With The Times' paywall coming down very soon its an interesting time to see if 'paying for news' will pay for publishers.
At the moment there seem to be two camps...
In the red corner the journalists decrying the free nature of the Internet which is removing the value (and money) from their profession.
In the blue corner (which seems to be quite a lot bigger) are readers who say - why should I pay someone when I can get news for free?
So in my role as being stuck in the middle here's my pennyworth.
The main problem I see is that of understanding what 'news' is. Just as not everything on the Internet is free, not everything in a newspaper is actually news. Equally not a great deal of the 'news' bits of a paper are even written by that newspaper with lots being agency copy, or mildly rehashed copy from other places. In fact a large percentage of original copy in a paper isn't really 'news' at all it being columnist material and this is where the paywall arguments become interesting.
Take for example last week's interview with Lady Ga Ga by Catlin Moran which was in The Times. My wife who is a big fan of both people decided to actually buy the entire paper (£1.50 I think) solely on the basis of this single article. The vast majority of the paper was left unread (and indeed still folded). Had this article been available via some itunesy type system then she would have been happy to spend 99p simply to download this one piece and save a tiny bit of Finnish Forest in the process.
On the other hand the carefully crafted/rehashed content in the rest of the paper was 'worthless' as any news can be read on multiple free sites or, heaven forbid, even on the TV or Radio.
The Times would, I'm sure have been happy to sell this one article and Catlin would have been happy as she could then have directly measured her worth to Mr Murdoch and charged accordingly!
Other columnists who sold articles in this way would be able to measure (and be measured on) how popular they are and how much they actually contribute to their paper. Maybe a meritocracy amongst columnists will be the result?
The best analogy I can think of would be the 'Now that's what I call music' albums. Why on earth would you pay £9, £10 or even £5 for a 2 CD pack which had 4 tracks you wanted and 34 you couldn't care less about when you can already download the four tracks for 99p each from iTunes and leave the rest of the rubbish alone?
So perhaps The Times and other papers might consider configuring, in time, their paywalls to allow people to view and 'download' articles on a pay per view basis. The main advantages I could see would be;
1) I can read one article from The Times, one from The Guardian and maybe one or two others for less than a single subscription to either paper
2) The papers will know which of their contributors are paying their way
3) Contributors can promote their content on blogs, twitter or facebook and actually be helping themselves and their employers to earn a living.
4) If there was a referral system (like adsense or similar) then other sites and blogs would actually have incentives to link to content behind the paywall rather than attempt to steal the content and republish it - If you make linking to content profitable then why steal it?
What about the poor 'news' team who's content is 'worthless'
Well it does seem strange that any pay-per-read system might actually switch the priorities around. Instead of being news first and columnist padding second this system probably reflects a switch of priorities in supply and demand. There are many ways to find out what the FTSE100 is doing but only one Jeremy Clarkson (thankfully) so the paper that 'owns' him has a commodity that no-one else can replicate. Any paper needs both but instead of the news team subsidising expensive columnists it'll be the expensive columnists who'll be expected to draw readers towards the 'public service' news element.
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Friday, 28 May 2010
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Pt 3 - Your own website
So if Ebay is good for clearing junk or selling unbranded cheap stuff and Amazon is a fairly effective way of selling brand name stuff where would your own website fit?
Well quite simply in the niche between those two fields.
Our own personal experience over the past 5-6 years is that a Website is pretty good at selling stuff that simply doesn't fit into those two broad categories for one (or more) of the following reasons...
1) It doesn't actually have barcodes - i.e. is handmade, custom made or made by such small enterprises that they can't afford to go down the barcode registration route. (we sell craft kits made and sold by a 3 person company they have no desire to sell millions of them)
2) It is a very unusual thing in your region - so lots of imported goods would fit here (Polish language DVDs would probably be quite successful on a UK website offering quick UK shipping!)
3) It has a small dedicated following - so the potential customers are able and willing to search out stuff (Manga back issues spring to mind)
4) It isn't too price sensitive - if only 3-4 sellers are selling the item then the sellers not buyers set the price and so price comparision (the Amazon way) is irrelevant.
5) The distributor or manufacturer has actually banned sales via EBay or Amazon - getting more common for high end products.
