NONE: ONLINE-ADS>> The Amazon.com model
ONLINE-ADS>> The Amazon.com model
Jason T Ellis (treknews_at_juno.com)
Wed, 23 Jul 1997 10:04:07 -0400
Hello-
I have a problem I've been trying to work out, and I'd like to get the
rest of the list's advice.
For the past 10 months or so, I've had a virtual bookstore as part of my
web site. This bookstore is maintained as an affiliate of Amazon.com
through their affiliates program.
I've kind of gotten fed up with their system, though. My sales are way,
way off - fewer than 2 percent of the people who click through to a
specific book (and fewer than 1 percent of all people visiting the site)
are actually buying anything. Now, I can't do anything about that 1% who
don't click through ... they're just not interested. But of the ones that
*do* click through, I would tend to assume at least a 5% to 10% of those
(since they're obviously interested in the book, and knew the price up
front) would order something.
I've tracked it down to being a problem with Amazon.com's system ... once
a user clicks through to a book, they're then on Amazon.com's site. If
they go anywhere else... I loose the sale by default. They're only
tracked to that one single page.
Because of this, I'm considering transfering my bookstore to an
associates program at a local bookstore. Their price is almost as good as
Amazon.com, they have a much larger selection in the designated topic
area (sci-fi) than Amazon.com does (because they are a sci-fi and mystery
bookstore, only), and unlike Amazon.com, the user *never leaves my page*
-- every book in their catalog will be there through a search script, but
they designate a separate script just for my users. I'll be getting every
single sale.
The only downside is the name recognition. You say Amazon.com, and people
think of a big, trustworthy bookstore. You say Space-Crime Continuum ...
no one's heard of them.
So what do you think? How much business will I loose because people will
be fearful of buying from an unknown entity? I know these people and I've
dealt with them for years -- it's a great store and the people who run it
are absolutely fantastic. But most internet users won't know that.
How important is that name recognition? And will that be as severe a
problem as Amazon.com's click through to their site problem?
I'm not a marketing expert -- but many of you are. Can you help?
Jason Ellis
Queen's Pawn Productions
-------------------------------------------------------------
WWW.TREKNEWS.COM
- News - Books - Chats
- Fanzines - Fan Clubs - Much more!
-------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This week's Online Advertising Discussion List sponsor:
The New York Times on the Web targets ads with EXCEPTIONAL PRECISION
due to user-supplied demographic information on 1.7 million registered
users. Find your audience. ---------->>> http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Online Advertising Discussion List To Unsubscribe send UNSUBSCRIBE
http://www.o-a.com/ to online-ads-request_at_o-a.com
