Amazon is not going to beat you

But not taking care of the customer will kill your business

Notice how the conversation about selling has shifted from the Internet to Amazon? You do not need someone new to tell you that Amazon is constantly being forecast as the wave in retail that is going to overtake all selling. Studies over the past four years show an increasing percentage of people start their Internet search for purchasing at amazon.com instead of using a search engine, such as google.

And with many businesses, perhaps even those reading this article, deciding to sell through Amazon, it is easy to understand why Amazon continues to grow as a marketplace. While not the focus of this article, you should understand as a member of the Amazon marketplace, if you grow the art business on Amazon, you are helping Amazon to decide to eliminate you as a third party and stock even more art supplies in their warehouses and selling direct to your customers.

Amazon is not going to beat you without your helping, but they can beat you by your just sitting still.

We experienced an example of this. Someone in our office subscribed to one of the online shave clubs. With one visit to their website, you can subscribe to receiving your razors, shave gels, skin conditioners, soap and other related grooming products. You will order the handle for your razors from them and occasionally get an email with an offer for a special edition handle or other product.

You do not have to ever speak to anyone and the various products you subscribe to will arrive at your door at the schedules you have determined. All charged to your credit card and with the offer of “free shipping”. Of course, free means a shipping charge does not show up on the invoice but we all know the shipping charges are tucked inside the product costs.

It is easy but still this alone is not going to beat you. However, we had an experience of a hurricane here in Florida. It was not a sizable storm, but the national media made it sound like mass devastation. The storm passed on a Sunday night, schools opened on Tuesday and life returned to normal.

That same day, this person received an email from the shave club. While a form letter, it asked how their customer survived the storm. They said they knew that shaving would not be the most important thing their customer would be thinking of, but they did want to help ease their customer’s concerns.

“is there anything we have that you need?”, was the question they asked. If they wanted, the customer could respond by email or call a toll free number.

The customer in our workplace mentioned this experience and said they did need to order a can of shave gel but has simply not gotten to going to the website to place their order. So, they made the phone call.

The customer service person at the shave club expressed genuine interest in the customer’s well-being. When the customer stated the purpose of their call, the service person said a can would be sent that very day and at no charge.

It is not the free can of shave gel that is going to win the battle. What will win is an online business that a customer will never see has found a way to bridge the gap of customer service; they demonstrated interest and concern for their customer.

While a shave may be “closer” to the person’s face than their art supplies, any business that can show interest in what a customer is doing is one that is going to win the customer’s loyalty.

We have the same information about our customer’s purchases as any business selling on Amazon or elsewhere on the Internet. We have an advantage in knowing our customer; at least until more companies duplicate the effort of the shave club.

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