry as a whole and benefiting a select few (mostly the OEM’s that create and enforce it).

Over the years that I’ve been writing my column on e-commerce, I’ve read or heard from dealers that really want MAP policies. They think that by having draconian MAP policies that prohibit internet retailers from selling at prices that are different than what “regular” dealers sell in their store, or on their website, they are “safe.”

What I think is going to happen is that these dealers are going to discover that Ben Franklin was right when he said “Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power.” If you are a small or medium sized dealership, those MAP policies are not there for your benefit.

They are there to keep you, Mr. or Ms. Dealership, in line while they wait for the business model that currently drives this industry to turn their way.

MAP policy in the end is going to hurt small retailers much, much more than it will disrupt the large pure-play e-commerce companies.

Most OEM’s or distributors “enforce” their policy by threatening to put a dealer on a “no ship” status for a period of time or to just outright stop doing business with them. Obviously it’s the OEM’s decision to do business with whomever they want and to do so however they feel is appropriate.

The reality is that a very small number of powerful OEM’s and distributors supply popular or must-have brands. Due to their broad appeal and ability to get shopper’s attention a retailer has to carry them. The option of telling these folks, “Thanks, but we’d prefer to have control of our own business and do business with suppliers that are partners as opposed to overlords” is not a viable, realistic alternative.

The biggest problem comes down to selective enforcement or special “arrangements” between some retailers and MAP-happy OEM’s or distributors. These may be overt (i.e. the apparently special relationship between LeMans and Dennis Kirk that Arlo Redwine has detailed on the DN blog), or they may come down to the MAP enforcer choosing to just turn a blind eye on transgressions by certain retailers.

When the enforcement mechanism is to not sell to a retailer, and that retailer sells literally tens of millions of dollars of that OEM’s product, do you really think they are going to put that retailer on “no ship” if they find ways around a MAP or just decide they don’t want to follow it?

In addition to their market clout, large internet and catalog retailers in our industry have the luxury of expensive legal advice that helps them find loopholes in the MAP policies.

If smaller retailers/dealers try these same “tricks” they are often subject to a phone call or email from the OEM/distributor’s legal team (however, the person on the phone is most likely not actually a lawyer and typically doesn’t have the authority to actually clarify or discuss the actual policy).

The major e-tailer’s legal capability can discourage OEM enforcement because the OEM knows the policy that won’t stand up to the rigorous challenge a crack legal team could mount. I don’t know a lot of small dealers with access to those kinds of legal resources.

Don’t even get me started on what will happen once they start distributing directly to folks like Amazon. Considering Amazon’s potential buying power, no OEM in our industry has the balls to tell Amazon what they can sell a product for, especially if a deal with Amazon (or Wal-Mart, or Sears, etc.) means 2X, 3X, or 4X the order volumes and dramatic increases in operating efficiency and profits.

Large e-tailers also have the luxury of custom e-commerce platforms that allow them to create systematic end-arounds to the MAP policies in the forms of cash-back programs, rebates, gift-cards, loyalty programs, etc.

Instead of saying that a MAP protected helmet (from a large OEM and distributor) that normally sells for $300 is 20% off (which would explicitly violate said MAP policy) a large e-tailer can say “Buy this $300 helmet and receive 20% cash-back good on your next purchase” or “Buy this $300 helmet and get a $60 gift card.”

What’s nuts is that you can use this card or discount on a future purchase of a MAP protected product as well! And for some reason this is all OK with the folks writing and enforcing these MAP policies? So much for wanting to enforce brand equity though artificially inflated prices!

You can say “Low Price Guarantee: We won’t be under-sold! If you find [insert MAP controlled product name here] for less we’ll beat it!” Apparently this price protection is considered a private contract between the retailer and the customer and is not enforced under MAP… Lawyers… Gotta love ‘em…

If they are serious about the real purpose of MAP, why would these loopholes be OK?

If everyone on every internet forum on the face of the planet knows that they can call up or email UberMotoShoppingMegaSite.com and get a MAP protected jacket or pair of gloves that they found through a Google search on your (Mr. or Ms. rule-following, local dealership) site, but you can’t communicate to that shopper that you can and will in fact sell for the same low price that the big guys do… How does MAP help you again?

