Would You Buy Phone Systems Online?

By Author: Tony Raynor
Total Articles: 3
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People buy unusual things on the internet but should that extend to capital equipment for industry such as phone systems? They say that travel tickets are the biggest mover and there is an interesting article about the top ten goods at http://wordinvestor.blogspot.com/2010/01/most-common-items-sold-online.html .
Those are all consumers related which is presumably why they are dominant. They are all low price but high volume which makes the difference. The market is huge because there are billions of global consumers all with their own pounds to spend.
It is hardly surprising that holidays feature strongly as that is one area that we love to research in this way. I know that I myself have spent hours online looking at varying holiday destinations. The information is mostly rich, comprehensive and you can also read other peoples’ findings of particular hotels and resorts. Indeed I don’t anticipate that I would book a vacation without referring to Tripadvisor. ...
... There is always the possibility of skewed opinions written under pseudonyms by the hotelier themselves but you can gain a good feel about somewhere by checking the website. When integrated to Facebook you can create a map based record of all of the places that you’ve visited and I find this a great method of encouraging me to venture further afield.
But what of large items for business use such as phone systems? Perhaps that is more of a challenge. The value is higher but the volumes are lower. There are technicalities to the likes of phone systems and therefore a necessity for graphic explanation. To this end the owners of 1700cc.co.uk extensively employ video to clarify the understanding of buyers at a distance. The firm, Abbey Telecom, even boasts an entire site which provides users with over 60 training clips showing individual features of their phone systems in action.
On 1700cc it is all about providing “complete communications” for 15 extensions for £1700 including the installation. The marketing proposition is to eradicate the need for costly salesmen by simplifying the procurement process. I suspect that managing directors of smallish enterprises start by doing desk researching in the evenings whilst at home. The secret is to be more than helpful when any of them ring in to them during daylight times. These guys seem to have cleverly honed the series of events that make ordering more likely than you would think.
So where does it stop? What is not suitable for the World Wide Web? Well if phone systems work, surely there cannot be anything that couldn’t be e-traded.