If your retail business is built on personal relationships, and referral sales, how do you compete with companies who are exploiting the new long tail market?

The answer is simple, do what you have always done. Build real relationships between real people, but instead of limiting this to the show room, use the new communication tools.
imagine this ….

you search for a “samgung whatever”
you get presented with a link or placement for store
you follow it to the catalogue and get presented with the standard picture and blurb
however …
a little box appears on the page with a photo of a real person saying “talk to Geoff about the samsung whatever?”
the users click yes and …
A chat window appears, then they are really talking to Geoff who can then perform the same sales behaviour that he would normally do in the store.

This can very quickly and easily be achieved, Ive seen a few sites do this for hosting, or high value products and it works really well. One guy I chatted to like this said, “Hey why dont I call you?” and we had a good chat about the various servers he had on offer.

using free products such as xmpp.

From what I gather traditional retail buisness is about people, and are therefore going for the repeat or referal business through establishment of personal relationships between customers and the sales team.

Instead of floor walkers, employ forum walkers.

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