Even when the website/e-commerce platform providers in our industry have a way to enable the same promotional methods that the large e-tailers offer, thereby moving to a more level playing field, OEM/distributors drag their feet and don’t offer the necessary approvals that would be required to allow development to move forward.

In fact, as of this writing one platform provider has been waiting for several months for approval from a large OEM/distributor’s legal team regarding a promotional mechanism that would allow dealers the freedom necessary to compete with the large e-tailers while not violating MAP.

Why would the powerful OEM/distributor be so slow to enable small dealers to have the same promotional tools that large e-tailers have? No… Really… Someone please tell me why they have time and resources to track down every little dealership out there advertising products for $10 below MAP, but can’t get around to authorizing something as simple as this?

Let me put my tin-foil hat on for a moment:

Large OEM’s and distributors have recognized the writing on the wall.

Over the next ten years most (80%+?) of their business is going to come from large e-commerce retailers (even more so if the likes of Wal-Mart, Sears, and Amazon really start playing in the PG&A space as it looks like they intend to).

If they can do 80%+ of their PG&A volume with only 5-7 large retailers, they can dramatically reduce their overhead in the forms of sales expense, logistics expenses, etc. Right?

If they can get the market to look like that, don’t they have a fiduciary responsibility to their investors to do that?

By enacting draconian MAP policies that are only strongly enforced on the smaller, more legally defenseless dealerships, they can force the market into a shape that is more conducive to their bottom line.

I don’t care if Amazon, Wal-Mart, Sears, etc. all actually follow MAP. How many customers shopping for a new helmet, gloves, or jacket are going to buy from your shop over Amazon if the price is the same?

It’s not so much that they want you all to go out of business overnight… But if they can help steer our industry to a model with a more easily managed small number of retailers… I guess you can’t blame them really. It actually is a pretty good long term plan for them to become even more profitable.

So as you can see, MAP is basically a game. Even if it was possible to enforce 100% (which it never would be), odds are that the large e-tailers would be immune through the use of their market clout, legal muscle, or systematic work-arounds.

Even if you have a MAP policy that could theoretically be enforced 100%, like all command economies, it will lead to black-market sales and other back-room deals if the MAP price is perceived as too high vs. other non-MAP products.

I’d argue that in the long run, MAP policies even hurt the OEM/Distributor because it robs them of important market signals pointing to the actual value of the product in the marketplace.

Under MSRP and MAP, some product manager builds a fancy Excel sheet to determine the best price. It then has its legal team enforce the MAP policy. What does that sound like to you?

Last time I checked a theory writ-large that looked pretty close to this failed in the ex-Soviet Union.

Even the PRC has recognized that free-market economics makes more sense than trying to a command and control economy in many instances.

Companies with MAP policies apparently are not big on history or economics.

Here’s a scenario: Helmet I sells for a MAP protected MSRP of $450 and dealer cost of $292 (profit: $158). Unfortunately at that price it just doesn’t stack up to (or sell as much as) Helmet K that retails for $500 but has a street price of $380 and a dealer cost of $300 (profit: $80).

Now as a retailer, I know my market, my customer, etc. and I know that if I could sell Helmet I at $380 I would sell the crap out of them!

I’d still be clearing more profit per unit than Helmet K and I’d move more units which would make more money for me and ironically for the OEM that wants MAP!

There’s no way that some brand manager at an OEM could envision those market dynamics when setting the MAP MSRP 6 or 8 months ahead of the market launch.

They don’t know what the economy is going to look like, they don’t know what competitors are going to do, etc.

OEM’s and distributors need to worry about setting a wholesale price that allows them to make a profit when they sell to a retailer and that’s it. Period. End of story.

The idea of using MAP as a way to “protect” a brand’s image is a joke when it’s clear that there are so many tricks and loopholes that allow the protected products to be sold at prices nowhere near the MAP.

Check out the abundance of MAP protected products that are sold on Amazon or on eBay through gray-market distribution deals as just one example of how MAP breaks down and does nothing to 1) protect the brand or 2) protect legit retailers.

