"giving away the store"

[superbird]

I'm writing a business plan at the moment. I'm going to be selling a fairly specialised piece of sporting equipment through both traditional and ecommerce channels. They usually retail for around £1500/$2500.

I want to give away a lot of the information my company finds out about these widgets through our own competitive activities but I'm not sure who I should release it to. I will also have a support forums and I anticipate the most useful information on there will be added to the main information archive.

1. I could keep it for people who have bought my product from me.

2. Authorise anyone who owns my product even if they bought it from another dealer

3. I could let anyone in.

Option 1 prevents people from trying out my stuff, unless I allow temporary accounts, but option 3 means I could well be giving away a lot for nothing. Option 1 also means my "community" won't be very active for a while.

another option is that I could offer a subscription service for people who are perhaps in another country and won't ever buy from me.

Industry background is that only one other company provides any sort of manual to customers and they charge Aus$5 for a new one if you lose it or buy a second-hand widget. That low price leads me to believe its not that detailed or that they are not capitalising enough on it. I should have a look really

Anyone got any thoughts?

[Undead Hunter]

The more info you have on your website that's free, the more pages related to it that will be spidered. And the better chance someone has of finding you and your product!

Factor that in against hiding the content...

Hunter

[karmov]

A lot of people do their research online to find out about products. If you're offering more info than most, you'll most likely be successful in drawing a lot of traffic based on that info alone. In general, traffic tends to improve sales.

I would reflect on how much gathering this information has actually cost you. There may be some value there that you may not be willing to give up. But all in all, if you become an information hub for this widget, that's something that would be worth it.