So if you're thinking of your own website, score your products against the 5 items above. If you score 3 or more then a website is probably the best/only way to go. But first do some research...
Go to google and (thinking like a buyer) type in a search looking for your product. Try not to use part numbers or industry terminology but really use language or words that a first time buyer might try.
If in the first page of results, 5 are for amazon (and actually end up in the right place) then give up and sell on Amazon. If any Amazon/EBay ones end up at the wrong product and/or 5 of the results are for overseas sites or for discussion threads then you have a decent chance of getting good results selling through your website.
So summary
EBay - good for unbranded and or secondhand or clearance lines (we all make mistakes) getting a reputation for cheap tat
Amazon - think of it as a price comparison site rather than a shopping mall and focus on mainstream brands
Own Website - specialist stuff where competion is fairly low or your stuff is so specific no-where else will do.
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Well quite simply in the niche between those two fields.
Our own personal experience over the past 5-6 years is that a Website is pretty good at selling stuff that simply doesn't fit into those two broad categories for one (or more) of the following reasons...
1) It doesn't actually have barcodes - i.e. is handmade, custom made or made by such small enterprises that they can't afford to go down the barcode registration route. (we sell craft kits made and sold by a 3 person company they have no desire to sell millions of them)
2) It is a very unusual thing in your region - so lots of imported goods would fit here (Polish language DVDs would probably be quite successful on a UK website offering quick UK shipping!)
3) It has a small dedicated following - so the potential customers are able and willing to search out stuff (Manga back issues spring to mind)
4) It isn't too price sensitive - if only 3-4 sellers are selling the item then the sellers not buyers set the price and so price comparision (the Amazon way) is irrelevant.
5) The distributor or manufacturer has actually banned sales via EBay or Amazon - getting more common for high end products.
So if you're thinking of your own website, score your products against the 5 items above. If you score 3 or more then a website is probably the best/only way to go. But first do some research...
Go to google and (thinking like a buyer) type in a search looking for your product. Try not to use part numbers or industry terminology but really use language or words that a first time buyer might try.
If in the first page of results, 5 are for amazon (and actually end up in the right place) then give up and sell on Amazon. If any Amazon/EBay ones end up at the wrong product and/or 5 of the results are for overseas sites or for discussion threads then you have a decent chance of getting good results selling through your website.
So summary
EBay - good for unbranded and or secondhand or clearance lines (we all make mistakes) getting a reputation for cheap tat
Amazon - think of it as a price comparison site rather than a shopping mall and focus on mainstream brands
Own Website - specialist stuff where competion is fairly low or your stuff is so specific no-where else will do.
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EBay vs Amazon vs Own Website - Part 2 Amazon
On the face of it the Amazon E Commerce offering for thrid parties doesn't seem to offer sellers very much at all.
Effectively what you are doing is stocking Amazon's shelves with your own goods at your own risk and paying them quite high fees for the privilege. (circa £30 a month plus 10-15% of the sale price).
Certainly its a great way for Amazon to offer a huge range of slow moving lines with absolutely zero risk to themselves and should a seller hit upon a great new product then it wouldn't take a genius to realise that Amazon will quickly find out and start stocking it themselves.
Another downside to the Amazon offering is its reversal of the EBay process of each seller listing products separately. On Amazon, everyone selling the same item (defined by the barcode) is listed as a competing sellers on the same product listing - using the same photo and product details. This has a great advantage for both Amazon (reducing product database issues) and the buyer (they see one product description per product rather than the 100's on EBay) but the big problem for sellers is that the only differentiator between sellers is now the price. This can lead to dutch auctions where competing sellers progressively cut each others throats to be the cheapest (and therefore successful) seller of the product.
So, with all these problems (highish fees, cut-throat pricing, doing Amazon's market research for them) why would anyone sell there?
For some sellers dissolutioned with EBay its pretty much the only place to go. If you are selling brand new, brand name items which are easily available on the highstreet or in lots of on-line stores then your chances of getting high visibility in Google (without paying a fortune in adwords) are pretty close to zero. Google and to a greater extent customer behaviour are working against you and so you need to get your stuff visible somehow.
For a minute think like a buyer. If you are looking for a, say, Barbie townhouse by Mattel you have a few options....
