For many years, I have been a big user and massive fan of 37signals, the team behind project management software Basecamp. At present the company is going through a big transition, renaming their company after their most successful product, Basecamp, and dropping development of all other products.
I was struck by a little nugget of advice which the team at 37signals shares with everyone on its website, and it comes from none other than Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon—and it’s this:
“Find the things that won’t change in your business and invest heavily in those things”
Just read that again and think how it could affect your ecommerce business. Bezos himself explains how it shaped Amazon by remarking, “10 years from now people aren’t going to say ‘I wish Amazon shipping was slower’ or ‘I wish Amazon had a worse selection’”. So it’s no surprise that Amazon continually focuses investment in faster shipping and a broad selection. In fact, if you look at the factors that Amazon presents as majorly important in winning the Buy Box, you’ll see those areas of your business that you should invest heavily in.
What won’t change in your business?
Nobody will complain about your customer service getting better, about you always having items in stock and about you being trustworthy. And what other factors won’t have changed in your business in the next ten years? TIP: Get a pen out and write down your list now. What will your customers not complain about? Well, they certainly won’t complain about your price being competitive on a continual basis, and of course that’s where RepricerExpress can help. For us, the most important elements of a repricing engine are speed, reliability, fast set up and ease of use, and naturally its ability to increase your sales and improve your profit margins.
A Light Bulb Moment
I think the Jeff Bezos advice is one of those light bulb moments in which the very simplicity of what’s being recommended seems so obvious, it’s incredible that we allow ourselves to get distracted by other things. It’s true in business, and it’s true in software…
How many software solutions throw feature after feature at you without ensuring the ‘bits that won’t change’ are better and better? How many applications boast features that you’ll never use when they could have been making the core features better? Far too many I’m afraid.
With RepricerExpress you get a repricing application and development team dedicated to bringing you super-fast repricing to your Amazon and Play.com listings in the Cloud 24/7. You can be up and running within the hour and you can even try repricing in safe mode which lets repricing run on your listings but doesn’t affect your live prices. Of course, when you’re happy with how your setup and rules are running, you can flick the switch and enjoy more sales in an instant!
What’s more, you’ll be investing in the ‘bits that won’t change’ in your business—the importance of being competitively priced on Amazon and eBay isn’t going to stray too far from top of customers’ wishlists—if you’re going to succeed you need to start repricing today.
