2 C’s of E-Commerce Pamela J. Brown, Ph.D Associate Professor and Extension Entrepreneurship Specialist Tucumcari Workshop Basic Track

What’s in customers and competition? Identifying AND defining your market Targeting your customer Defining and identifying your competition Finding and learning from competition

Who are your customers? How did you identify the customer? Do you know what your customer wants? What do YOU know about your customer? Will your customers change?

Will any customer do? Identifying target markets –Who are they –Where are they –What are their characteristics Demographics – age, income, ethnicity, education Psychographics – entertainment, travel, reading Values – family, time, beliefs, Learn what customers want – they won’t buy what they don’t want.

Activity Do a search to find your business’s target market characteristics. –Hint: Search for demographic info Search for psychographics Search by age, location, income, ethnicity, etc.

Search engines Directories: – Directories.htmlhttp:// Directories.html Search Engines: – earch.htmlhttp:// earch.html

More Meta search engines: – mlhttp:// ml Unique search engines: – mlhttp:// ml News: – mlhttp:// ml American Demographics Census of Business

Search results Who are your potential customers? Where do they live, what will they buy? What are their favorite activities? Are you offering what they want at the right price? What can you do to “target” these folks?

Segment customers Gender Age Income Location Ethnicity Your customer demographics today may not be the same in 3-5 years!

Understand the competition Who are your 5 nearest competitors? Who are your indirect competitors?

Find your competition List competitors List keywords to describe your products/services Use meta-search engine to search keywords Use other search engines:

Looking at the competition New products, marketing ideas, news Search engine specialties –Google- Lycos –Yahoo- AltaVista –Excite- Hotbot –Infoseek- Northern light

Activity List the key information about your competitors: –Advertising –Prices –Packaging –Hours of operation –Target market

Market & Price Potential Define market area –County, state, region, nation, globe Who is most likely to use or purchase your product or service? Know your break even point/compare Know the price points that WILL sell Include profit! Evaluate/adjust

Additional information Risk management for businesses –The Public Entity Risk Institute (PERI) –Risk Management for Small Business –Technology: Risk Checklists – MSBhttp:// MSB –TechCheck.pdfTechCheck.pdf

Customers and Competition Know both or lose! It’s your job Stay current Listen to both customers and competitors Be flexible