I am going to use the example below of buying a hair straightener this is my experience of when I purchased a hair straightener 4 years ago from a leading hair care brand the prices for this straightener ranged from 75 to 129 and vastly changed among different search engines and websites around the web.
Let’s start with the two type of sales that occur on the internet and discuss them more thoroughly using the hair straightener as an example:-
Direct From The Manufacturer
The internet has made it easier for manufacturers not only to sell their products in bulk in a wholesale capacity but also to offer one-off sales to consumers directly. Mostly manufacturers will sell at their retail price price to avoid upsetting their wholesale customers. Some Manufacturers will stay totally clear of this approach finding it, time consuming and costly instead preferring to sell in large volumes through distribution channels. This enables two things; good cash flow remember they have large factory costs to balance. The second thing is some prefer support for their product and after sales supporting the consumer side of their market to ultimately support their brand.
Pro’s From the Manufacture
* Genuine Product
* Good After Sales
Con’s From the Manufacturer
* Must Sell At List
* Lack of Offer Innovation
Affiliate Schemes
Affiliate schemes work by a manufacturer inserting their product into an affiliate scheme network where they allow anyone to sell it within certain guidelines at a recommend Retail Price but this is not always the case. If they make a sale the affiliate gets commission on that sale from the manufacturer. This is a very virtual selling technique as the sellers sometimes only get paid a small click through to refer there product from one site to another and so on. They never come into contact with the customer and are only interested in volume sales as there revenues are very slim
Pro’s From Affiliate Schemes
* Cheaper Products
* On Mass Sold Through lots of Outlets
Con’s From the Manufacturer
* Sometimes Piggy backing occurs where two online shops will split the commission with a redirecting to another site
* Can cause delivery delays
* Lack of knowledge by seller of product if its niche
* Poor after sales
* Difficult to identify who has sold you the product is virtual
* No reputation to keep -unit selling in volume
* Risk of fake goods
My hair straightener experience; I used the search engine to look for my hair straightener exact make and model to drill into results I also used shopping comparison sites, but when I got to checkout I found delivery heavily charged on the product 15 right before checkout. I finally purchase a pair f hair straighteners at 89.99 delivered they arrived 7 days later. They where boxed and looked and worked like the genuine article. They lasted 3 months after this time they stopped working, I contacted the manufacturer who informed me they were not registered with them so no warranty.
A lesson learned
What I recommend if you want the genuine article purchase from and independent’s or the manufacturer’s website. If you want the genuine article and wanting a good deal look to the independents check they are approved, and they are physically there so if any problems you can drive to them/contact them easily. Check the quality of their website this goes back to reputation, would they sell off a poor quality site? If they were serious about their business? Independent’s are often small shops which sell in their high street shop and also decide to sell online through their own website. They buy the product from a local distributor close to them and recommend and sell to their customer base and online. Their profit is effectively there commission like the affiliate network. Except they are handling the product and are concerned about cross sell or return orders also they are concerned with the product being genuine and also there after sales service to keep their reputation intact. Independent seller may often have to sell the product at the recommended retail price in order to stock it they may offer generous Free offers on top of this to close a sale.
Conclusion
We all love to find a bargain, but we don’t want to be suckers. The internet offers distance selling which often takes away the personal shopping experience, although some of the large high street brands have recognized and started to change this. It’s also caused fake goods, click through, spam covered websites covered in adverts. I think there’s a real divide occurred between large major chains and small independents in niche markets, the large chains offering the value and trust, and the independent smaller niche stores being able to focus on their niche and reputation building.
Like the old saying if something is too much of a bargain it’s usually too good to be true how many times have you purchased to find its reconditioned or arrives late or is fake or badly packaged if it ever arrives at all. To spot an affiliate scheme when browsing check the web address at the top of the page if it’s very long with lots of codes this means you are purchasing from and affiliate. I would look to some middle ground look for quality stores selling their niche call them up speak to them, get advice you may not be saving 30 on new but chances are you will receive the product on time, its genuine and you may get a Free gift or Two!
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