Dell Electric: Direct Business

Direct marketing is not about reducing costs, but about spending more resources on how to make customers happy.

To ensure that each computer system is tailored to the individual needs of customers, but also to provide customers from the design, development, production, marketing, maintenance and other services, "production by single" Network direct marketing model has been the main sales of Dell company.

Through Dell's online store, customers can also assemble, customize and purchase computers online. Dell has data statistics, Dell's official website has been visited by customers more than 800,000 times a week, and after visiting the dell.com, more than 40% of them will buy the computer products they need.

The company's 2011 earnings showed Dell's annual revenue of $62.071 billion, with sales of computer-related products (including networks and printers) reaching $60 billion trillion, while Dell's annual turnover 40%~50% from Dell's Web site.

Direct Sales Model

Dell's direct sales model still follows the philosophy of the original model, which is to manufacture computers in accordance with customer requirements and direct shipments to customers. However, Dell's direct orders to customers still rely on in-house technical support, and to establish a one-to-one direct relationship with technology developers, supplemented by improved parts procurement and other electronic procurement, so as to ensure that Dell can provide customers with more cost-effective technology solutions, and system configuration and performance, as far as possible to meet customer needs.

The direct sales model eliminates the presence of middlemen, reduces inventory costs while also improving the company's cash flow, and, in addition, the direct-selling model has eliminated the high price differentials of agents and retailers that are common in traditional channels, and Dell's computer ownership is 10%~15% compared to the main competitors that rely on traditional methods of selling Price advantage.

However, Dell's choice of online orders was not intended to reduce investment, said Huanghao, general manager of the Consumer and Small Business division of Dell in China, that "if you compare direct sales with distribution of two different cost resources, Dell's direct marketing model does not reduce costs". Direct marketing model needs to be based on the needs of users, the development of targeted solutions or special services, so the direct marketing model at the market level will even spend more than the distribution of retail resources, and reduce costs is not the primary task of direct marketing.

Dell's focus is to be able to face customers more directly, from orders and telephone, network sales team immediately get customer feedback, so that the first time to clearly know the customer's demand for a particular product and improve the recommendations. Through direct Selling, Dell can maintain continuous communication with customers in the months following the sale of the product, which is to spend more resources on "How to make customer satisfaction".

Multi-channel Sales

Dell has always been a flat multi-channel business model, from 2008 onwards, Dell in China with Taobao, Dangdang, Jingdong Mall and other domestic E-commerce platform to open network sales channels. However, before the laying of each channel product structure, Dell will first excavate the distribution of the customer base of each platform and focus on preferences, and according to each other's inventory, on different platforms consciously laying products to guide customers.

In the day Cat Dell flagship store, based on the cat platform for large users, consumers can basically purchase all the Dell official online products, but in order to improve the input-output ratio, Dell adjusted the cat flagship store product Classification label to meet the distribution of Taobao customer base and preferences characteristics.

The types of products sold at Dell's flagship store were selected and refined by the Dell website. Sales model to cash-oriented, mainly to provide products for the new listing of hot-selling models, and products and more targeted at the 25~45岁 of young groups and middle-class family design, these audiences just and Dangdang user groups are highly coincident.

In fact, Dell in each new product production process has set channel sales strategy, in the first two months of production, product managers and sales team will study the product customer base, for the customer base to provide services to discuss and determine the product sales platform. After the promotion of the Internet Platform, Dell will also be different channels to view the user's use, and ultimately to different channels of content will also be differentiated to guide the different channels of consumer groups.

In Dell's current plan, the company in the future to increase the strength of China's network channel marketing, its official website and Taobao, Dangdang as an important sales channels, expand the diversification of e-commerce channels.

In direct sales and distribution channels, Dell has continued to do customer demand research, analysis of each channel inventory, age, customer purchase habits, Dell's electrical business channels to give customers a richer content and the concept of designers, but if the consumer into the physical store, Dell will also be appropriate to provide targeted information to customers, Achieve online and offline complementary.

Dell, which started out as a direct marketing model, is a classic case of E-commerce channel development in the industry, and in the multi-platform e-business channel expansion, "customer-centric" has always been Dell's core.