What’s He Building In There?

Retailing Together has been slacking on the posts lately, but for a really good reason. Rather than just talking about how retailers and manufacturers can work together online, we’re doing something about it, building software that will make it much easier for manufacturers to collaborate with retailers on Internet Marketing.

The core problem we are working to solve is that few independent retailers have high-quality websites that are valuable for Internet marketing. This deficit isn’t too surprising, considering that for an independent, retailing is a full-time job, leaving little time to learn about constructing websites and Internet marketing, must less for doing any of it.  The result is that when independent  retailers do have web sites, they are often not maintained and not promoted, so the site isn’t very valuable.

A poor website is a problem for a retailer, but also for a retailer’s manufacturers: when a manufacturer’s retailers aren’t promoting themselves online, they are also not promoting the manufacturer’s products online. So, manufacturers should be concerned about this problem as well, and we think they should be part of the solution.

Our solution is for the manufacturer to help the retailer with website development, maintenance and  promotion. Retailers get high-quality, easy to deploy and maintain websites, and the manufacturers get  a much broader web presences. Consumer’s benefit because they can find products online and locate the local retailers that sell them.

The software is going into demos in the next few weeks, and we will announce the demos here. We’re looking forward to your feedback on how we can make it easier to be an independent retailer.