Members Only

I want to try this out

[grandpa]

I've got a wholesale business that does pretty good. But the reality is this - I get a lot of chaff and BS from potential customers, those looky-lookers who never buy anything anyway and generally waste my time.

I'm toying with the idea of making the site a Members Only site, with the idea that now I'll be dealing with valid wholesale customers who are truly interested in what I have to offer. This will also keep the odd retail customer from drifing over to the wholesale side of the site, and attempting to make purchases that I don't want them making.

There are concerns.

First, that this may drive away existing customers. Does anyone an experience to share?

Then there is my thought that those who do register will be easier to deal with. More specifically, thier orders will be easier to deal with because I anticipate fewer non-paying orders to get in the way. Any thoughts?

Any other pitfalls or advantages I should be thinking about?

[physics]

Are you getting search referrals to your wholesale pages? If you require member login for those pages you'll be blocking the search engine robots also.

[grandpa]

I've thought about that physics. Yes, I am getting referrals. I have two thoughts about that. First, I've just learned that it's quite OK to ban bots from a domain :) And, I have a related site where I plug in my keywords to keep search referrals alive. I'm also considering keeping 'content only' pages available to all. That would include a complete catalog of products.

A move like this certainly would mean that certain ad campaigns will have to be modified or terminated. Truth is, this part of the business has the lowest ROI, so that just makes the move more attractive.

The only real unknown is how people will react. I am one of those people who, 99 out of 100 times, will not register on a web site. It's easier to move on. What percentage of the web population am I then? Offering the online content is one way to offset this, provided I actually provide valuable content.