Showing posts with label PLM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PLM. Show all posts

Friday, November 27, 2009

Yes, Kemo Sabe, This Company Is Succeeding In Today’s Economy!

Want real positive simple answers to why this giftware supplier company is making it?

1. Products people want to buy are offered for sale at fair, affordable retail prices. Simple as it sounds many companies today have beaten to death tired old product lines because they get a big mark up or they don’t have the monies to develop new designs. Most old giftware today is in the "dollar store" graveyards and competes directly with the "Brand" offerings at rock bottom prices. The perceived value is still there on this new companies products, they sell thru and the "Brand" retailer gets great turns because it is priced right. Many giftware companies are still slapping new or licensed art on old tired junk, this is not 2010 product development, those days are gone....

This "new" company understands that impulse products must do more than one thing in the market today. Being a “dustible” (A giftware or Collectible that now or in the future collects dust on a shelf) doesn’t sell in today’s economic environment. Products today have 3 seconds to stoke the emotion of a buyer, cruel as it sounds. This company positively pushes specific targeted responses and connects with the individual buyer’s “emotion button.”

2. Internal systems are state of the art, outsourced, and yield variable overhead at low cost. VOIP Phones, Cloud email, I.T., accounting, HR, customer service infrastructure, and web services, etc, are all outsourced and the savings are given back to the end customer in lower prices, again giving the products high perceived value and high turns for the retailers.

3. Interactive consumer mindset. One of their top selling “Giftibles” is designed for today’s and tomorrow’s buyer enlisting the capability to have the product interact with a personalized live website as an ongoing ROI service.

4. Aggressive marketing that finds the customer and supports the brand for its retailers. Infomercials, Permission email marketing, Direct Marketing, and a number of innovative techniques that are proprietary all support their retailers and drive end customers to their dealers in an ongoing effort. They are playing offense, not defense with their marketing and sales in conventional and unconventional ways!

Who is this company that “get’s it” in today’s challenging marketplace? The company is called Little Gifts (http://www.littlegifts.com/) and is one of the top giftware companies listed on this year’s best seller list by Giftbeat magazines 2009 charts (Pet gifts) (http://www.giftbeat.com/ ). One of its hot items? IDtag.com (http://www.idtag.com/ ) is a non evasive, privacy protected pet system that invokes a gift and interactive web solution for finding lost pets. Great sellers are breed specific targeted affordable impulse items for owners of specific dogs, cats, etc.

The owner’s did not drop out of the sky with their innovations, rather learned the gift marketplace after being highly regarded consultants (for some of the “big Dog” brands back in the day). Growing up in the new interactive world Little Gifts owners took the entrepreneurial path and combined their business know how and consulting experience with their own money to create this vision of what works. This product line and company is gift, collectible, and decorative accessories circa 2010. They have reinvented the successful gift company model for the next decade.

So Kemo Sabe, better to light a candle than curse the darkness of this consumer economy, lessons learned from today’s buyer are showing the way. This is one case study with a happy ending, these folks are adapting and being rewarded for creating a new business model; they should be congratulated!

You might want to take a page from their book and forget about all those Indians that are swarming around your present situation.......

Thursday, November 19, 2009

PLM, SaaS, CRM, And The Crowded Airwaves


The (Retail Supply Chain Software) Greater Fool Theory Strikes Again.... Or BUY MY Tulip Bulbs, They Will Make You Rich!

The new sexy jazzy Internet software gold rush I've witnessed this month is a ton of software companies claiming to have the latest, greatest supply chain software solutions (PLM, SaaS, CRM,etc.). This last month has amazed me, all spin their solutions for the Big Box retailers and most claim to have the ear of the same companies, truly amazing......

Many name drop-Walmart, Best Buy, Costco, etc and all seem to be in the favored son position of Microsoft, waiting to be hatched. Is this the next "Greater fool theory?" I'm truly amazed at the number of companies burning capital to hire software developers building elaborate IT boxes that they can't sell to anyone......They want to get attention and sell the software company to some bigger "fool".

Don't get me wrong, I do believe in PLM, CRM, SaaS, as the future. The reason for this blog is buyer be careful.......... I currently see a lot of legacy IT folks doing the applications for pragmatic buyers and management at these companies not owning the applications being shoved at them by outside "consultants". My humble opinion is the new world order needs to have relationship folks to get it "sold" and adopted by the rank and file. Many are expensive toys that are put on the shelf......

The really great systems installations have been team efforts and are sold and installed by non IT management as the leads supported by IT. Be careful, it's not Kansas anymore......... and certainly not plug and play technology.....