In the end, here’s my take on MAP:

• MAP policies hurt retailers by limiting their options and choices in how they run their business
• MAP policies (either intentionally or deliberately) can never be enforced 100% across the board so it creates artificial inefficiencies in the market
• The resources being used to write, monitor, and enforce MAP are 100% non-value-added. I’ve been told that some retailers have people on staff full time that do nothign but find, and report MAP violations. These are the same people that volunteered to be hall monitors in grade school I bet.
• MAP policies hurt customers by forcing prices to be artificially high in the same way that price control cartels like OPEC artificially control the price of oil
• MAP price controls are eventually ineffective as grey-market retailers on sites like Amazon, eBay, etc. sell out the back-door of less scrupulous dealers

And here’s my suggestion. If you get a call from a MAP enforcer, have them speak to your lawyer.

If you find cases of large e-tailers violating the same MAP policies, report them to the OEM’s legal team and verify that the offending company has made the changes to their site or advertisement within the required time. If they don’t, then have your lawyer write a letter to the OEM pointing out that it appears that they are selectively enforcing the policy.

Eventually if we drown these OEM’s legal teams in reports of MAP abuse and catch them in the act of selectively enforcing MAP they will give up on the idea of playing this game of whack-a-mole.

Next we can try to name & shame. I’m creating a topic on my site here where you can leave comments and links to retailers that are violating MAP policies. It will be our own little MAP enforcement clearing house. Or Stasi if you will.

What’s pretty awesome about that idea is that I’m pretty sure that once the FTC gets wind of that post, and what is without doubt a clear case of collusion in our industry to keep prices artificially inflated, they will demand that it’s shut down.

Now if that happens, that pretty much proves that MAP is illegal, right? Collusion… Price-fixing… I’m pretty sure there’s a law or two somewhere about that.

Until these policies are challenged in court and eventually done away with, we are going to continue to see more and more power shift into fewer and fewer hands and that’s not going to be good for your customers, our industry, or most importantly your business.

I believe that these MAP issues are just the most evident tip of the iceberg that represents a looming challenge to the dominant business model in our industry.

However this time it’s going to be the Titantic that rams right though the iceberg. All of us, in our little boats, are going to be the ones at the bottom of the North Atlantic.

Let me know what you think.

Tags:dealerships, E-Commerce, ecommerce, internet, MAP, minimum-advertised-price, Motorcycle Advertising, selling-online

I’ve created this post for the purpose of insuring that as long as OEM’s and other sources of supply in the motorcycle and powersports industry continue to create and enforce M.A.P. (minimum advertised price) policies (thus creating what are essentially price fixing scenarios) that all violators are treated the same.

It’s the “action” arm of my lengthy post on my take on MAP in general that you can read here.

The goal here is to make sure large retailers and small retailers are all being held to the same standard when it comes to MAP.

So, when you see a violation of MAP anywhere (email, print, website, eBay, Amazon, Google products feeds, etc.) in addition to following the policy of the OEM and reporting the violation to them, report it here as well so everyone can see it. Simply use the comments at the bottom of the page. You don’t need to use your real name to leave a post. I’ll be moderating the comments to eliminate spam, but that’s it. I take ZERO responsibility as to the accuracy of the MAP violation claim. I have no idea if the items actually violate any given OEM’s MAP policy. That’s for the OEM to decide.

The OEM’s with MAP are more than welcome to post their responses to MAP violation claims here as well. As are the offending retailers.

When the offending retailer has made the change to their site, etc. please update the comment section. Likewise, if after reporting the violation to the OEM/Disti you don’t see the retailer being forced to toe the MAP line make that clear as well.

Hopefully by having this fully open and transparent discussion of MAP and all of its tangential issues we can work to create a more fair, competitive, and vibrant powersports market.

Holding my breath…. NOW!

