Srivasu leads the online marketing team for MyOTCStore.com for a brick and mortar store and warehouse in East Elmhurst, New York.
We reached out to Srivasu and asked about how myotcstore.com has become so successful and asked for any key points worth sharing. This is Srivasu’s response.
How do you describe MyOTCStore.com and what kind of customers do you serve?
Myotcstore.com is a discount online store for over-the-counter products, for diabetes supplies, skin care & beauty products, health products, medical emergency supplies, vitamins, Medicines, beauty cosmetics and baby needs.
We carry products from several categories like OTC medicines, senior care and home medical management.
Our site started in 2006 and we focus on having a broad range of bestselling brands and manufacturers available with a wonderful customer service team.
What success did you experience in 2012 and what made that happen?
Amidst a marketplace of online shopping, Myotcstore.com stands unique and proud. One of our biggest successes is customer loyalty and repeat purchases. For example, on our site we have the 'Dollar Store' section where each item in this category is priced around $1. Very affordable! Because of the price of the items and the selection available, we find these items help us create our first time customers and are often part of repeat customer orders.
How did you first get started selling online and what about it surprised you?
In 1998 we started selling our first pharmacy items online. We actually had a Brick and Mortar Pharmacy named "Sunnyside Pharmacy" in Sunnyside neighborhood of New York where we sell prescription medications along with other OTC stuff. To enable our customers to buy their refill medications thru email and online, we started our online store. Our first site name was americarx.com and we launched that store in 1999 selling over the counter medications like Advil, Tylenol and I still remember selling one of the Bayer Glucose testing meters in huge numbers through this site. However, due to Google.com site name and Rx item ad restrictions, we had to change the name to Myotcstore.com
What do you feel has made your site successful?
I would say definitely customer service and the wide range of items that we sell.
How are you addressing web marketing challenges like SEO, Social Media, Email Marketing, and Paid Search?
In 2012, Myotcstore.com advertising spend was $365,000 on search engine marketing.
The largest SEM vendors were Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter. As of 2012, SEM was growing much faster than traditional marketing and even other channels of online marketing and we focus a lot of energy here. Some of the other lead generating markets like CSEs, Email marketing and Social marketing is done by our partner called 3SSolutions.com whom we trust and have mutual understanding of the intricacies of search engine marketing and choose to rely on third party agencies to manage our search marketing.
What are some of your most effective parts of your online store or shopping experience and why?
Our unique feature of the website sits in its payment page. Consumers of Myotcstore.com have the option to use Google Checkout and PayPal Express checkout to pay for their order, besides other more traditional payment options includes credit cards. While many websites accept major credit cards and PayPal, We offer the extra payment method for those whose trust lies predominantly with Google applications. The website also accepts checks and money orders offline.
Another interesting feature is accepting customer orders over the phone by calling 1-800-361-2084 Customer Care centre runs in EST timings 9:30 AM to 6:30 PM. Myotcstore.com search application is another robust tool for customers to view and buy their items in seconds easily and effectively thru our itemized search navigation with all necessary attribute options like size, qty, price and color etc., AmeriCommerce made this task easy with their merge codes and tech savvy user friendly designs in our store's admin backend. We are thankful to AmeriCommerce in this aspect.
What have you done on a regular basis to promote your site?
We started in 2006, have grown steady, established a good reputation, have long term relationships with our customers, are financially stable and have no debts. Myotcstore.com has an affiliate partnership with CJ.com to promote our products on a daily basis through their platform which has more than 4500 affiliate partner advertisers linked for us. Apart from this we have our customer care center regularly make lead calls and emails for order generation. We also have several high rank page links from our manufacturers and vendors who promote our store for their products to the consumers on a daily basis.
What advice do you have for beginners who are interested in getting started selling over the Web?
Please do not forget your one and only source - your site visitors. Turn them into buyers. This is must and the most valid task that you should focus on as a beginner interested in getting started selling over the Web. Make sure you have a good design that is easy to use and responsive.
What developments do you foresee over the next year that will have an impact on the world of e-commerce?
2013 is the year that global eCommerce should crack the $1 trillion mark. In fact, some growth estimates run as high as 20-25 percent for the year, with internet sales reaching over $1.2 trillion. Smart phones in the UK alone are expected to contribute £87 billion toward that figure. So our immediate goal is to address the mobile marketing and channelize our sales thru mobile version of our site. i.e., mCommerce. Now online commerce has 2 arms, eCommerce and mCommerce. Mobile apps and responsive web designs are the most important tasks for 2013. Mobile or digital wallet payment options is another big deal for every retailer including brick and mortar stores.
What are some of the challenges AmeriCommerce has helped you overcome?
I am glad that we found AmeriCommerce for my website to fulfill the shopping cart provider role. Now AmeriCommerce has turned into everyone's dream shopping cart with all the required eCommerce applications. Search, easy to use backend, user friendly environment and their newly adopted seller support platform makes us one happy seller with our website. Thanks AmeriCommerce for being there for all my eCommerce needs now and in the future too.