ETD: 965 Elevator Speech; LV Housewares Show; Google Eyes
Retail Sector
E-Tailer's Digest
etd_post at gapent.com
Thu Mar 23 14:09:33 GMT 2006
E-Tailer's Digest --- Everything for the Retailer
Issue #0965 March 23, 2006
George Matyjewicz, Moderator mailto:georgem at gapent.com
Published by: GAP Enterprises, Ltd. http://www.etailersdigest.com
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CONTENTS
[1] Greetings
[2] Elevator Speech
[3] LV Housewares Show
[4] Google Eyes Retail Sector
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[1] Greetings.
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Hi All:
We've been working with a couple of clients
helping them develop marketing programs and
websites. It shocks me how they talk about their
business. I always ask the same question: "You
are about to enter an elevator going to the 62nd
floor of the Empire State Building, when who
comes on, but a man whom you have been trying to
sell to for months. What do you tell him?" Not
many people know what to say. I wrote something today that may help.
For those who are interested in trade shows, we
have something from Maria Weiskott and Matthew Kalash of Gifts & Dec Direct
about the Las Vegas Housewares Show, which sounds like a good one.
Google may be joining the payment world,
competing with PayPal. This could be an interesting and serious move.
Now, let's get to everything for the retailer.
Sincerely
George Matyjewicz, PhD
Chief Global Strategist, GAP Enterprises, LLC
mailto:georgem at gapent.com
http://www.etailersdigest.com
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[2] Elevator Speech
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We've been working with a couple of clients
helping them develop marketing programs and
websites. It shocks me how they talk about their
business. I always ask the same question: "You
are about to enter an elevator going to the 62nd
floor of the Empire State Building, when who
comes on, but a man whom you have been trying to
sell to for months. What do you tell him?" It
shocks me as to what they would say. I keep
telling them that you have 2 minutes to make your pitch.
I have been watching how people write for their
websites, and in general. Many people start in
the beginning and build it up until they end where they are now. Wrong!
When writing you should summarize in 25 words or
less (your "elevator speech") what you want to
tell people, then tell it, and summarize again
what you just said. And the building blocks
should always build on the first paragraph. Did
you ever notice in a well-written article, you
get the gist of it in the first paragraph, and as
you read more, the author is explaining more of
what was said. You can stop anywhere along the
way, and know what the article is all about.
The same holds true about a website. Summarize
who you are (if that's important) and what you do
- the juicy parts.. Then give the details.
If a stranger came into your store and bought
something, it would be of limited interest. But
what if Paula Abdul (American Idol) came in
singing the theme from Bewitched in a loud voice?
Then she bought $5,000 of merchandise, when your
average sale is $200. That would be of interest.
If you told a friend you would start with "Paula
Abdul came in to my store singing the theme from
Bewitched in a loud voice. Then she bought $5,000
of merchandise." Guaranteed, other than your
family, nobody would even listen to the fact that she bought $5,000 of goods.
No doubt, you would have their attention, at
least for a couple of minutes. Now, you need to capitalize on that attention.
Can you imagine if you started by saying you sell
giftware, from a little store in town. People
come in from the surrounding areas to buy. We
carry the best merchandise in the area, and our
customers are very happy. We offer good
value. Today Paula Abdul came to my store and made a large purchase.
See the difference? You have their attention
with the first example. The same holds true with
your website, and with any writings. Get their attention.
So, what are you going to do to get people's attention?
George
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[3] LV Housewares Show
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Specialty retailers might actually “shop ‘til
they drop” at this year’s Las Vegas Gourmet
Housewares Show, as there will be “significant
growth in tabletop, cutlery and gadgets,” among
the approximately 500 exhibitors, according to
show owner and manager George Little Management.
Among the 60 tabletop companies exhibiting are
Boston Warehouse, Denby, Kiss That Frog,
Lifetimes Brands Inc., William Bounds Ltd. and
WMF of America. In gadgets, buyers will find
Cuisipro, OXO, Typhoon and Zyliss USA Corp.,
among others. Hampton Forge Ltd., Wusthoff
Trident of America and Zwilling J.A. Henckels are
among the cutlery manufacturers exhibiting at the show.
The Las Vegas Gourmet Housewares Show will run
from May 911 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
For information, visit www.thegourmetshow.com.
Maria Weiskott, Editor In Chief
Matthew Kalash, Managing Editor
Gifts & Dec Direct
www.GiftsandDec.com
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[4] Google Eyes Retail Sector
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Google rolled out a limited trial of its new
online payment processing service. The company is
also rumored to be building a high-end virtual mall for European retailers.
With Google's payment processing offering, users
of the Google Base classified ads service will
now be able to accept credit card payments from buyers.
Google Base, still in beta, debuted in November.
Users can post virtually any sort of legal
content or advertising to the service, and Google
will then index and make the content findable via Google's search engine.
Analysts have speculated that Google Base could
be a Craigslist killer. Craigslist carries the
sort of classified ads for jobs, apartments and
other services that newspapers used to count on for a steady revenue stream.
But with the advent of Google's payment
processing service, the circle of potential
Google victims now includes eBay and its PayPal
online payment processing service.
And just like PayPal, the Google Payments service
could be offered to other vendors as an
e-commerce payment platform. At the moment Google
charges $0.25 and 2.5 percent per transaction,
compared to PayPal's charges of $0.30 and 2.9
percent for items priced under $3,000 on eBay.
"It's clear when you look at it who the
competition is; clearly Google is going after
eBay and PayPal," said Andy Beal, CEO of Fortune
Interactive, a search marketing consulting firm based in Raleigh, N.C.
Beal pointed out that while other companies have
tried to break into the universal online payment
processing business, these services didn't
prosper because they were launched after PayPal
already had captured a large market share.
"PayPal also got a huge shot in the arm from
eBay. So with that much clout, it was difficult
for anybody to challenge PayPal. But now here
comes the 800-pound gorilla called Google. They
have got the clout to do this. It's a natural
extension of what they've been doing," said Beal.
Google began testing the Google Base payment
service in late February. And there was little fanfare at its launch.
Last month some Google Base browsers noticed they
could purchase videos via their Google accounts,
just as they have been able to purchase maps,
AdWords advertising and other services directly from Google for over a year.
Among their many other interests, the
powers-that-be at Google now seem to be focused
on buying and selling. According to a report in
Thursday's edition of The Financial Times, Google
also plans to launch a service through Google
Base that would enable European retailers to sell their products online.
And a Silicon Valley Watcher article claims that
Google and Yahoo are in talks with Wyse
Technology to build bargain-priced PCs.
Beal said that while Yahoo and Google are in
direct competition, both companies are pursuing different paths to profit.
"Yahoo is defining itself as a portal with
content as a means to build community that people
will engage in. Google's approach is to provide
products and tools that are useful and try to
touch on as many aspects of that experience as possible," said Beal.
"Google's plan seems to be 'let's throw a lot of
stuff against the wall and see what sticks.' And
Google has resources and talent to do that,
whatever ones that work they'll keep and what doesn't work they won't keep."
http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article.php/3592191
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