The Letterville BullBoard: Selling on the Web?

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Posted by Philip Houston (Member # 1632) on :

As sign shop owners, just what products can we sell on the web?
The internet is the future and I'd like to combine what I know and produce now with this new technology.
Just who are our target customers and what can we provide them?
Our products need to be able to be posted/shipped out to them.
Do we concentrate on local sales or further afield; or do we use our web presence just to create local awareness that we are in business.
Our local business is running well but I'm beginning to think longterm and possibly expand with e-commerce.

I'd appreciate your views!

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A Business with no Sign is a sign of 'No Business''.

Posted by VICTORGEORGIOU (Member # 474) on :

You might take a look at E-Bay. There are people selling (or trying to sell) junk signs, things like "Porsche Parking Only" and street signs with cutesy names. Once in a while a serious sign person will offer something, but they seem to go away after a while. There are some people offering industry specific signs such as a generic "Antiques" sign for Antique dealers.

For an E-Bay strategy to work, you have to be the cost leader, because if you have a good idea, and you are not the cost leader, someone else will copy your idea, and the auction process will drive everybody except the cost leader out of business.

My theory is that, for long term success, the selling has to be done by conventional methods, and the order taking done by the internet.

For example, lets say you make model train signs. You would advertise in train magazines, or participate in train clubs, and use a website as your store. Then repeat customers would just come back to your site. Word of mouth is important, so you want to be dealing with groups of people.

I would really like to see a broad discussion of this whole topic on this site, but the people with ideas are reluctant to share them too freely for fear that someone else will implement the idea before they do. There is some merit to that concern, ie, I am rolling out an internet site, and I would be crazy to tell you about it before it is online.

On the other hand, we could discuss generic markets such as carousels, model trains, aircraft hobbyists, and so on and get a cross pollinization of ideas without giving up any trade secrets. Vic G

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Victor Georgiou
Bob Loves Signs Inc
Danville, CA
email blssign@pacbell.net

Posted by Joe Rees (Member # 211) on :

Hi Philip, I don't really make or sell everyday 'commercial' signs. But if I did, I think a complete on-line catalog of every possible 'Stock" sign and accessory available from all out industry wholesalers would be a huge hit. All the Ready made traffic and warehouse type signs and interior signs and architectural post-and-panel systems and molded plastic letters and zip change readerboards and banners and everything we order all the time from our 'private' sources could be cataloged in a massive online resource center for credit card purchases by all the municipalities and schools and offices all over creation.

Of course, you'd have to get permission from all the manufacturers to reprint portions of their catalogs on your site. But if you listed the same retail prices as they do in their literature, I don't see why they wouldn't jump at the extended market. At the least you should be able to work out an affiliate program with them so that traffic driven to their site from you would net you a kickback. (Like Amazon.com does)

I knew of a company in Florida who distributed a newsprint 'catalog' to thousands of municipal offices nationwide which was nothing more than reprinted pages from several wholesalers catlogs. Same pictures and text with the prices hiked up. They were highly successful selling everything from flagpoles to chalkboards and they didn't actually manufacture or even warehouse a damn thing themselves. All dropshipped. The same theory could be expanded to unlimited proportions and marketed over the web. What are you doing for the next five years?? Want to get out of manufacturing altogether and be a reseller? No shop, no insurance, no brushes, no paint fumes...hmmm.

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Joe Rees
Cape Craft Signs
(Cape Cod, MA)
http://www.capecraft.com
http://www.dave-joe-show.com
e-mail: joerees@capecraft.com

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