Forum Archive Index - June 2000

[Brian Gale <brigale@i4free.co.nz>]

To endorse what has already been said by Ben, Phil and Nigel  and to go a 
little further with this "face to face" argument of ril's.

More often than not the service given, by the staff, in retail 
establishments is pathetic - ranging from badly trained, uninterested 
people to overzealous salesmen with poor technical knowledge.  In my 
experience to make a purchase and feel well served is a vary rare 
occurrence.  This is the great weakness with the ' face to face'  story and 
which opens the door to the well presented web site.

There is only one worse scenario and that is dealing with people over the 
phone - which one could argue is a ' face to face '  situation.

The advantage of being able to take one's time to study the pros and cons 
of a purchase from a well presented site (which must give the fullest 
possible information) has only one disadvantage which would apply to 
working equipment - you can't have a demo.  However  a ' money back 
guarantee '  covers that.

I too have been impressed with the standard of the Flying Pig set-up for 
the purchases I have made for technical books and software.  I like the 
discount and can't complain about the nominal courier change.
Acknowledge of order, follow up and delivery - all  first class.  I'll be 
back for more.

Another advantage of the B2C  is shown in the following personal 
experience.  My nephew owns an antique business down in Dunedin and he has 
set up a very good web site, principally for antique pottery.
He is selling all over the world, a market which otherwise would be denied 
him  The point I want to make is that he has received numerous testimonials 
from his customers expressing their thanks and satisfaction which he is 
able to use to further his business.  How many testimonials do you see on 
the retailers shop wall and even if they managed to get any would anyone 
take any notice ?

If presented correctly a web site is a very powerful sales tool.  We will 
undoubtedly see more and more sophistication as the baby gets out of its 
nappies !!

Brian Gale


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