Tags:E-Commerce, ecommerce, internet, MAP, marketing, minimum-advertised-price, motorcycle, Motorcycle Advertising, powersports, selling-online

The idea for this month’s column came to me last year when I was out doing some Christmas shopping. I didn’t have a specific item in mind, but I did have a general idea. Now this is a store that I don’t normally do a lot of shopping in so I’m sure when I walked through the door I had a little of that “deer in the headlights” look. Fortunately this store was staffed with knowledgeable and helpful staff and I think even more importantly, the products were organized and presented in a manner that made it, if not enjoyable, at least pleasant to shop in.

One thing that’s pretty obvious from looking through those stacks of catalogs on your parts counter is that we are in an industry with an insane number of products that our customers can choose from. While a small percentage of the hard-core enthusiasts know exactly what they want (you know the type.. The ones that have the distributor catalog memorized and come in with reams of printouts from the forums) most people need some help figuring out what they need or even more importantly what they don’t know they need.

Unlike in your physical store where you can have one of your knowledgeable and helpful staff aid a lost customer, on your website for the most part, the customer is on their own (unless of course you’ve got some type of online chat and co-browsing or co-shopping application on your site).

When it comes to e-commerce, the only tool you really have to help the customer is the merchandising on your website. For the purpose of this column I’m going to define merchandising to encompass three things:

1. Organization of the products (product or feature groups, category and taxonomy development, etc.)
2. Selection of products (what product go into those groupings or receive some other type of “feature” status)
3. Presentation of the products

The first two elements go hand in hand. You can create a “category” on your site and call it something like “Maintenance Essentials” with products that pretty much anyone that rides any type of powersports vehicle is going to find useful or necessary. One of those items may be chain lube. Let’s say you’ve got access to like 10 different brands each with 3 variations and 3 different sizes. That’s 90 different combinations! For one simple product!

Imagine this type of scenario that I think makes up 80% of the shopping situations out there: A guy rides his motorcycle as an alternate commute vehicle and an occasionally for recreation. He likes his motorcycle, but he’s got a life. He doesn’t spend every waking moment on forums to determine what the ultimate chain lube is. He doesn’t ride with a big group of people that will sit around debating the relative benefits of various type of chain lube. All he knows is that his chain looks dirty and needs cleaning and lubing.

He goes to your site, or any typical site, and types in chain lube and is presented with almost 100 choices! For a simple product like chain lube! You need to make sure that on your site that you’ve picked the “best” one or two options for these major product types and present them in a way that makes it 1) easy to find and 2) communicate that based on your expert opinion that these are the ones to go with. Basically the exact same thing that a good parts person would do in a face-to-face situation. The difference is that online you need to do all of this before the customer ever comes onto your site.

There are a few different ways that you can do this. The first is the idea of creating multiple personas of model customers and so scenario planning on how they may interact with your site. Create like 3 to 5 customer types (the hard-core enthusiast, the casual rider, the spouse or parent of a rider, the total noob, etc.) and then imagine a few different scenarios for each type (a major part broke and they need to find a replacement right now, they are new to riding and need everything but don’t know anything, they need to buy a birthday gift for their wife, son, friend that rides, and so on). Pretend to be these various types in various situations and try to organize your site so that there are obvious categories and product assortments that make each customer’s shopping experience as fulfilling as possible.

If your site has been live for a few years and you’ve been using a good analytics package, you can use its data to see how people use your site and utilize real-world data in your scenario planning. Where they go, what they buy, what they look at and don’t buy, etc. etc.

Obviously this is all a lot of work. It’s so much easier to just buy a site from a 3rd party vendor with all the catalogs pre-loaded, or build your own and dump a product feed into it, have a few general categories like helmets, exhausts, etc., and be done with it. That’s what 99% of the sites out there do, and that’s why 99% of the sites out there suck and don’t sell anything! Not only does merchandising make it easier to shop, it’s just about the strongest tool you have to differentiate your site from all the other sites out there!

That doesn’t mean that you should do away with the potentially millions of other products in your online catalogs. More often than not, you’ll want to present that potentially overwhelming selection on a second layer behind the your primary merchandising and allow customers to drill down to explore. Always have a “See all of our chain lube products” link next to your hand-picked selection. Of course a robust and powerful search tool is your best bet to handle these kinds of shoppers.

