Free samplers and tasters
The Net offers a partial solution to the 'intangibility' problem of information services (ie it cannot be touched or pre-viewed, so people are more cautious about buying). A well-constructed Web site can offer demonstrations and free samples of services. IT companies like Sun and IBM are using their sites as major customer support, promotional and product development tools. (The Sun site also has a collection of material about business on the Net.)
Common strategies in the information sector seem to be:
- Offering a small, current sample of the product. Examples are: latest news stories at the ClariNet e.News site, and basic stock quotes from the New York SE at QuoteCom;
- Allowing people to try out the search engine (eg Infoseek);
- Providing a complementary product to the printed journal (eg HotWired or Inform);
- Sample chapters of books (eg on the Tenagra site or Springer);
- Offering the product free in test mode;
- Free service for X amount of time;
- Free sample subscriptions of email newsletters (far cheaper than mailing a printed version, especially if you have an autoresponse facility which sends a copy automatically if people mail a request to that address);
- Allowing database searching free, and only making you pay for the text (eg NlightN, Amazon.Com bookshop - the last also allows you to set up free email SDI profiles, for example to be notified about the latest book by your favourite author). A similar strategy is emailing people TOC free or cheap.
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Send an email to Sheila Webber at s.webber@sheffield.ac.uk
Sheila Webber. September 1995, amended November 1999 and moved to the University of Sheffield 2 August 2001