Many ecommerce business owners have a hard time understanding trends. An ecommerce business runs on the same cycles as a brick-and-mortar business. The dot com industry learned that ten years ago. They believed they could ride the wave forever, then everything crashed. This left many people wondering what happened. The fact is, nothing happened. The ecommerce business community worked like all markets do.
Tracking a businesss cycle is easy. All the business owner needs to understand is a few basics, and track how they interact, and how that interaction effects profits. This can be done on a simple spread sheet, or in a table in Word.
The Consumer
Sales techniques come and go. In todays market, the best way to sell is by creating a relationship, and / or educating the consumer about the product. In the sixties appliances were sold by promising to make moms life easier.
In the eighties men stood on platforms in malls and laughed at their wifes stupidity, and challenged the men passing by that if they wanted their tomatoes sliced properly, they needed to purchase the knife on sale. Both of these sales techniques would fail today because the consumer has...