So now that we’ve dealt with the product selection and organization ideas, let’s move onto the final piece, the presentation of those products.

There are so many cool technologies these days that can help you communicate the features, advantages, and benefits of the products that you sell. You’ve of course got the good ol’ custom written and compelling product description. You’ve got the ability to take your own product photos that show things like the product in use, various angles or views, mounting options and so on. You’ve got videos that you can post on YouTube and embed in the product page. You can post sound files of exhaust systems. The limit is really only your imagination and the amount of time you want to devote to it.

At the very top you can even go big time and use rich-media technology like Adobe’s Scene7 (www.scene7.com) that can provide a huge range of presentation and interaction opportunities.

Try to remember that you are the expert in what you sell. Use that expertise to help customers figure out what they should be buying and communicate it through professional merchandising on your site.

Tags:Column, copywriting, dealerships, E-Commerce, ecommerce, internet, Merchandising, motorcycle, powersports, Powersports Industry, selling-online

The idea for this month’s column came to me last year when I was out doing some Christmas shopping. I didn’t have a specific item in mind, but I did have a general idea. Now this is a store that I don’t normally do a lot of shopping in so I’m sure when I walked through the door I had a little of that “deer in the headlights” look. Fortunately this store was staffed with knowledgeable and helpful staff and I think even more importantly, the products were organized and presented in a manner that made it, if not enjoyable, at least pleasant to shop in.

One thing that’s pretty obvious from looking through those stacks of catalogs on your parts counter is that we are in an industry with an insane number of products that our customers can choose from. While a small percentage of the hard-core enthusiasts know exactly what they want (you know the type.. The ones that have the distributor catalog memorized and come in with reams of printouts from the forums) most people need some help figuring out what they need or even more importantly what they don’t know they need.

Unlike in your physical store where you can have one of your knowledgeable and helpful staff aid a lost customer, on your website for the most part, the customer is on their own (unless of course you’ve got some type of online chat and co-browsing or co-shopping application on your site).

When it comes to e-commerce, the only tool you really have to help the customer is the merchandising on your website. For the purpose of this column I’m going to define merchandising to encompass three things:

1. Organization of the products (product or feature groups, category and taxonomy development, etc.)
2. Selection of products (what product go into those groupings or receive some other type of “feature” status)
3. Presentation of the products

The first two elements go hand in hand. You can create a “category” on your site and call it something like “Maintenance Essentials” with products that pretty much anyone that rides any type of powersports vehicle is going to find useful or necessary. One of those items may be chain lube. Let’s say you’ve got access to like 10 different brands each with 3 variations and 3 different sizes. That’s 90 different combinations! For one simple product!

Imagine this type of scenario that I think makes up 80% of the shopping situations out there: A guy rides his motorcycle as an alternate commute vehicle and an occasionally for recreation. He likes his motorcycle, but he’s got a life. He doesn’t spend every waking moment on forums to determine what the ultimate chain lube is. He doesn’t ride with a big group of people that will sit around debating the relative benefits of various type of chain lube. All he knows is that his chain looks dirty and needs cleaning and lubing.

He goes to your site, or any typical site, and types in chain lube and is presented with almost 100 choices! For a simple product like chain lube! You need to make sure that on your site that you’ve picked the “best” one or two options for these major product types and present them in a way that makes it 1) easy to find and 2) communicate that based on your expert opinion that these are the ones to go with. Basically the exact same thing that a good parts person would do in a face-to-face situation. The difference is that online you need to do all of this before the customer ever comes onto your site.

There are a few different ways that you can do this. The first is the idea of creating multiple personas of model customers and so scenario planning on how they may interact with your site. Create like 3 to 5 customer types (the hard-core enthusiast, the casual rider, the spouse or parent of a rider, the total noob, etc.) and then imagine a few different scenarios for each type (a major part broke and they need to find a replacement right now, they are new to riding and need everything but don’t know anything, they need to buy a birthday gift for their wife, son, friend that rides, and so on). Pretend to be these various types in various situations and try to organize your site so that there are obvious categories and product assortments that make each customer’s shopping experience as fulfilling as possible.

