E-Commerce Website Re-cycle?
This is a fun theoretical case example, which can absolutely happen! During my MBA course I grew fond of case studies and mind exercises. Keeps the brain agile. “Agility” has lately become my preferred term to describe projects, organizations and people.
Imagine yourself an owner of several e-commerce websites. One of these websites is not performing as well as it used to, but still makes a few hundred dollars daily, resulting in a solid 100K-150K annually. The sales are dropping. For you this is not much, but the site pays for itself and it has accumulated a solid base of customers and email addresses.
As a busy business owner, you may think of this site as of a “Pet”, the one you keep because it was good to you in the past, but is not bringing much value anymore. Then you weigh whether to drop it completely or re-cycle and use for … what CAN you use it for?
I am currently reading a book “Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way To Influence And Persuade.” by Robert Cialdini, a social psychologist and the author of another bestseller “Influence” (still on my list). The book is awesome, quite thought-provoking. If you haven’t read it yet, absolutely give it a try! Too busy to read? Get an audio book! Listen while jogging on a treadmill, or while organizing a garage, or while doing other boring chores.
This “Pre-Suasion” book explains how to pre-condition your audience to be open for your sales pitch. There are different techniques and approaches. Some I heard before, like that your audience needs to trust or to like you, or both, and to have something similar with you to relate to. That could be the same name, same town, same social values.
Some techniques were new to me, like “reciprocity”. I mean, I know people feel obligated if you give them something either free or ask for their opinion, but I never thought of this as of a “business method”. For example, people in a restaurant were given chocolates for free after dinner, and this resulted up to 25% tip increase for the waitress who offered them. There are other similar ways to engage your consumer to switch their attention to your product, not limited to giving away free stuff, but also including asking for help, asking for opinion or judgement. The audience feels more connected to the product, which later results in purchases (although many members of this audience refuse to acknowledge that they were influenced in any way by the help they provided).
The reason I am describing this book, is because it gave me a few ideas, opened a tiny little window which I want to look in. Another great author I cannot stop praising is James Clear. His book “The Atomic Habits” is changing my life this very moment. I am in the process of setting new little goals and acquiring new “atomic” habits, one of such is writing down a few words about the book I am reading. Because while I am reading it, I am very involved, but as soon as I put it down, many details get forgotten. Using the new knowledge from any book is easier if right after reading it you jot down a few sentences, while the memory is still fresh. Later on, looking through the notes remembering the book will become much easier. Its ok to re-read a book, if it was good but a refresher is needed.
So, back to this theoretical website case. Let’s try a basic SWOT analysis:
Strengths: solid customer base, safe and easy navigation, positive reviews on Trustpilot.
Weaknesses: declining sales, uninteresting ageing product, lack of personality.
Opportunities: e-commerce website is a “quick response” tool, every effort made on an e-commerce website is immediately reflected back in the form of a positive or negative result.
Threats: a quick reaction may be needed before it dwindles into obscurity completely. The sales are declining and the email base will not be there forever.
I can think of a few strategic alternatives here:
The owner could sell the site, including its customer base and branding to another company, which is in a similar business and would be interested in developing this product. A best-case scenario, I estimate around $150K, some stock included. The most valuable part here would be the business processes that are set, easy to operate and straight forward. Some TLC and product variety can absolutely bring this site back to life.
The owner can just let it linger until it dies. Which would be sad, but inevitable if no actions are taken towards reviving it.
Re-brand and/or re-purpose! Pre-Suasion book gave me an idea to use this site for testing! Any theoretical claim we can think of, we can test here! Run giveaways, create relationships by asking opinions, ask to chose one or another offer to see which one works better. This definitely would require some work, but the knowledge gained will become invaluable. The book gave me so many ideas, like decorating home page according to whether you want to direct attention of the site visitors to quality or price, or making people feel obligated by giving them free samples to encourage more purchases, etc.
Many great ideas work in books, but not in real life, or greatly depend on a product or setting. I would absolutely encourage using this site, that has no personality, to test various promotional ideas, make money and grow customer base as a result!
