Small Online Retailers Stay Innovative to Catch Holiday Sales

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Our customer's are smart, they know their gear, and they’ll detect those poor matches or gimmicks. You shouldn’t insult the customers buying intelligence, they’ll just shop somewhere else

Seattle, Washington (PRWEB) November 20, 2009

Online retailers have developed many strategies to attract and improve customer sales: free shipping, sales, discounts and money-back-guarantees, but veteran online retailer, Mountains Plus Outdoor Gear, has developed a creative product offer strategy that provides value and convenience for the customer.

The strategy is to offer the customer a primary product, such as a Nemo Losi 2P tent, and then include a mutually useful product, such as the Nemo Losi tent footprint, at no additional cost. The customer receives two products that are used naturally together (a tent + a free footprint) and the retailer is able to offer the customer a useful matching complimentary product that they may have forgotten to purchase or will attempt to purchase in the future.

Product packaging strategies are successful, but they do create some back-end complexities and require closer inventory monitoring. Inventory systems must be able to handle the complexity of grouped products and accounting systems must be able to track product costs accurately for retail reporting. “Having to insure a One-to-One relationship on these complimentary products can be costly and time consuming for retailers if not done correctly”, states Erik Viafore, President of MPGear.com.

MPGear also discovered that yoked products must fit within a certain price scale of one another and the quality of both products must be transparent and provide value for the customer. “Our customer's are smart, they know their gear, and they’ll detect those poor matches or gimmicks. You shouldn’t insult the customers buying intelligence, they’ll just shop somewhere else”, says Erik Viafore.

In devising this strategy, Mountains Plus has developed three basic rules to follow:
1. Find useful product matches for the customer. Providing free trekking poles with the purchase of Atlas, Crescent Moon or MSR snowshoes is a useful and practical match.
2. Find a primary product and complimentary product with a solid price ratio difference. Complimentary Inov-8 socks with the purchase of Inov-8 footwear, such as the XTalon 212’s, doesn’t undermine the retailer's bottom line.
3. Keep items in stock. When a customer purchases the Atlas 1230 snowshoes they expect to receive a free set of Atlas trekking poles. There is nothing worse than taking the time to develop these deals and running out of one item and disappointing the customer.

Product yoking strategies offer great benefits both to the customer and to the retailer. The customer receives two mutually useful products, the retailer attracts customers and completes sales, and transportation and handling costs are diminished, saving time and energy. However, a higher level of complexity in managing and tracking the coupled products is required and retailers must stay on top of these issues or risk upsetting the very customers they are hoping to satisfy.

Erik Viafore, President of MPGear, says, “Customers spend a great deal of time online shopping for the best overall value. In this current shopping environment and economic climate, customers take the time to do their homework. They want the best value for the best price and they will easily take their business to another retailer.”

About Mountains Plus:

Since 1995, Mountains Plus has provided high-quality specialty outdoor gear, information and advice to adventure racers, ultralight backpackers, and outdoor enthusiasts across the country and around the world. Mountains Plus provides unique, high-demand performance gear for the devoted outdoor adventurer and explorer. Mountains Plus customers have come to rely on the company’s exceptional customer service, quality products, educational content and advice.

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