You've all heard the joke about the three most important things to succeed in retail: Location , location, location! Well, AskRecy predicts that some shops with no location at all will post record sales this holiday season. No, I'm not talking about mail order catalogs, although they will probably continue as popular as ever; I'm talking about online shops and auctions.
In years past there have been a lot of places to buy hard-to-find, slightly priced up specialty merchandise on the WWW. This season, it's much more competitive with real-world shopping. For example, you can shop Wal-mart online, or Macy's, or many other stores. The prices are either as low as or sometimes even lower than you will find in the stores.
What used to hold people back was the cost of shipping and handling. Mail-order houses traditionally jack up the postage and handling as high as the traffic will bear. This year, the big online stores are offering one low shipping and handling rate for your order, no matter how much you spend - as a way of encouraging you to spend more on each order. Will this work? You bet it will!
Now, if you are a retail merchant, you may not be happy about more people shopping on the Internet. Well, you can cry about it or you can get with the program! You can list your specialty merchandise with the various online auctions, or you can invest in your own online shop. Hey, it costs a lot less than starting a new shop on the street! New shopping cart software and programs to let you accept credit cards for a small transaction fee are making it easier than ever to start an online shop. The important thing is to keep up with the competition, rather than just letting them chip away at your business. You can't blame people for wanting to go for the best deal - you've got to offer them the best deal to get ahead in the marketplace.