Sales from the EDGE
Back Issue #010
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Sales from the EDGE Issue #010
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Sales from the EDGE
Breaking Through the "White Noise" Of Selling on the Net
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>From time to time, the EDGE publishes important updates that
you need to SELL on the Net. Most "latest and greatest" Net
marketing and sales developments simply waste our time.
Today's "hot new technology" is tomorrow's "whatever
happened to?"
Occasionally, though, something comes along that STICKS.
When that happens, the EDGE cuts through all the "white
noise" of Web marketing. It explains each important new
development and outlines clearly how you can best take
advantage of it.
SALES FROM THE EDGE is sent *ONLY* to owners of SiteSell
products.
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July 31, 2000
Issue #010
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
o SITESELL NEWS
1) MYPS! Enters Phase III
2) Hard-Hitting Review of MYKS!
o ARTICLES
1) Dynamic Pricing... Welcome to the Future
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>>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SITESELL NEWS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>-News-
---1---
>-News-
MYPS! Enters Phase III
What's Phase III? Dynamic pricing. Dynamic what??...
I'll explain below. Suffice it to say for now... it has the
potential to change the way transaction-based sites sell on
the Net. Three major e-commerce companies have already
inquired about it. If we license it, we'll share a piece of
these revenues with our affiliates, to whom we literally owe
99% of our success.
Feedback? It's ranged from...
"You gotta be nutz!"
to...
"Wow! First time I see somebody bringing technology and
marketing a GIANT step further in such a fundamental area.
You could make fixed pricing obsolete."
With that kind of range of opinion, we must be on to
something! :-)
>-News-
---2---
>-News-
Hard-Hitting Review of MYKS!
Paul Myers of talkbiz.com fame must be one of the hardest
hitting, let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may, kind of guy I
know.
His articles on Net marketing and selling are hard hitting,
original, always well-informed and well-balanced...
... and, of course, opinionated. Which makes it fun, as
well as educational! :-)
So I must say that I was a bit taken aback by his mention of
MYKS! in a recent issue of TalkBiz News...
---------------BEGIN TALKBIZ REVIEW---------------
Something happened to me recently that was kind of amusing.
As long as it wasn't you it happened to. ;)
I recently became interested in online publishing.
When I start to dig into a topic, I tend to dig deep. That's
how it went this time, too. In the span of about a month I
spent over $1600 on various info-products and related stuff,
learning everything I could about the process and the
trends.
Then one day I got an email from Ken Evoy, asking if I'd
take a look at a preview copy of "Make Your Knowledge Sell."
Knowing Ken's approach to his products, I could see it
coming.
Yep. There, in one convenient package, was nearly everything
I'd spent a month and $1600 finding and learning.
... @ $50.
It defies the traditional standard of pricing for something
of this size and completeness. It has just about everything
needed for the info-publisher, information-wise, beginning
or intermediate. The perfect example of the info-product of
the future.
If Ken wasn't such a nice guy, I'd have strangled him in
effigy.
----------------END TALKBIZ REVIEW----------------
Just to be safe, I sent Paul a nice little effigy, so I'd be
safe next time I saw him! ;-)
--
For some sharp e-biz ideas from an original thinker, you
won't do better than the man in the beard and black cowboy
hat, Paul Myers, at TalkBiz.com. Send a blank e-mail to...
newsletter@talkbiz.com
--
For more info on MYKS!...
http://myks.sitesell.com/
Visit the site and brainstorm a little -- it will show you
how to come up with a great idea, from your own brain and
knowledge, that you can turn into a profitable infoproduct.
But don't buy it off the site. There's a special discount
area for owners of SiteSell products at...
http://www.sitesell.com/discount-directory.html
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>> THIS ISSUE'S ARTICLE
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---1---
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Dynamic Pricing... Welcome to the Future
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Dynamic Pricing Has Arrived
Say Good-Bye to the Fixed Price.
What's a "fixed price," you ask? It's how most products are
priced today. Merchants set a price and they don't change
it. For example...
That golf shirt at Wal-Mart was $29.99 last week, is $29.99
today, and will be the same price until it goes on sale...
which is really just a new fixed price. And it will be the
same price at every single Wal-Mart store, from Miami to
Seattle.
The fixed price will be seen to be a brief blip in the
history of business. For thousands of years, pricing was
dynamic. Market vendors would see competing vendors' prices
for potatoes and balance that against buyer demand, and
constantly adjust their prices accordingly. This was a very
raw, low-tech kind of dynamic pricing.
Then, around 500 years ago, the Industrial Revolution
started... slowly at first. It really picked up steam at the
turn of the last century. Mass manufacturing. Mass
marketing...
Mass marketing simply did not allow for any kind of dynamic
pricing. Imagine Wal-mart haggling over the price of every
single item sold. Imagine constantly balancing the price
according to supply and demand for their millions of items
in stock. No way.
Fixed pricing worked because it was simply the most
efficient way to handle matters, given the technology at the
time. But now...
Shopping bots roam the Net, constantly looking for the
lowest prices. Communication is instantaneous and free -- we
can all talk with each other. Competing merchants can peek
into competitors' prices, not just in the next stall at the
market but around the world, with the click of a mouse.
Supply and demand ebbs and flows.
And it can all be measured in real-time. So...
A far more efficient way to sell, for both merchant and
vendor, is through dynamic pricing. With dynamic pricing,
the price of a product behaves more like the price of a
stock on a stock exchange... adjusting constantly, on a
second-to-second basis, a perfect reflection of market
conditions at any given moment.
