大学商务英语课件Unit 2 Selling online.ppt

2.1 You set up the online book-selling company which became Amazon.co.uk. What do you need to create a successful online business? SM: Well, there’s really, erm, two big questions here, and it relates to sales and to profits. So, if I deal with the sales first, to be a successful online business you really need to,er, achieve lots of sales and for that there’s many things you need to get right. It’s all driven by doing a fantastic job for customers so that they tell each other and keep coming back. Er, and that’s driven first, you must have a good website, and the website needs to be easy and quick to use. Er, it needs to provide lots of information about the items that you’re buying. And, er, the prices on there need to be,you know, low prices, good prices. And then, once somebody’s ordered something from your website, er, you need to provide a fast delivery service which is reliable. And then, if anything should go wrong, er, it’s important that you have an excellent customer service team dealing with enquiries on the phone or by e-mail. So that tends to drive the sales side of the equation. 2.2 SM: The other key thing for being a successful online retailer is that, in the long term, you must make profits. There have been a number of high profile companies that have built a great service but then never made profits and eventually run out of cash. A good example of that is e-toys, which had a great service for selling toys online in America and in Europe, and eventually they ran out of money and had to go into liquidation, erm, and really as long as you get those two sides right you can build a successful online business. 2.3 And, what would you say the key differences between online selling and high street retailing? SM: Erm, lots of people have pointed out the parallels between the two, but I suppose the key difference is when you’re selling online, it’s much more like a mail order company rather than a retailer. Er, you have to have warehouses with all goods, an