by John Sullivan
JGSullivan Interactive, Inc.
John Deere does it the right way!
Brand managers want to sell online because they have a very interested consumer on their site often times ready to buy right now. Send them to the store and you risk losing the sale to a salesman getting a spiff. Sell directly to the consumer from your site and risk losing your retail channel partners.
So, John Deere sells online through their dealers to get the best of both worlds. When the consumer is on the product page the “Add to cart” button goes to a dealer locator where the consumer enters their zip and chooses which dealer to buy from.
The consumer lands on an order page for that product from that dealer.
The order is taken, an order confirmation email is sent to the consumer and an email is sent to the dealer so they can come online and pick up their order.
Behind the scenes is a sophisticated system that handles all of the issues with selling online.
Everyone wins.
See it for yourself here
Read more about it here