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The Bigelow Apothecaries Story, continued
Over the years, Ian has overseen development of the capabilities to deliver very different experiences to two very different types of customer.
They couldn’t have done this without giving great thought to how they interface with different facets of the market and respecting the needs of both groups.
The goal was to give the customer the type of experience they were expecting to have.
Bigelow first entered cyberspace as part of a license agreement with Eve.com, which, at the time, was the top-rated beauty site on the Internet.
“We had a shop on their site, and it was basically a microcosm of what we had in our physical store.
It was a great learning experience. In the end, Eve.com went bust, but it gave us exposure to millions of people, because on their home page, there was a direct link to our online store, and you could shop for brands that didn’t want to be sold through Eve.com directly, but were willing to let us sell for them because they were confident that we understood how they wanted their brand represented.”
"In the pioneer days of the Internet, affiliate and licensing relationships that allowed a company to be linked with established sites was a great way to get an online presence for the company without making a financial commitment to the web.
Now the Internet is a proven commodity, and building and hosting a site is cheap and easy.
Having a minor presence on someone else’s site is an unnecessary step, because each day that your company exists only as a link off someone else, is a day you’re not branding your company or getting yourself out there."
Here, the people in this company demonstrate what we mean when we talk about evolving your business idea as the assumptions underlying it change.
This is a quick snapshot of how their web strategy evolved as business conditions on the web changed.
They didn’t become overly attached to one approach, even though the change meant more work. They’ll talk a bit about that below.
The important issue isn’t minimizing the work; it’s about fulfilling the expectations that you have generated over time.
Ian saw the potential of the Internet as a business-building tool and went on to create a site and online store for the shop.
A sound decision, he feels, and one that no business owner today can afford not to make.
“With the cost of building web sites today falling so low, with the way you can do this really inexpensively and still retain control of your branding, you’ve got to be crazy not to at least have some sort of representation online.”
“Who opens the Yellow Pages anymore? For the cost of a little yellow and black ad in the book, you can have ten pages online in full color, describing everything you do.”
“The first question people ask you these days is ‘What’s your email address?’
That means that they’re checking their email every day. And if they’re checking their email every day that means that they’ve got a browser window open every day.
So think about the guy who’s checking his email, has a browser open right in front of his face, but doesn’t have a website for his own business. It doesn’t make sense!”
“If you’re a retailer, e-commerce is a bit different and more challenging, but not to have a simple advertisement for yourself on the web is foolish.”
That being said, he warns online retailers that they should make shopping online as fast and easy as possible for their customers:
“People shop on the web because it’s quick. When you turn it into a big production number, people don’t want to do it.”
This is a simple illustration of what can be a much more complicated process; think about how these people are gathering intelligence.
Observing how people act, listening to comments and appreciating their implications, understanding the experience the customer is seeking, all come from a very straightforward effort to gather intelligence.
It doesn’t have to be about million dollar research budgets or cloak and dagger machinations.
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