Electronic Retailer - July 2012 - 24

COULD YOU SELL LIKE AMAZON?

T herefore, DNA’s cl ient s st i l l receive bills from a call center and from one or more agencies t hat hand le creative, production and media buying. DNA does everything else, Mulgaonkar says. And after deducting its share of revenue, it sends payments, not bills. Most of DNA’s clients fall into three categories. In the first group, Mulgaonkar says, are those “not quite ready for DRTV.” They have a patent, a product and inventory, and they are trying to decide if DRTV is the right medium to use. They want help with an e-commerce strategy for two reasons, he says: “First, because [an online marketing effort] lets you know if a product might work in DRTV. And second, because an online campaign can generate revenue to let you get started in DRTV.”

In the second group are clients who have created an infomercial or some short-form DRTV spots. They want to go live with a campaign, but are daunted by the prospect of working with multiple vendors. “You’ve got a media agency, a call center, a fulfillment house, an online marketing partner – maybe six or eight companies that aren’t connected to each other. So then you have to think about hiring a project manager, too,” Mulgaonkar says. Those clients are intrigued by DNA’s promise of an “integrated platform.” In the third group of clients are companies “with a DRTV campaign up and running,” he says. “They’re looking for what we could do better.”

And That Would Be …
His answer to what DNA can do better boils down to two benefits: improved

operational efficiency and incremental online revenue. A proprietary software platform connects any call center with DNA’s payment-processing system. The system confirms credit card information immediately, taking the number of card “declines” to zero. Real-time payment processing is not unique to DNA by any means, but if the client has been using a more common next-day processing service, Mulgaonkar says, zero represents a significant improvement over a decline rate that might well exceed 3 percent to 5 percent. DNA’s software platform also connects directly with Amazon’s fulfillment system. Clients need only send their inventories to one Amazon fulfillment center. Amazon’s own software then determines how each client’s products should be distributed among

electronicRETAILER | July 2012

Electronic Retailer - July 2012

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