We have now reached the point of how we had to design, re-design and evolve into a working model relative to the over 675 merchants in our BSP Rewards mall.
As I mentioned previously, merchants want to enhance revenue but they are reticent to offer their trademark to companies that do not fit their criteria. (Let’s change “reticent” to “overwhelmingly protective”).
They have spent many years and an enormous amount of money building their name and reputation and are justifiably hesitant to allow it to be associated with any activity that could tarnish their name. Additionally, it is not worth their effort to establish a relationship unless they can forecast justifiable economic benefit. They are presented programs everyday whereby some entrepreneur shows them pretty graphs and overwhelming projections as to the extent of business they will generate for that retailer.
The merchant has heard it all and says to himself/herself “Another lunatic who believes he will conquer the world”…. and then passes on the program. They are very particular on whom they approve and factor in aspects that go beyond concept and background – it comes down to the basic questions. “How many members do they have? How many of those members are buyers we don’t already have. Do the members match our demographic? How much revenue can they actually generate?”.
When I was young the process of approval was simple. You went to the caveman selling dinosaur meat at the bottom of the hill and got a quick yes or no as to whether or not he would also sell your wooly mammoth tusks. Today the process is multi-layered.
The main benefit to the merchants is of course the prospect of new and additional sales revenue. The BSP Rewards program added unique aspects including advertising and marketing on multiple malls with the merchant only paying for a successful sale. We also appoint the merchants as authorized redemption centers whereby they actually receive the redemption profit, increased traffic and the up-sell potential….along with a special communication element.
But let’s skip to the part whereby we had a company and a program that the merchant liked and enough members for them to test their toe in the water. This is when we learned the full evolutional extent since the caveman. The sales process to the merchant actually turned out to necessitate a series of three separate sales and we had to adjust our approach, marketing and presentation accordingly.
Each major retailer normally had at least 3 separate divisions we were interested in bringing into the program: Internet, gift cards and in-store. Not only were they disparate operations, each considered itself in competition with the other two divisions.
We were therefore placed in the position of having to prepare materials that targeted the requirement of each department….and in many instances departments were sometimes represented by organizations outside of their own company.
……..again that is another story for another time.
