is the internet only shopper a cheap/low end price shopper ?

[greenoak]

we do that a bit too huggy on somw big stuff....but on casual like shoes no....we saved 100$ on an overton coupon for a big raft for the kids..and a 100$ on a 400$ postcard order with a coupon dh found ..i guess i would call it smart not cheap...but i dont do it on most things i can get from amazon...
on cars i would rather be local for service....
ann

[huggytree]

i dont think anything about my website or any advertising makes me sound like a cheap plumber...i have put effort into sounding expensive just to get rid of price shoppers....my phone book ads changed to 'i do it right the first time'...it ended my phone book calls....

any phone calls i receive from the internet have been great...its not my website....its a specific type of customer who sees my website and e-mails me instead of calling me on the phone....my website phone calls have greatly improved since the redesign...i win every job....they look at my website and want ME to do their plumbing.

i just find it funny that when im buying cheap i do the exact same thing that people do to me!...search and e-mail on the internet......im surprised to hear it doesn't hold true for all businesses...

for those of you it doesnt hold true for.....are you a low priced business or high end?....maybe it holds true and your just the low price out of the 100 e-mails they send out?

[billbenson]

I sell at about a 30% markup when my competition is often heavily discounting. The cheap guys sell and so do I. I only discount on very large orders. I found out from the manufacturer the other day that one of the heavy discounters online does about the same volume as I do. So bottom line is the low priced online site gets the price shoppers and I get the "high end" business. Their website is designed to attract the price shopper, mine attracts the people who aren't price shopping.

As far as emails, I would say only a couple percent of them are price shoppers. If I'm busy I don't answer the email, if I have time I send them a quick quote.

[greenoak]

huggy,we definitely arent low end... id say we arent a commodity, we are more a wow thing and unusual.....not something easy to find... our internet benefit isnt because we won a specific price comparison like a waterheater price or a candle price....and thats why we dont try to sell online...we couldnt win in a candle price comparison....
still they saw us online and came and bought...a lot of times...

[Business Attorney]

I'd say I get about an equal number of inquiries via email and the phone. I don't really see a difference between the two with respect to price-shoppers except in one area - those expecting to pay nothing at all. Since I write frequently on a variety legal topics, I get a fair number of people who call me up in the middle of the day at work and want to ask some general questions about their situation, for free.

I rarely get requests for free advice via email, probably because it would be too much work for them to explain their situation in an email. I really would prefer to get those freebie requests via email because I can reply with a canned response that explains that my writings are for educational purposes and are not legal advice and that our professional rules prohibit my giving legal advice where no attorney-client relationship exists. That takes a few seconds and can be done in the evening or even on the train. Getting a phone call is much more disruptive to my productivity.