Why is the time now to think about a new system?
As a small business operator, doesn’t it feel like everyone in business is picking on you? Wal-Mart is lowering its prices to put you out of business. Amazon has created a phone app that captures the product information and gives back the user a result of the same item for less – while in YOUR STORE! Read this article,
Amazon Price-Check App Is Attack on Small Stores, And then Siri, which I had to add to my dictionary to write this article and has become a Noun and Verb overnight, is Apples new voice recognition service that works. Really works. So it does not take much imagination to ask Siri, “I need a power cord for my Ipad2” and Siri answering back while you are shopping at your mall, “You are 3 stores away, around the corner at the Apple Store, back shelf, 3
rd row”. And last week Google announced 3D Maps, showing you where you are, what floor, and what isle. Your phone will be your guide, your shopper, your adviser.
I have been lecturing this message the last 12 years. “If you don’t have a cohesive integrated eWeb strategy you will be irrelevant and out of business.” You need a system that can combat the big brutes and there sneaky web apps out to get your business.
Store commerce is what you do every day. Brick and Mortar with stuff inside to sell customers walking through the front door. ECommerce started in 1998 was seen as a glorified electronic mail order catalog. Back in 1998 there were predictions that it would wipe out the traditional retail stores. It has not happened. It has continuously grabbed share. Continues to go up, but so far it hasn’t really come close. So what has changed today?
Mobile. That Star Trek device has become reality. That phone has become a powerful personal computer hooked up to a mass of computers that are now called the Cloud which represents a bank of computers, millions of times more powerful than the computers that sent up NASA’s shuttles. It’s in your hand.
The adoption of these apps, applications, computer programs have swung the pendulum off the clock. Everyone loves it, everyone can’t live without it, and everyone wants more. Sound familiar? It’s the best drug since the word drug came about.
So here is what we have. We have phones, that know where we are, know what we want to buy, and can search the inventories of the world or around the corner to find you the best price, best delivery, and with a simple click, exchange funds and have that item off on its way to your destination or pickup to meet your happy satisfaction. The most gorgeous transaction ever created.
Where do you and your business fit in? So, what I have learned over the years is that these fissures of competitive nature don’t happen overnight. There effects are gradual. And they are inevitable. Its accelerating. It could be the tipping point.
There are many ways to combat the net effect of competitive nature. What catches your attention is net effect. It means less money in your pocket at the end of the year. Some of you will reduce your work force. Some will find other areas to cut. But in the end, these cuts eventually cut into your service and product and again inevitably your boat springs a leak, you’re sunk. These are those really successful iconic businesses that go broke after 15 plus years. They lost their relevance.
So here is my grand idea.
Combat. Hand to hand combat with the same weaponry the big competitors have. The playing field just evened out.
Now you can afford it.
What is so cool about small business is that we are smarter on the ground, and we are on the ground. Big boy are flying high and slow to respond. The Big boys have the air (TV, Radio, and mass media) covered. Big business can shock and Aw. Small business doesn’t have a shot in purchasing these Medias with the effectiveness that they have. In some cases though the Big Retail create demand for goods that are also in the hands of small retailers.
Knowing your customer best as a small business is a huge advantage if you’re delivering the personal experience you should be. Are you letting your customers win? So, we win in the customer relationship column.
Merchandise or merchandising hasn’t changed no matter what size you are. As a retailer if you are good buyer, you will retail your inventory.
The Big News
Now there is a new branch of the Department of Defense, Bravo.
The elements introduced the last 15 years are the Internet, Broadband, Wireless, Mobile, Social, and Applications (Apps). The Internet up to this year was simply used and seen as a Marketing Channel. The last 15 years we all put up web sites to let people know who we are. Some of us transacted on EBay and Amazon and these types of transactions spurred on today’s innovation. If you take all of these, (Internet, Broadband, Wireless, Mobile, Social, and Applications (Apps)) and leverage into your business, you and your business are big news. This is where a small handful of Big Businesses are today, it’s already here, and where all Big Businesses will be
.
If you ask yourself how big iconic brands disappear? They don’t believe its coming.
To do this successfully, big business figured out that all these elements need to be integrated in order to deliver the goods effectively and therefore profitably. The stuff in warehouses and in their stores needed to be transparent and one, and on the Internet, Social, Mobile, and app.
Big business has always had big bucks. Even when Big Blue – IBM, had the mainframes, the retailers that could afford these, and believed, became the leaders. Small business can’t afford. Technology is a huge competitive advantage, and the huge cost by itself is the barrier. Small businesses lose.
Even today this cohesive technology that is being laid down cost hundreds of millions of dollars to develop. And even if you can afford, these companies’ employees and management have to believe. You have to believe, because if you have the technology in your hands you have to apply this to your business and this requires learning and change.
The biggest barrier is your ability to change.
Do you believe? The technology is now available.