The result? More customers buy more product at a price that
makes the most sense to them.
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How it works
Make Your Price Sell! (MYPS!) is the first product on the
Net to be fully dynamically priced. Here's what happens...
1) The Price Drop -- The price of MYPS! is continuously
dropping. That's why you see the price ticking on the Order
Page every second. It seems to be dropping slowly. But if no
sales occurred in a day or two, we'd be giving it away!
2) The Price Increase -- Every time a sale occurs, the
price increases by a small amount, spread over 30 minutes.
So, depending on whether there's been orders in the last 30
minutes, the price might be ticking UP or DOWN on the Order
Page.
Here's what this ticking price fluctuation means...
Customers vary in price-sensitivity. Some are cautious
penny-pinchers. Others feel that "price is no object" when
they find a product that they need. Most are somewhere in
between.
So as the price of MYPS! drops, people start buying... the
buying pressure increases as the price decreases. But when
people buy, the price starts going up. Net result?
The price you see on the Order Page is a perfect reflection,
at that moment, of the balance between the buying pressure
from visitors to the site and the selling pressure of the
continuously dropping price.
3) Two Ways to Buy -- Just like in a stock market, you may
purchase MYPS! "at the market price" (i.e., at the current
price you see ticking on the Order Page). Or you may submit
a bid below the current selling price. Let's look at each...
i) Buy at the market -- When you submit your order on the
Order Page (the conventional way of buying a product
online), you lock in the price at its current tick. The
order proceeds normally.
ii) Bid below the market -- Just like in a stock market,
the bidding page provides you with a price history graph. It
also shows you the high, low, and average price for the
week, as well as the most recent sale price. So you have all
the information you need to make an intelligent bid.
If the price of MYPS! drops to the level of your bid, your
order is filled! From that point on, the order proceeds
normally (i.e., you receive e-mail notification, access
instructions for MYPS!, etc.).
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What This Means to You as a Customer...
You receive MYPS! at a price that makes the most sense to
you.
Dynamic pricing is never hype-driven, "rip-off" pricing. So
if the current price does not stretch your budget, simply
buy it "at the market."
But if the current price seems a bit too steep for you,
submit a bid. "Good things come to those who wait."
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What This Means to You as a Merchant...
There's no doubting the power of dynamic pricing. It will
replace fixed pricing at transaction-based sites within five
years. Fixed pricers will suffer against competitors who
price dynamically.
You can't afford to miss the first dynamically priced
product on the Internet. Your most important ACTION STEP
today is to think seriously about how you can implement
dynamic pricing before a competitor does.
Visit the demo now at...
http://myps.sitesell.com/
Once you're at the MYPS! site, review it quickly (see the 3
Minute Review) to see what MYPS! is all about -- when we
proceed with merchant-enabling for Dynamic Pricing, this
pricing survey software will be the first step.
-----SIDEBAR-----
MYPS! itself is *NOT* Dynamic Pricing. It is pricing survey
software that helps merchants establish the most profitable
price points for their products. It's incredibly accurate
for finding your "Perfect Price."
When we launch our PerfectPricer product, which will enable
merchants to dynamically price their products the way we are
now doing on the MYPS! site, this survey will be invaluable
for finding the best price at which to start, and also for
setting a floor price.
-----SIDEBAR-----
After your quick review of MYPS!, click to its Order Page...
Voila! Dynamic Pricing, in all its glory. Read through the
Order Page carefully, and follow the links, especially the
link for bidding "below the market."
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What's the Point?
If we were just dynamically generating a price, that would
be "kewl," as my 9 year old likes to say. But so what?
Let's boil it down to the nitty-gritty...
... Greater Profits.
Why?
Because Dynamic Pricing extends a merchant's market, for
two big reasons...
1) PRICE FLUCTUATES Consider the customer who would not
buy at your fixed price. The product is too expensive. But
if the price of the product fluctuates, s/he is more likely
to try to buy it at a lower price, either by visiting during
"off-hours" or by bidding.
2) BIDDING... COMPETITIVE AND FUN Ever bought anything at
eBay? It's fun and competitive. You often buy for higher
than what you thought was your top price.
Price-conscious shoppers will bid for a dynamically priced
product. Here's what will happen...
i) Their bid is fulfilled. That's one order the merchant
would never have received.
ii) Someone beats their bid or their bid expires. We
notify them. What happens? They bid higher until
they get it. After all, they started bidding because
they wanted it. And you know what happens when you
don't get what you want!
------------
Hit or PLOP?
So far, it's all theory. Our Dynamic Pricing demo on MYPS!
has been running for 10 days. Price has dropped by 58% but
we're selling more than twice as many price surveys. Since
these are lifetime customers, we're way ahead of the game.
But the real story is yet to be told. Bookmark the bidding
page and come back often. It will be fascinating. Real-time
pricing that uses the Net the way it was meant to be used.
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SiteSell Discount Directory~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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http://www.sitesell.com/discount-directory.html
Please bookmark this page -- it's the only page that you
will EVER need to buy SiteSell products at an owners-only
discount. For owners of SiteSell products only, it provides
discounts on all products, except for the Electronic Version
of MYSS! -- if I reduced the price on it, I'd have to pay
*you* to buy it! ;-)
SiteSell Discount Directory
http://www.sitesell.com/discount-directory.html
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Written by Ken Evoy, M.D.,
President of GoodBytes Information Products Inc.
(c) copyright 2000 GoodBytes Information Products Inc.
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