Curious Biz folk that I am, I decided to check it out, and found myself analyzing the site’s potential for success (yes, I am that humble…)
I think they work well on some areas to encourage sales:
Secrecy: Sales start times are a secret, and sales products are also secret. So, keep watching to find out.
Cost: Who doesn’t like low cost? They promise lower prices than elsewhere.
Limited Quantities: By keeping quantities low, and not explaining how low, they help encourage a purchase; after all, it might not be there later.
On the other hand, they have (I feel) several things that could work against them:
Domain name: I HATE IT! I’m sorry, but when I look at DealDotCom.com all I hear is this exchange between two guys:
Al: Yeah, go to deal dot com
Sal: Deal.com?
Al: No, deal-dot-com-DOT-COM
Sal: Are you stuttering?
Al: No, it’s a gimmick, see, they put DOT COM in their domain name…
Too long, too much explanation, and too much chance of confusion (and since ‘deal.com’ is going to be a sales site as well, they are just begging to lose traffic). I’d really plan to get a new domain going ASAP, as a site like this will benefit from word of mouth, and needs to avoid confusion (and yes, I’ll be happy to send them a copy of my guide to picking quality domain names).
Limited Market: They are currently offering one item a day. Frankly, I won’t wait around, and now visiting their site is like trying to hit a moving target – if I’ve come at the right time, great; if not, I won’t even know I missed something! And email doesn’t help, since email services aren’t guaranteed to deliver at a specific time (or soon enough for fast-selling items). They would do better to have a ‘coming soon’ and ‘recent offers’ list somewhere.
Stopping Selling. NEVER stop selling! If you have a product that sells, why stop? I realize they are setting a specific price and limiting quantities – so just raise the price and open the limits after. For example, offer a SRP $67 item for $27 for 100, then everyone else can pay $47 – you can still have limited quantities, anticipation – and also continued sales.
Advertise. Right now, they have a launch of Sep 18, and their blog started the 10th. Besides starting the blog WAY ahead of the launch, I’d consider doing more with the RSS, including a highly visible subscribe button, and targeting it for ‘sneak peeks’ and ‘coming soon’ style entries. Blog exposure and a useful RSS feed would get them more bang for the buck.
Of course, this is only a quick look. I do think the idea has merit. I was considering a site like this awhile ago myself (with steadily increasing prices instead), so I’ll be watching to see how well this goes over. Since it has big names associated with it, it will splash well I have no doubt – but I’m wondering what tweaking they’ll need to do to keep it running high for a long time…
Site Mentioned: DealDotCom.com
