I received an email this morning from Fedex.com. No, it wasn’t how I could save money shipping my packages via fedex and it wasn’t about how their shipping services could benefit me. I don’t even know how they acquired my email address since I don’t have a Fedex account.
Instead, it was an email selling business cards. And, the surprising thing about it was that , when I clicked to the site, it looked amazingly identical to the VistaPrint site. It’s easy enough for companies to partner with other companies with a dropship program. Some of these companies even offer a branded website. Many of us in the gift basket business take advantage of the dropship option in order to provide larger selections for our customers without having to carry the inventory.
But fedex? I was surprised. But, considering the recession we’re currently in, I guess even the giants in the various industries have to do what it takes to survive — even if it means branching out into a field that has no relation to their core service.
We, as small business owners, can learn from fedex’s decision. If our core business isn’t making enough money, think outside the box and see what you can add that will provide additional income. Dropshipping is one option, but be careful! There are good dropship companies and there are others that will destroy your credibibility, but that’s another whole article.
What are you doing to increase your income?
Unfortunately, I don’t have the creative skills to actually put out some of the beautiful baskets that you fine folks can put together. I absolutely love what FedEx did in folding a product or service into an existing business. It’s a smart idea.
Unfortunately, the only way I can actually make more money in this economy is to work a lot harder. I do have an idea that your community could do to expand their business. One of my affiliate partners has the #1 health and beauty lines and a collection of gift albums, and they are exclusive to them, meaning you can’t buy them in stores.
Gift business owners who actually put their custom gifts together themselves, could very easily use the health or beauty to put together a custom basket full of products only available through the gift business owner. This would give the gift business owners the ability create a non-gifting repeat income stream if the recipients like the products in the custom basket.
The gift albums are tremendously easy to market to businesses. These are usually pretty good for things like employee recognition, or birthdays. The gift business owner could also market custom gifts for that company’s special clients, employees or guests. As people use the gift albums, if they like them, that’s an opportunity for more business.
I’ve already helped someone do this with their personal training business. She saw a way for her to add the Nutrilite products to her business, and service her clients better. I’m going to be sitting down a friend this weekend to show her how she can fold the Artistry cosmetic line into her existing wedding makeup and photography business.
Best of luck,
Gerardo Ritchey
GerardoRitchey@gmail.com