Beyond The Net
Discovering your Web niche can build sales
By Janine Warner
Now that you can find almost anything on the Internet, specialists are enjoying greater credibility, and in many cases, better sales.
This is great news for small businesses, but it also serves as a lesson to medium and large businesses.
Consider Patrick Piens, who owns a successful music store in Belgium where he sells a wide variety of instruments and accessories. When he took his business online, he did more than just create an e-commerce store, he created several different sites, one for his general store, and many others dedicated to specific products, brands and audiences.
Each of
his specialty sites features a particular kind of instrument
or niche. For example, pianodepot.com just sells pianos; dj-store.com
offers products and services for DJ's, not musicians; and
guitarbargains.com features guitars at the best prices he
can afford to offer.
Patrick
sells pianos, guitars and many other products in his store,
and has a general site where he features all of them online
together, but today he sells more instruments through the
specialty sites than through the general store site.
``People are more likely to buy from you if they think you are a specialist,'' he said.
``Instruments
are not things people buy on impulse. They study how instruments
are made and they look for people who they can trust before
they purchase. When they find a site that specializes in a
particular brand or instrument, they are more likely to buy.''
On the
Web, Patrick's customers can't tell if he has a store full
of many different products like the one he has in Belgium,
or a dedicated piano shop where the owner still personally
tunes all of the pianos. (Patrick doesn't have much time to
tune pianos these days.)
What makes
pianodepot.com work so well on the Web is that when people
search for pianos, they find ``pianodepot..com'' faster than
a general music store that happens to carry pianos.
What makes
the sale, according to Patrick, is that customers feel they
are getting the best advice and service possible because they
are buying from a business that specializes in pianos, or
guitars, or whatever.
This strategy,
creating niche sites for specific products or audiences, can
work for many types of businesses. If you sell auto parts,
for example, consider having a niche site for high-priced
specialty items, such as chrome wheels, or spoilers. If you
sell real estate, create a site for each neighborhood you
represent.
This strategy
only works well if you have real expertise about the product
or service. The point is not to fool your customers into believing
you are something that you are not. Rather you should isolate
particular audiences and serve their specific needs through
niche websites, instead of diluting your expertise in a site
where you sell many things.
By identifying
valuable niches and areas where you have greater knowledge,
you can stand out as an expert your customers will trust,
come back to, and buy from over and over again.
First publication, The Miami Herald, Mon, Jan. 28, 2002
