make promises

Online Retailers – Don’t Make Promises You Can’t Keep

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Online retailers that make promises that they can’t deliver are in danger to sacrifice the trust that their customers have in their brands…

The peril of online retail competition

Although the online retail industry is still young, retailers are already fiercely competing with each other to get the attention of online customers. Online retailers strive therefore to achieve a competitive advantage in their market by being more visible, accessible, faster, friendlier, and by offering the lowest prices.

Many online retailers, however, will find that to be better than their competitors come at a price.

Retailers that make promises they cant deliver may erode trust in their brands

A  report in the Wall Street Journal showed online shoppers were disappointed this holiday season by  retailers breaking promises to deliver packages by Christmas. A lot of disappointing customers – how will they react?

Online customers are changing – according to Chaffey and Smith they are quick to let retailers know if brands can’t their promises. Online retailers should take care to deliver the benefits they’d promised.

Retailers that do not deliver their promised benefits,may damage their brand’s reputations through negative word of mouth. The result may be a decreases in sales.

How should online retailers keep their promises?

Online retailers should know who their online customers are. Also what they want to buy, how much they are going to buy and when they want to buy.

Instead of promising next day delivery, rather add a couple of days for unforeseen happenings. Also, online retailers should communicate any problems regarding their customer’s orders and inquiries ahead of time. Doing this will help to reinforce your brand.

Concluding

If you did make a promise to a customer, and failed to keep it, then there’s a good chance that the customer will talk about it in online communities. It takes hard work to do the damage control from there…

A Marketing Plan helps you to communicate the right content to the right audience.

Read more: Word of Mouth Marketing for Better or for Worse

image: Pexels

 

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