Buy Sell Direct Online
Yes. Several online brokerage platforms (such as Robinhood) offer commission-free trading in most stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Note that these brokers still earn money from your trades, but by selling order flow to financial firms and loaning your stock to short-sellers.
buy sell direct online
The easiest way, in terms of getting a trade done, is to open and fund an online account and place a market order. While this is the quickest way to buy stocks, it might not always be the wisest. Do your own research before deciding what type of order to place and with whom.
Unlike flippers or other buy-low, sell-high investors, our business model is fee-based. We use recent, comparable home sales to make a competitive offer on your home. Then, if you decide to sell to us, we take a service charge out of the sale proceeds similar to how an agent takes a commission in a traditional sale. Every month we buy hundreds of homes helping homeowners across the country get to their next chapter.
Arguably the hardest part of selling online is deciding on a business idea. Whether you operate the store from home, on the side of a day job, or as a creative outlet, find an idea before progressing to the next stage of selling online.
People look for specific information before trusting an online retailer with their money. That includes your product, category, About, Contact, and FAQ. Make sure you have them ready to go before online shoppers look for them.
Do you know how much inventory you have available to sell? Mastering inventory management is one of the biggest struggles for retailers, especially if you sell products online across several channels. Find an inventory management system that merges data from all channels and prevent stockouts from driving customers toward a competitor.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a long-term marketing strategy that increases your chances of appearing in the search results of your target audience. From keyword research to building backlinks, follow SEO practices to attract potential customers already looking for the products you sell online.
Take your online business in-person by attending local events. Host a pop-up shop or use your brick-and-mortar store as a way for customers to buy online and pick up items in-store. Shopify POS gives you a single source of truth by merging retail sales data, inventory, and customer profiles between both sales channels.
Don't confuse direct selling with direct marketing. Direct selling takes place when individual salespeople directly reach out to consumers, whereas direct marketing involves a company marketing directly to the consumer.
The solution to this conundrum may lie with Connective Retailing. Connective Retailing, as the name implies, is a guided selling approach that brings manufacturers, retailers, and customers closer together.
Information on the EAG research program and discussion paper series may be obtained from Russell Pittman, Director of Economic Research, Economic Analysis Group, Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice, 450 5th St., NW, Room 9446, Washington, DC 20530, or by e-mail at russell.pittman@usdoj.gov. Comments on specific papers may be addressed directly to the authors at the same mailing address or at their e-mail address.
State franchise laws prohibit auto manufacturers from making sales directly to consumers. This paper advocates eliminating state bans on direct manufacturer sales in order to provide automakers with an opportunity to reduce inventories and distribution costs by better matching production with consumer preferences.
With dealer networks being rationalized as part of cost-cutting initiatives, direct manufacturer sales to car buyers may present an additional opportunity to lower distribution costs. Such sales might range from consumers' simply ordering assembled vehicles of their choice directly from automakers to a scenario along the lines of the "Dell Direct" build-to-order model that revolutionized the personal computer production and sale process. GM initiated a build-to-order sales model in Brazil for its Chevrolet Celta economy car over eight years ago. In 2008, the Celta was among the sales leaders in Brazil.(3) At the time of the Celta's introduction, an auto analyst said that build-to-order could result in "spectacular improvements in the company's competitiveness and profitability."(4)
The next section offers a brief overview of the auto dealer franchise system. Then the essential features of the direct manufacturer distribution model are described and compared with the traditional method of selling autos. Discussion of the benefits of a direct distribution model to auto consumers and manufacturers follows, along with economic analysis of some of the concerns of dealers. A conclusion addresses the question of federal involvement in this issue.
Early in the evolution of the auto industry direct manufacturer sales to consumers were not uncommon. At that time, production processes had not yet been standardized and industry sales volumes were low. Introduction by Ford of the assembly line technique early in the twentieth century enabled high-volume production and ushered in the era of mass-market sales in the United States. Ever since then manufacturers have sold cars through franchised dealerships.
