Sales Strategy
Creating Sales From Thin Air: What Unusual Opportunities Can You Tap Into? | July 17, 2019 (1 comment)
Seattle, WA—If even the word “Amazon” makes you cringe, instead of panicking that they might someday gobble your business (along with seemingly everything else in their path), try thinking about some ways you can ride their coattails instead of worrying they’re going to yank away yours.
For instance, Ridwell, a startup recycling company based in Seattle, decided to use Amazon’s Prime Day this week as a marketing tool to let more people know of the company’s existence. Ridwell is a subscription recycling service that specializes in picking up those things most municipal or private trash haulers don’t recycle: packaging, light bulbs, Styrofoam, etc. For a subscription cost between $10 and $14 per month, Ridwell will come by every two weeks and relieve you of bubble wrap, air packs, batteries, and much more.
Increasingly, says Ridwell co-founder and CEO Ryan Metzger, more and more of what his company hauls away has an Amazon logo on it. So he decided to tap into the unintended consequences of Amazon Prime Day—tons more packaging to get rid of—with a free offer to haul away anything Amazon-related for two weeks from July 22 to August 1. While it will cost him in the short term, he’s hoping that those who take him up on the offer will see how convenient it is to have those other items disappear to be recycled, and become regular subscribers. Read the full article on Geekwire.com here.
As a jeweler, what can you do? Don’t necessarily think about selling jewelry, but more about how you can ingratiate yourself with would-be customers. For instance, here’s one idea I came up with years ago during my annual pre-Thanksgiving silver-polish-a-thon: in July or August when things are slow, invite customers to bring all their silverware and serving pieces in for you to give them a professional polish well in advance of holiday entertaining.
Related: An Inspired Promotion Idea
Or instead of worrying about whether smart watches and Fitbits will eat your luxury watch business, promote good health and fitness by rewarding those customers who get in their 10,000 steps a day with a nice discount on a luxury watch they can wear on the other arm. Or make it a contest and have customers come in monthly to show you their step counts and at the end of the year, reward the customer who's walked the most steps with a nice watch. It gets them in the door and looking at your merchandise while you build up your relationship with them.
Or for that matter, point out that you can literally deliver better merchandise faster than Amazon Prime: same day service to local customers, also for free. You get the idea!