The 4 P's: Place

Place is also referred to as placement, physical distribution, or logistics. In a brick-and-mortar business world, in order to market your product successfully, you have to:

• Get it to the buyer – this means you have to have a distribution network in place. This might involve warehouses, wholesalers, delivery, trucking, dealer network, etc.
  
  
• Be in the right place for customers to find you (location, location, location). You must buy that choice piece of property on Main Street where everyone will see you, be in a central location, or right next to a big draw (onramp, airport, shopping mall, etc.).

In the online world, this is very different. Web site managers must focus on two things that are very different:

1. In terms of physical distribution, they can bypass all the warehouses, wholesalers, retailers, and dealers, and ship DIRECTLY to the customer whether the customer is an individual private person, a small business (such as a restaurant buying your product), or a large enterprise. Bypassing the middleman gives the online retailer a HUGE advantage over brick and mortar sellers, and is called "disintermediation" (or removing the intermediary). This means that the seller can charge LESS than the traditional retailer and yet make MORE profit (by splitting the difference).
   
   
2. 
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   "Place" in the online world means having:

• the right Web site name (easy to remember, meaningful, not confused with another)
  
  
• lots of links to your Web site to bring customers to your "storefront" by paying for banner ads, getting listed on search engines, and promoting word of mouth (sometimes called "word of mouse" online because friends send each other emails or IMs about good and bad merchants)
  
  
• an attractive Web site with nice pictures, descriptions, demos, help screens, FAQ pages, etc., and
  
  
• plans to ensure that your Web site gets attention – having a good "place" online – testimonials, online opinion sites (e.g. epinions.com), TV show references (talk shows, etc.), magazine articles, shopping agent sites, etc.