1) You can try EBay- type in a few words on their search engine and get swamped with thousands of options 99% of which are useless or broken or secondhand or for unbranded 'dolls house/townhouse suitable for Barbie' rip-offs (EBay's search system is a byword for completely useless and impossible to use rubbish)
2) You could search in Google and get 105,000 results (most of the first page which are with Amazon anyway) and spend ages looking and comparing or
3) Go to Amazon and find it almost instantly and be able to compare 4-5 sellers straight away on a single page.
After a while customers quickly work out the best thing to do.
Therefore having an Amazon shop isn't really like having a Shop on Amazon. Its more like signing up to an Amazon branded shopping/price comparison site and getting them to do the SEO and adwords campaigns for you.
When you stop thinking of Amazon as a storefront and consider it more to be a comparison site where you are paying a success fee then its system starts to look a little more sensible. (particularly if you are careful and can persuade customers to bypass Amazon the next time)
Certainly its fees begin to compare nicely to a potentially expensive adwords campaign where conversion rates are almost always single digit.
So what is Amazon good for selling?
I would say (based on my experience) that it is great for mass market, mainstream stuff that otherwise would be too expensive to market effectively via adwords. Amazon is starting be become a byword (just like google did) for shopping searches for new items.
So now we know that
EBay is good for unbranded, clearance and secondhand bargains
and
Amazon is good for new, branded mainstream products
Where does a website fit into the pattern?
Well that will be part three
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Effectively what you are doing is stocking Amazon's shelves with your own goods at your own risk and paying them quite high fees for the privilege. (circa £30 a month plus 10-15% of the sale price).
Certainly its a great way for Amazon to offer a huge range of slow moving lines with absolutely zero risk to themselves and should a seller hit upon a great new product then it wouldn't take a genius to realise that Amazon will quickly find out and start stocking it themselves.
Another downside to the Amazon offering is its reversal of the EBay process of each seller listing products separately. On Amazon, everyone selling the same item (defined by the barcode) is listed as a competing sellers on the same product listing - using the same photo and product details. This has a great advantage for both Amazon (reducing product database issues) and the buyer (they see one product description per product rather than the 100's on EBay) but the big problem for sellers is that the only differentiator between sellers is now the price. This can lead to dutch auctions where competing sellers progressively cut each others throats to be the cheapest (and therefore successful) seller of the product.
So, with all these problems (highish fees, cut-throat pricing, doing Amazon's market research for them) why would anyone sell there?
For some sellers dissolutioned with EBay its pretty much the only place to go. If you are selling brand new, brand name items which are easily available on the highstreet or in lots of on-line stores then your chances of getting high visibility in Google (without paying a fortune in adwords) are pretty close to zero. Google and to a greater extent customer behaviour are working against you and so you need to get your stuff visible somehow.
For a minute think like a buyer. If you are looking for a, say, Barbie townhouse by Mattel you have a few options....
1) You can try EBay- type in a few words on their search engine and get swamped with thousands of options 99% of which are useless or broken or secondhand or for unbranded 'dolls house/townhouse suitable for Barbie' rip-offs (EBay's search system is a byword for completely useless and impossible to use rubbish)
2) You could search in Google and get 105,000 results (most of the first page which are with Amazon anyway) and spend ages looking and comparing or
3) Go to Amazon and find it almost instantly and be able to compare 4-5 sellers straight away on a single page.
After a while customers quickly work out the best thing to do.
Therefore having an Amazon shop isn't really like having a Shop on Amazon. Its more like signing up to an Amazon branded shopping/price comparison site and getting them to do the SEO and adwords campaigns for you.
When you stop thinking of Amazon as a storefront and consider it more to be a comparison site where you are paying a success fee then its system starts to look a little more sensible. (particularly if you are careful and can persuade customers to bypass Amazon the next time)
Certainly its fees begin to compare nicely to a potentially expensive adwords campaign where conversion rates are almost always single digit.
So what is Amazon good for selling?
I would say (based on my experience) that it is great for mass market, mainstream stuff that otherwise would be too expensive to market effectively via adwords. Amazon is starting be become a byword (just like google did) for shopping searches for new items.
So now we know that
EBay is good for unbranded, clearance and secondhand bargains
and
Amazon is good for new, branded mainstream products
Where does a website fit into the pattern?
Well that will be part three
Get a free e-mail account with Hotmail. Sign-up now.
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