Hit 'em where they ain't...reach 'em where they are.
At 5′ 4″ and 140 pounds, Willie Keeler had the distinction of being the smallest player ever to play professional baseball. By today’s standards, his 30-inch, 29-0unce-bat looks like a toothpick compared to some of the logs the big boys use today, but even so, Wee Willie had an eight-year run beginning in 1894 that netted him eight seasons of rapping 200 hits each year.
Pretty amazing, especially for a little guy. When he was asked how he managed that, he issued that now-famous line. “I hit ‘em where they ain’t.”
I think retailers who want to score with today’s often elusive consumer need to modify Keeler’s line:
Reach ‘em where they are.
And while they may not be in your store, we know they are online. Even better, they are spending a good amount of time shopping for furniture online.
So, it would make sense…and potentially lots of dollars, to give them access to you and your goods where they are.
General Motors, today announced that it hopes to drive sales by selling new cars and trucks on eBay.
That’s right. They are going to have a ‘buy-it-now’ price for shoppers who are not in love with the idea of stepping into the dealer’s showroom to do that often painful dance we calling buying a new car.
The consumer can go online, visit the site, and if the buy-it-now price doesn’t start their motor, he or she can submit a lower offer, which the dealer can accept or refuse.
Is there a similar opportunity for furniture retailers? You tell me.
As always, I am anxious to hear from you.
Coralee commented:
Great tnihikng! That really breaks the mold!
doug brackett commented:
Just now reading the blog. Eddie Gaedel, 3"7" and weighing 65 pounds, appeared in a game for the old St. Lours Browns in 1951.True, he only played one game but HE was the shortest man to play major league baseball. BTW, walked on 4 pitches!!!
Robert Mark commented:
Wasn't Marshall McCluhan brilliant when he said, "The Media is the message," decades before the internet? This kind of editorializing really exposes the shallowness of FT. It is well past the time when everyone has realized the importance of the internet for sales of our products.
However to suggest that our NEW product be sold on sites where the consumer can negotiate the price one way or another, simply reduces it to a common commodity with no real intrinsic value. It all started with Johnny Blackwelder and marched on through Furnitureland South and finally The Dump. Furniture Direct from North Carolina grew and gradually destroyed the fabric of distribution across the country. Consequently today we have very few vendors of better furniture left in the US. They could not survive being the local unpaid showrooms for the North Carolina golfing buddies of North Carolina furniture manufacturers. Now we have more manufacturing capacity than we have retail capacity to sell it.
Neither the old manufacturing model, nor the old retailing business model make sense for the 21st century. However what Ray suggests would result in the ultimate commoditization of furniture. It might as well be sold on the commodity market along with cattle, hogs and oil.
I would hope that FT would show some creative critcism, pose new ideas and become a meeting ground for substantive networking. FT needs a furniture industry to survive. This kind of proposal would only destroy the industry further. FT needs to stop pandering to the egos of its advertisers, most of whom are 20th century mentalities still operating on 20th century suppositions. But then what can one expect from a publication that wrote a plethora of articles about the wonder and contribution of Paula Deen to home furnishings?
FT should have been the publication to start a site like www.gofurnish.com where all kinds of people from the industry can network on a global scale. FT should be more proactive, rather than reactive.
Dennis commented:
I think many of us have already been utilizing similar sales techniques by offering lower prices in classifieds. Is it cheaper to set up and manage a store on ebay, or turn your exsisting website into a site consumers can purchase from? It seems both would take the same time to manage.
