Forum Moderators: LifeinAsia
A thought for thomwien. How "competitive" is your competitor?
You've already spoken directly with the business owner, s/he obviously is less cluey on web sites than you, which is why s/he went out of house.
Do a SWOT analysis, especially in the unique differences between your businesses, tweak your site to reflect what makes doing business with you better in that area, and then suggest to your competitor that a reciprocal link between you will be of benefit.
Why? Well ... why do jewellers, travel agents, banks, real estate agents etc.etc. all seem to be within a stones throw of each other?
My point is ... don't be afraid of your competitors, turn them into link partners.
We have a tourism site, and competitors constantly spam our customers to try and get their business, and everytime we do something new on our site, there's usually one of 'em who'll copycat the idea.
Usually my first reaction is to go balistic ... you know ... how DARE they etc. <grin>, then I look at an old article (Management Tips by Lowell Tarling from Australian Franchising Winter 1993 issue) I've got posted up on the wall as reminder ... in part ...
<quote>
Here's a list of good problems to have:
Too much demand for a good product
Too many opportunities to expand
Customers showing up out of hours
Other people taking credit for your ideas
Having staff smarter than you are
Doing well, while having a competitor doing as good (or better) than you are.
</quote>
Make sure you have everything recorded so when you have to send an infringement notice they know your serious, but don't sweat it too much mate, just look at the greasy chicken and turn into something finger lickin good, because that's what they can't steal from you!
Regards and Hooroo
JP
