This week’s topic – Competing with Big Brands Online – Monday 14th January 2013

Now we’re all fully back in the swing of work schmirk for 2013, we thought we’d move on to a nice meaty (or veggie if you’re vegetarian) subject – how can small brands compete effectively with big brands online?

This is a topic that I’ve hear come up many time in discussions – some people assume you have to follow what big brands do to survive e.g. if Amazon give free delivery, then so do you. However, there are plenty of examples where smaller businesses compete by trying to differentiate their product/service and build an audience around that. For example, leading on customer service and accepting that you might not always be the cheapest on price. So we’d like to get your thinking caps on and share your experience and ideas on competing with the big boys & girls.

As usual, we’ll be focusing the discussion around three key questions:

Question 1:

In what ways can smaller companies compete with big brands online?

Question 2:

Looking at order management specifically, how should smaller companies look to compete & where can they add value to customers?

Question 3:

Which companies or brands do you think are already doing a good job of competing with big brands and why?

Please join in on Twitter using the hashtag #ecomchat. After the chat we’ll post a write-up including any links shared by chatters.

For more information contact either @jamesgurd or @danbarker via Twitter.

Thanks, James & Dan.