My company sells a mobile EFTPoS service in the United Kingdom (See:
www.vanguardplc.com/bss). The service allows a client to take credit
and debit card payments using a mobile (GSM) terminal. It is ideally
suited to SME's who sell services and products where the transaction
is carried out at their customers home or on the road side and where
the transaction in volved a payment above the cheque guarantee level
(Say £250) and goods or services are supplied immediately.
One potential target set are specialist food delivery companies who
sell on a door-to-door basis and supply "of the truck".
I am having problems defining a viable prospect list for this sector
in the UK. |
Request for Question Clarification by
lot-ga
on
19 Jul 2002 14:57 PDT
Hello,
when you say "I am having problems defining a viable prospect list for
this sector in the UK" do you mean you are finding it difficult to
locate the market statistics for each area to enable you to focus,
i.e. the number of mobile caterers compared to the number of mobile
hairdressers for you to concentrate your marketing resources? Or do
you just want a list, which is relatively easy to do, and not that
difficult I would have thought for members in your organisation to
have a brainstorm.
regards lot-ga
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Clarification of Question by
paulch-ga
on
20 Jul 2002 07:52 PDT
Soory for the ambiguity. I am after specific company names, addresses
and telephone numbers of prospects within sectors which are suited to
my product. Specifically, SME's who offer a product or service where
payment is required either on the doorstep (or in the home)or at some
other place where a traditional "wired" EFTPoS device would not be
available.
In these companies typically take credit or debit card payment using
paper vouchers and "zip zap" machines.
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Request for Question Clarification by
lot-ga
on
20 Jul 2002 10:40 PDT
Hello,
The smaller merchants perhaps sole proprietors would love your product
but may not have a credit card merchant account. For example local
mobile hairdressers, cleaning services, plumbers do not usually accept
credit cards and would not be ready customers for you. I really like
your product and there could be huge scope for say local police forces
to use on the spot fines e.g. traffic offences, but logistics are
involved in getting them to change their protocol, they are not
'ready' customers either, but the market could be quite big.
I can see many potential users for your system but they don't have a
merchant account e.g. taxi services, and maybe the reason why they
don't have a merchant account is they assume they can't take payment
on location. I assume from what you have mentioned that you are only
interested in those companies with existing merchant accounts.
The larger 'national' organisations with potentionally larger order
volumes (and with merchant accounts) tend to only have a generic
contact and telephone number for customer services. Is a generic
contact number sufficient, or do you require the contact for the
person in that organisation who is responsible for purchasing
decisions?
Thanks, I just wanted to be sure of the criteria,
kind regards
lot-ga
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Clarification of Question by
paulch-ga
on
23 Jul 2002 03:22 PDT
Hi!,
I can see by your questions that you have a good understanding of the
sector we are working in!
Up to now we have addressed the market by sector - starting with the
plumbing sector. Direct advertising combined with inbound telesales
have proved reasonably successful with over a 5% conversion rate. The
plumbers were easy to identify as we bought lists from Yellow Pages
and the journals we advertised in. The campaign will be followed up
with a dirtect mailing within the next two weeks.
We considered Hairdressers but decided that they a) had a average
charge which is comparatively pretty low b) often operate in the
black/grey market and prefer cash c) has a fairly intimate and long
standing relationship with their customer base where credit card fraud
was not an issue and d) the capital cost of the device was probably
too high.
Cleaning Services (Carpet and Rug, Upholstery etc.) is a much more
appealing marketplace and I would appreciate your help on this one.
We are addressing the "on the spot fine" issue with two police forces
and, through them, the Home Office - but this, as you can imagine is a
long long process.
Taxi services, as you quite rightly point out, are prime prospects but
the Acquirers tend to be very wary of giving self employed taxi
drivers merchand acquiring accounts. We are, however, talking to
several Taxi Owners Associations about "blanket" deals.
Companies with existing merchant accounts are, of course, the best
traget as the process is much simpler, yes.
The two most appealing markets in the short terms, therefore, are
Cleaners (see above) and specialsit frozen food (or other doorstep
delivery products).
It these two areas where we could use your help in identifying
prospects.
Best Regards,
paulch-ga
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