If your site has been live for a few years and you’ve been using a good analytics package, you can use its data to see how people use your site and utilize real-world data in your scenario planning. Where they go, what they buy, what they look at and don’t buy, etc. etc.

Obviously this is all a lot of work. It’s so much easier to just buy a site from a 3rd party vendor with all the catalogs pre-loaded, or build your own and dump a product feed into it, have a few general categories like helmets, exhausts, etc., and be done with it. That’s what 99% of the sites out there do, and that’s why 99% of the sites out there suck and don’t sell anything! Not only does merchandising make it easier to shop, it’s just about the strongest tool you have to differentiate your site from all the other sites out there!

That doesn’t mean that you should do away with the potentially millions of other products in your online catalogs. More often than not, you’ll want to present that potentially overwhelming selection on a second layer behind the your primary merchandising and allow customers to drill down to explore. Always have a “See all of our chain lube products” link next to your hand-picked selection. Of course a robust and powerful search tool is your best bet to handle these kinds of shoppers.

So now that we’ve dealt with the product selection and organization ideas, let’s move onto the final piece, the presentation of those products.

There are so many cool technologies these days that can help you communicate the features, advantages, and benefits of the products that you sell. You’ve of course got the good ol’ custom written and compelling product description. You’ve got the ability to take your own product photos that show things like the product in use, various angles or views, mounting options and so on. You’ve got videos that you can post on YouTube and embed in the product page. You can post sound files of exhaust systems. The limit is really only your imagination and the amount of time you want to devote to it.

At the very top you can even go big time and use rich-media technology like Adobe’s Scene7 (www.scene7.com) that can provide a huge range of presentation and interaction opportunities.

Try to remember that you are the expert in what you sell. Use that expertise to help customers figure out what they should be buying and communicate it through professional merchandising on your site.

Tags:Column, ecommerce, marketing, powersports, Powersports Industry, selling-online

Welcome to 2010! I want to kick off this year with a column about selling online, but selling someplace else other than your own website. This is something that you can engage in even if you’re not directly engaged in full-blown e-commerce on your dealership’s primary website.

What I’m talking about is taking advantage of things like e-commerce applications on social networking sites like Facebook and other “widgets” that you can embed in blogs or forums.

The first example I’ll point out is a company called Payvment [http://www.payvment.com/] that has a nifty little storefront application for Facebook.

In order for this to work you’ll need to have a Facebook fan page set up for your dealership. You simply install the application on your page, set up the look at feel of the storefront using the tools that Payvement gives you, enter in some information about your shop, and then start loading products. (Obviously there’s more detailed steps involved and Payvment’s site provides all the details).

I’d recommend experimenting at first and a load a small selection (around 10) of products that are impulse buy, gift, general interest type of products. You’ll want to keep in mind that Facebook is not really a shopping destination, and typically you’ll want to focus on the interaction and social networking aspect of Facebook and keep the sales pitches to a minimum. But since it is a fan page, I see it as a great way to sell things like t-shirts, hats, and other items branded with your shop’s logo, or the brands that you carry.

Considering that Payvement is totally free to use right now, there’s really no reason to not give it a try and see if there’s a sensible way for you to fit it into the overall online activities.

One dealership that has begun experimenting with Payvment is Ducati Seattle [http://tinyurl.com/ykppl42]. What’s interesting about the fact that they have this e-commerce application running on Facebook is that they don’t even have any e-commerce on their primary dealership website!

Ducati Seattle’s Cindy Wallace is in charge of the Facebook storefront as well as their eBay store where they focus on selling crash damage take-offs, excess & obsolete, etc. Cindy told me that based on a combination of factors (strong local community support & involvement in the shop, etc.) Ducati Seattle has made the decision to not have a full-blown e-commerce operation. “People prefer to come into the shop to buy things where they can actually see them and to see other people there as well.”

But that doesn’t mean that they are not active online in other ways. Based on leadership by Ducati Seattle’s owner David Roosevelt they have made a decision to be very involved in social media like Facebook. Considering that they have over 1,200 fans on their Facebook page it makes sense that they are giving the Payvement application a test ride.

