Thanks to the development of the Internet, in today's business world, small businesses can compete with large companies on the same stage. This is especially true in the field of e-commerce. In many cases, small businesses will have a great advantage. An obvious trend is that the number of small and medium-sized online retailers has been rising significantly in recent years. Between 2005 and 2007, the number of small and medium-sized online retailers in the North American market increased from 21% to 32%. Therefore, China’s exports When enterprises develop foreign trade e-commerce, they can be confident and believe that there is a lot of room for development in overseas markets.
So, what are the advantages of small businesses? Let’s take a look at five:
You can do at least as well as big companies in many aspects such as website appearance, technology and service processes.
Nowadays, with the popularization and progress of e-commerce website building technology, building an English version of e-commerce website is not only low-cost, but also technologically advanced. Many small-scale e-commerce websites are no less than large websites such as Amazon in terms of interface, technical expertise and user experience. With the rapid development of e-commerce business, many website building service companies have emerged to build e-commerce websites for customers, and some costs are as low as less than 100 US dollars.
The result is that when a netizen enters an e-commerce website, it is difficult for him to intuitively judge from the professionalism of the interface whether the company is backed by a team of one or two people, a team of ten people, or a senior executive. A large company with thousands of people. Therefore, for companies that intend to engage in foreign trade e-commerce, building a website is not a problem. They must first meet international standards in terms of interface design and supporting technology.
You can be more precise in targeting your target customer groups than large companies
In order to achieve sales targets as quickly as possible and exceed them, large online retail companies first need to consider targeting large-scale markets. In many cases, they do not even care about certain niche markets because they will consider this specific market to be too small. Not worthy of attention. Therefore, when they invest in advertising and select keywords in search engines, they first consider whether they can attract as large a user pool as possible. For them, the wider the net, the better. As a small business, there is no need for you to do this. You can narrow the scope and select your customer base based on your product characteristics, and then consider keywords and public relations or advertising platforms. The result of a more accurate customer base is that they tend to buy smaller quantities, but are more willing to buy more expensive products. They will be more loyal and more likely to make repeat purchases.
In terms of personalized services, you can be more flexible than large companies
The following assertion may almost be true: The larger a company becomes, the more difficult it becomes to provide personalized and one-on-one service. Small businesses, on the other hand, are completely qualified to provide customers with personal services and become their friends. If your pricing is higher than that of large companies due to scale effects, then personalized service can be a surefire way to retain customers. And if you also enjoy a price advantage because you are closer to the source of goods, then it is easier to be invincible. In terms of personalized service, there are many small but practical tips: - Give a customer a small gift with special commemorative significance after each purchase; - Collect the customer's birthday and send them an e-card on that special day. ;- The customer service department effectively grasps the various information left by customers when registering, so as to issue a very targeted response in the shortest time when the call comes in; - Collects customers' personal preferences and sends them targeted responses when new products are launched. Strong promotional emails.
Personalized service is not difficult, and there are enough tricks. The difficult thing is to be determined and persistent.
You can rank well beyond big businesses for many key search terms
One of the main battlefields of e-commerce marketing is keyword ranking in search engines. Of course, we do not rule out that some large companies have done well in search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO), but a common phenomenon is that since SEM and SEO are relatively new marketing fields, their success or failure is not the same. Incompleteness is directly proportional to investment. Many large companies are not only not deep in this field, but also do not pay much attention to it. This gives small businesses the conditions to win in search engine marketing. As long as you have a dedicated person to think about it and master professional skills, you can completely occupy priority rankings on many key search terms. The keywords of search engines are almost similar to your virtual facade. You have to constantly think about keyword advertising and keyword optimization of mainstream search engines such as Google and Bing. You can rank yourself in front of big companies even without investing too much. Whether it’s organic search results or ad rankings.
You have greater flexibility than large companies in terms of online marketing methods and investment
Large companies have pressure from venture capitalists and shareholders, and it is difficult for them to escape large-scale advertising in terms of marketing. However, in an Internet era of decentralization and authority dissolution, large marketing budgets may not necessarily bring proportional sales growth. As a small business, you must learn to use various marketing methods and platforms given to you by this era, use your brain to form a flexible and diverse marketing mix.
Here are two examples. RealmDeker.com, which sells household goods, is a typical small business with dozens of people. In addition to search engine marketing, they mainly use word-of-mouth marketing on the Internet, establish contact with the same blogs, and publish their products on Social shopping sites such as ThisNext.com and StyleHive.com have active consumers communicating about their shopping experiences. Another small website, CleanAirGardening.com, films its products into various interesting videos and publishes them on video websites such as YouTube. Website operators said that the conversion rate of traffic from video websites is 20% higher than that of traffic from other places.
To sum up, to develop foreign trade e-commerce, you must do the following homework, so it is completely feasible to compete with large overseas companies.
1. Build a professional e-commerce website that meets international standards, making it as professional, rich and vivid in appearance as a large website.
2. Regarding the target market, don’t be greedy for the big picture and focus on certain niche markets that are less valued. It is best to build on your previous product export experience.
3. Achieve differentiation by providing personalized and adequate services. The founder of the well-known retail website ZAPPOS once said that his company's first and only goal is to make customers happy. As a small company, making your overseas customers happy and treating your website as a friendly neighborhood store on the Internet should be your way of survival.
4. Master search engine marketing and search engine optimization techniques, and no expense should be spared in this regard.
5. Make full use of various avenues opened up by Internet technology in marketing, such as video marketing, online public relations, blog marketing, Facebook/Twitter community marketing, etc.