Ecommerce Ingredient List: 1 – Value Proposition

Have you ever watched a TV chef whip up a meal in 10 minutes? Somewhere in the background, someone has prepared all the ingredients for the recipe – sourced, washed, chopped, weighed… Whichever recipe you use to start selling online, you need do some preparation.

Want to get all the Ingredients for Ecommerce Success in one place? Buy the Book.

Value Proposition or ‘What Makes you Special?’

This one is a fundamental ingredient for any business whether selling online or not. The law of averages says that your business idea is not new. There are probably others selling your products and services, so why should customers buy from you?

• What makes your business model different for your customer?
• How does your customer promise differ from your competition?
• How can you communicate your value proposition in three words or less?

Offline vs Online Value Proposition

Let’s say that you have a retail shop and you sell gift items like photo frames and candles. Your value proposition in an offline world might include being within a 10 minute drive for your customers, or the fact that you open late on Saturdays.

In the Ecommerce world, being close by or open at certain hours do not differentiate you. Suddenly, rather than competing with other businesses in your area, you are competing with every frame and candle seller in the world who will deliver to the same places as you.

This works the other way too. Perhaps the global online site can’t offer their customer experience in your local language. Perhaps their support online works from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday in a totally different time-zone.

Focus on Benefits not Price or Features.

Your value proposition should be something that you can defend. Being the cheapest in the market is not something that you can always guarantee. It’s also much easier to bring prices down than put them up.

Even the best marketing people don’t really get the difference between features and benefits. Think about new smartphones with a dual-camera feature. Have you ever stopped to ask why 2 lenses are better than one? What is the benefit of dual cameras? (For photography geeks, some of the benefits include being able to take photos using HDR for contrasting light conditions and having a different focus for foreground and background.)

One way to think about benefits versus features is to ask the following questions:

• What problem does this feature solve for the customer?
• So What? So That?

“This lipstick comes in 200 shades…” So What? So that you can match it with your whole wardrobe, so you can be unique and never wear the same lipstick colour as your best friend on important occasions.

If you can’t think of how your products and services solve a problem for a customer, then maybe you are selling the wrong things!

Emotional Benefits

Perhaps you sell something where the problem that is being solved is not so obvious. Maybe you are selling something that satisfies a basic need – like hunger. Or you may be selling a product that provides peace of mind – like insurance.

Rather than thinking about what problem your products solve, think about the emotions your products and services change.

“Only 25 of these T-Shirts will ever be produced”. So What? So you might not get one? You might miss out! (FOMO – Fear Of Missing Out, is an emotion that some customers, especially selfie taking Millenials, respond to.) This might not be something to build a sustainable business on.

What Makes Your Ecommerce Offer Special?

There is nothing wrong with competition. Chances are that if you have no competitors, you aren’t looking hard enough or you don’t really have a market for your product.

Why do your current customers buy from you? Here are just some things to think about when building your value proposition – you need to be able to PROVE it too:

• Variety – Do you have a wider range than others?
• Exclusivity – Do you have access to products that others don’t
• Quality – Do you have better products than other people
• Experience – Do your people know more about the market than others?
• Support – Can you offer better service than the next site?
• Local Knowledge – Do you understand local customs, language, conditions better than others?
• Trust – Do your customers believe in you. Do you have testimonials and reviews?
• Payment Methods – Do you offer different ways to pay, financing, installments, cash on delivery?
• Shipping – Can you deliver faster at a lower cost?

Is this an Essential Ingredient?

Having a defensible Value Proposition should be something that is at the heart of your business. You could begin your ecommerce project without it, but there is a risk that you will have the wrong products, that your communication won’t be consistent and you will be wasting money on marketing.