Another Facebook application for selling products from within your Facebook page is Nimbit MyStore for Facebook [http://tinyurl.com/yzvdzxh]. Nimbit seems to be going more for the rock band trying to sell merchandise angle (so they offer features like the ability to sell tickets or downloadable music), but I don’t see why you couldn’t use it to sell merchandise for your shop. Nimbit has several offerings that range from free to about twenty bucks a month.

Moving away from Facebook, I want to point out that there’s a growing number of widgets that allow you to place shopping experiences on more content-centered (as opposed to shopping-centered) websites and pages. A widget is a small bit of code that you embed in a webpage that provides a little area or box where something shows up that gives people information (weather, race results, etc.) or in our case a product display with the ability to buy it right there.

These widgets allow what I call contextual commerce. Where you can offer products that go along with the content the visitor is reading about. Writing a post in your blog about how to bleed the brakes? Why not have a widget in the side bar selling brake fluid, brake bleeders, pads, etc?

There’s quite a few people playing in this widget area out there. Here’s a few leads to get you started: BlinkCart [http://www.blinkcart.com/], Shopit [http://www.shopit.com/], CartFly [http://www.cartfly.com/], and Amazon [https://widgets.amazon.com/] even has widgets that let you sell products they offer (or that you have loaded as an Amazon merchant) on your site.

Check out Widgetbox (a clearinghouse of all things widget) as well and check out the ecommerce tag http://www.widgetbox.com/tag/ecommerce. Finally, of course, you can always Google “e-commerce widgets” to track down more of the latest and greatest as developers keep the wheels of progress humming along.

Having a storefront on Facebook or an e-commmerce widget on your blog is most likely not going to be a silver bullet in terms of generating a huge amount of extra revenue. A lot of this has to do with the fact that most people out there are not in the shopping mood when they are on a social site like Facebook. However, having a good selection of impulse purchase products and gifty items makes a lot of sense. It gives you a chance to have a few more hooks in the water in terms of selling things and it keeps you abreast of what’s going on in the world of e-commerce technology and off-site merchandising.

If you give this a try, please let me know how it works for you!

Tags:Column, contextual commerce, dealerships, E-Commerce, ecommerce, internet, marketing, Merchandising, motorcycle, powersports, Powersports Industry, selling-online, social marketing, social media, social-networking

Last month’s column generated more emails than any other that I’ve ever written. After years of telling dealers they needed to get online all it took was the near collapse of the Western world’s economy to get through to you. You’re a hard bunch to motivate.

The reason I’ve been so gung-ho on the web was because it was the only practical way for a dealership to dramatically grow its revenue. A dealership could do nothing and float along with the economy, and we’ve seen what’s happening to them. A dealership could try to expand it’s physical presence into other markets by opening more shops, but that’s expensive, difficult, and risky. Or a dealership could take on the web in a big way.

On one hand, it’s good that so many of you seem to be doing this now. On the other hand I think a lot of you may have missed the window of opportunity. At least as far as jumping into straight e-commerce goes. Especially if my email load is any indication. I know of at least 10 dealerships that say they are going to jump in. Add to that the huge number that didn’t write to me, the number of dealerships already doing it, and of course the huge pure-play e-commerce guys like MotorcycleSuperstore and RevZilla, and as you can see, the pool is pretty darn crowded now.

So given this situation, I want to end my series of columns for 2009 playing Nostradamus and set the stage for a plausible future that I think you need to be thinking about, if not outright planning for.

The year is 2012. The previous two years didn’t provide the much hoped-for economic recovery (think I’m being overly pessimistic? Read this: http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/tjan/2009/09/the-next-crisis-coming-in-2011.html). The economy as a whole managed to eek out a small amount of growth but only enough to keep it from sliding backwards. What’s worse is that it proved to be a totally jobless “recovery.” Consumers in the USA didn’t have the disposable income nor the security necessary to fuel the powersports industry at a level necessary to maintain it’s current model. More and more dealers closed. So many closed in fact that large urban centers around the US were now without a single powersports dealership. OEM’s were sitting on warehouses and leased lots full of vehicles that were working on their second or third birthday. Production back in their respective home countries was at a virtual standstill.

