Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I have recently established a much needed home-delivery service called Store 2 Door Deliveries in Sarasota, Florida. It is specifically designed to provide you with a unique way to shop Local retailers and purchase your groceries Online--then have everything delivered to your door the next day. My target audience is new Mom`s, busy young professionals, and homebound seniors.

The website, www.store2doordeliveries.com helps promote local retailers who do not want to invest in their own website, and also provides them with an online shopping cart for the convenience of customers. I deal with the credit card transaction, pick up the merchandise and deliver it the next day. This service broadens the retailer`s revenue base, and provides a convenience for customers who don`t normally shop at their store. I save the customer time and fuel.

I have sent out press releases, done some direct mail, am networking, and going to begin some advertising shortly. I would like to ask for suggestions in how to get intial customers to try this service, as hopefully it will grow due to word-of-mouth.

I also offer a free service to people who do not require delivery of groceries. I allow the potential customer to go on the site, build a complete list of groceries (with brand names) they use on a regular basis, and store them in their shopping list. They can add to this throughout the week, and then print it out to take with them when they go to the store. My advantage in this is there is enough white space on what they print out to allow room for my logo and an ad promoting my services, such as `gift certificates` being available, and so on. There is also room for me to place ads for my retailers.

Any suggestions in how to spread the word with email about this feature will be greatly appreciated. Sorry this is so long, but I have never been in a forum before. Thanks, Larry Kelleher

-------------------------

Larry A. Kelleher, President www.store2doordeliveries.com

larry, i highly recommend you copy/paste this post into the "Sarasota Networking" [CLICK ON IT!] post i created earlier. you`re more likely to get local assistance that way.

 

rich

-------------------------

Rich Sloan , Co-Founder, Chief Startupologist, StartupNation

I reside in Sarasota, as well. You might want to try membership to: Findsarasota.com. This could give you some exposure.

 

Larry;

Attending several home owners meeting throughout your neighborhood by using flyers at doctor’s offices, and your local Chamber of Com. attend those meeting and luncheons. 

James

 

Hi - One of the quickest way might be to agree with the retailers who you have ageements with that they carry leaflets with details of your service in their stores.

If you can convince them it makes sense they can either:

a) Promote it in store to their consumers as their own service - ie we now offer an online delivery service - here are the details.

b) Have them hand a leaflet of your services with every sales for a limited period, maybe 2-4 weeks and see what impact it has.

A key here may be taking a testimonial from a store saying how their own sales increased by using your service and of course it takes pressure off the sales people in-store.

Good luck 

-------------------------

Making International & Domestic sales easy on a No gain, no fee basis. Benenift from the management of Snowflake Media who have generated sales of over $300 million in the past 6 years. www.snowflakemedia.co.uk www.yournightoff.com

To Rich:

Took your advice and am getting feedback now. I have never posted a question in a forum before, and am liking the results. Thank you and StartupNation for providing this service.

-------------------------

Larry A. Kelleher, President www.store2doordeliveries.com

To LDecker:

Thank you for your suggestion. I will check out their rates. I belong to the Chamber, and haven`t gotten much in the way of hits from their site.

-------------------------

Larry A. Kelleher, President www.store2doordeliveries.com

To James:

Thank you, James. I hopefully now will have more time to attend functions that I have not been able to do while putting my business together. I have put brochures in some doctor`s offices, and will continue to do that. I like the idea of attending my neighborhood association meetings...again something I just have not had time to do. No time like the present!

-------------------------

Larry A. Kelleher, President www.store2doordeliveries.com

To SnowflakeMan:

Thank you for your suggestions and insight. At this point I only have the grocery store (basically the anchor store), and next wanted to focus on getting delivery customers. I "assumed" that people would want to shop for groceries first, and other retail products later once things get off the ground. I like your approach to the other retailers, since they will have online shopping carts hosted by me. The brick and mortar store is a perfect place to place my brochures, or even a decal in their window saying they now offer home delivery. I have been approached by retailers to be a `courier` which has some possibilities to consider. I need to be careful with that though, since I do not want to change the mission of the company.

-------------------------

Larry A. Kelleher, President www.store2doordeliveries.com

larry, if it helps, you can also use the "QUOTE" function (above and to the right of each comment). when you click it, it captures the words from that particular post within your topic and opens a new comment window for you so you can do a new post referring to the quoted comment. just start typing after you see the last "