Revisiting your Market
Much has been written about finding new markets in which to do business. What happens if you have an established web site already doing a going business? Many web-based business owners do a lot of work up front, get the site going, and then never spend much time updating their site or their product line after that.
It's best to continue to treat a revenue-generating site as a continuing challenge and review your online businesses periodically. The following are some questions that can be posed:
Are there new vendors in this product line? Are there new products by existing vendors being offered in this product line? Are there new accessory or add-on products that can compliment this line of products? Are there discontinuing or end-of-life-cycle products that we can offer for reduced prices to our customers? Have there been price increases that we should factor into our selling prices? Are there any rebate offers from manufacturers that we can advertise to our customers? Have there been recalls on any products that are sold on my site? What's new in the industry or field? Should we change the "What's New" page? What are the supplier stocking levels? Are they out of the popular items?
The best way to stay on top of this type of information is to keep your finger on the pulse of the industry. One way to do this is by using RSS feeds and Google's news alerts (except for the last one of course, for which you can just check the vendor's website). For example, if you're selling weather stations, you might set up an RSS feed or Google news alert for "Davis Weather Stations" and you'll receive press releases, industry reports, and other news about that subject matter.
Once a site is up and generating revenue, it's tempting to place it in auto-pilot and move on to something else. Move on to something else, yes, but it's best to keep building on a successful going concern
About the author: Frank Ross is an home-based business and author of the blog "Home-Based Entrepreneur"
One Response
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You've brought up some really great points. I think you have a lot of vision and I can understand how you think. Really great writing.
