17th
Location, Location, Location is Old Business
How many times have you heard from head honchos and “thought leaders” that the most important thing in business is your location? This used to be true pre dot-com era, and is critical for businesses in the food industry, however the web has changed that.
Location is important because you want to attract the best crowd to buy your product or service. Real estate is expensive.
Social media is important because you want to attract the best crowd to buy your product or service. Twitter and Facebook are free.
I like numbers, so lets compare two companies that operate via location, and via the web.
Amazon and Barnes & Noble both sell books. Amazon through online media and Barnes & Noble primarily through regular real estate channels.
Amazon Market Capitalization: $38 billion at the time of this writing
Barnes & Noble Market Capitalization: $1.2 billion at the time of this writing
Now I understand Amazon vs Barnes & Noble isn’t an apples to apples comparison - but the bottom line is this: We can have a vast amount of information we can collect about our customers to analyze and enhance our product offerings on the cheap. This level of granularity can’t be achieved by old business, and is the sole reason why the shift towards online customer experience is so important.