The dire economic situation had now forced the OEM’s (as well as parts, accessory, and gear manufacturers) to rethink not only their own business models, but the overall business model for our industry as a whole. The idea of having literally thousands of typically undifferentiated retailers across the country selling virtually undifferentiated products out of establishments that by their very nature were burdened with unsustainable overhead and other expenses had finally proved its ultimate folly.

Customers still wanted their motorcycles, ATV, PWC’s, etc. The OEM’s still wanted to stay in business producing them. The ultimate problem was the distribution and retail sales system. Finally, the smart OEM’s hit on a model that had worked before. They looked at the personal computer market pre-Dell and realized that there was an opportunity to leverage the phenomenal opportunity that the internet provided and essentially sell semi-direct. Customers would shop on the OEM’s, pick out the vehicle and options, and then buy it online.

However, unlike the relatively inexpensive and “basic” home PC, the products in our industry presented a level of technical, financial, and legal complexity that they still required one more node in the supply chain. Unlike a PC from Dell, the vehicle would not be shipped directly to the end customer.

The solution was to evolve to a model that traded information for inventory. Vehicle and PG&A inventory was now held as high in the supply chain as possible. What were once “dealerships” that occupied ten’s of thousands of square feet were now transformed into small “authorized delivery, setup, and service” locations. It was a radical transformation from huge dealerships to many more boutique-type establishments that now focused on much more high margin business activities such as the F&I portion of the sale, vehicle service and warranty work, and so on.

The fundamental discovery that allowed this model to work was the realization that the just-in-time logistics costs to get the right vehicle to the right delivery point at the right time could be done far more economically than the aggregated real and opportunity costs of the old (i.e. current) way of doing things.

Customers also shop for OEM branded and produced PG&A on the OEM’s site and have the opportunity to take delivery (for installation or set-up for instance) of the products from participating retail/delivery locations for a revenue share with the OEM.

These Delivery, Setup and Service locations were now composed of mostly high-magin activities and were relieved of much of the non value-added overhead burden from the previous industry model. However, because there was the potential for so many more locations in any given market, the emphasis on quality and high levels of customer service was even greater.

So what’s the moral of this cautionary tale? It’s this: “if you think the internet has been disruptive to your business so far, you’ve most likely not seen anything yet”! Our industry has not yet even begun to scratch the surface of what the internet and all of it’s prodigal technologies and business practices can do for (or to) us.

I’m sure a lot of you are shaking your head and saying: “this guy’s nuts!” Keep in mind I was telling you all two years ago to get into the e-commerce game. I’m sure more than a few of the dealers trying to finally get into the e-commerce game once said the same thing about selling on their websites. Most of you didn’t move until it was too late on the e-commerce front. What if I’m right about this? What are you going to do to prepare?

Tags:Column, dealerships, E-Commerce, ecommerce, internet, motorcycle, powersports, Powersports Industry, selling-online

“Well the frost is on the pumpkin, And the hay is in the barn…” those lines from James Taylor’s “Walking Man” always remind me of this time of the year. It’s harvest time, and it’s time for the gardener/farmer to go out and start picking the crops they’ve been growing all season.

If you’re going to play in the internet you need to understand the importance of having a full time “gardener” for your online garden. Someone to nurture it, coax it along, do all of the right things at the right times. Otherwise you’ll end up with what I see a lot of out there: a land of promise transformed into a barren and forsaken land whose bleakness is only interrupted by patches of weeds, brambles, and thorns.

This month’s column compliments perfectly last month’s screed on the importance of hiring the right people. I was up in the air as to which one to present first, but once I seized on the garden/farming metaphor, I figured this one made more sense to run in October.

Last month’s column was all about why and how to hire the best people possible, this month’s column is about what you need them to do and why it needs to be a full-time position.

Tags:Column, dealerships, E-Commerce, ecommerce, employment, internet, Merchandising, motorcycle, powersports, Powersports Industry, selling-online