With the advent of the internet, some of the mutually beneficial nature of the franchise system for manufacturers and dealers has diminished, as information and access to services historically provided primarily by dealers has become more readily available. Online buying services are an obvious example. In addition, a variety of auto information, including pricing data and reviews, can be found online from sites like Edmunds and Consumer Reports. This raises the prospect of disintermediation, broadly defined as direct-to-consumer sales through reduction or elimination of the role of retailers. With respect to autos, unlike the situation with books and CDs, most customers probably will continue to want some hands-on contact with the product before purchasing, likely implying a continuing, though possibly changed, role for dealers. Since the internet can potentially provide manufacturers with better information on consumer preferences than the traditional local franchised dealer, direct manufacturer sales may be one way through which that changed dynamic occurs.
There are substantial differences between the auto industry and the personal computer (PC) industry in which Dell pioneered the direct manufacturer distribution model.(7) These differences have implications for the extent to which a direct manufacturer sales model is adaptable to the auto industry. Auto production is currently characterized by integral and closed product architecture where product design is critical. There is much more product variety in autos than in PCs and the myriad auto components tend to be non-standardized without a common interface across models or companies. By contrast, the manufacture of PCs involves a modular structure with a smaller number of standardized components or modules having a common interface. Build-to-order personal computer products can be readily assembled using the common interface by matching modules to customer preferences.
Despite the differences in the design and production processes of PCs and autos, the computer industry's Dell Direct model can provide some insight into potential cost reductions, particularly with respect to inventories, from direct manufacturer sales of autos. The defining characteristic of the Dell Direct model is the virtual elimination of inventories. Although Dell modified its distribution system a few years ago, historically Dell had sold only directly to final consumers based on customized orders shipped to end users.(8) In the process Dell avoided the cost of carrying finished inventories. Unlike the build-to-order PC model, auto distribution is "make-to-stock," with cars sold through extensive franchised dealer networks. Dealer inventories can range from sixty to ninety days, a consequence of which are substantial carrying costs and negotiation of prices with consumers in order to keep inventory stocks manageable.
Direct manufacturer car sales may have the potential to reduce inventory costs. The salient point is that whether or not direct manufacturer sale of autos is to evolve as a distribution channel in the United States should be determined by the preferences of consumers and the ability of auto producers to meet those preferences, rather than being precluded by fiat. If state laws prohibiting direct manufacturer auto sales remain in effect, automakers may be frustrated from making one type of long-run adjustment to reduce costs that could play a role in their efforts to restructure.
Perhaps the most obvious benefit from direct manufacturer sales would be greater customer satisfaction, as auto producers better match production with consumer preferences ranging from basic attributes on standard models to meeting individual specifications for customized cars. With better information about consumer demand, optimal inventory levels should fall, even short of full build-to-order capability by auto manufacturers. To the extent that there are cost savings from leaner inventories, a portion could be passed on to consumers as lower prices. The total value of new car inventory held by the 20,700 franchised new car dealerships in the United States near the end of 2008 was about $100 billion and the annual carrying cost of that inventory was estimated as $890 million.(9) These figures may provide an order-of-magnitude perspective of the savings potential from a reduction in inventories that might derive from direct manufacturer sales of autos.
The most comprehensive estimate of the savings in the vehicle order-to-delivery cycle from build-to-order, direct manufacturer sales is set out in a 2000 report by a Goldman Sachs analyst.(10) Based on an average vehicle price of $26,000, total cost savings in the order-to-delivery cycle were estimated as $2,225 or about 8.6%.(11) The components of those savings were as follows: $832 from improvement in matching supply with consumer demand; $575 from lower inventory; $387 from fewer dealerships; $381 from lower sales commissions and $50 from lower overall shipping costs, since fewer dealerships would reduce the number of distribution points. The Goldman Sachs report identified other possible build-to-order savings of about $1,000 per vehicle in product development, manufacturing flexibility and procurement and supply but the lion's share of the benefits were attributed to improvements in the order-to-delivery cycle. In a nutshell, the current auto industry make-to-stock sales model takes a lot of money, much of it tied up in inventories and devoted to discounting to clear lots of less popular vehicles, to try to sell cars that can come up short of what customers would really prefer. 041b061a72