Main Subject - Internet and Businesses Online

As the owner of GiftsForYou.Biz, the following is an outline showing, in my own experience, why product focus is not only a good thing, but nearly essential, especially for small businesses where vendors can be volatile.

When I began promoting products on the web in July 2002, I thought I would be the rare excepti

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

on to the rule in that I did not feel I had to specialize in any one type of product. I signed up for a service that offered over 2,000 products, and my web development savvy and I set out to promote them all. And I did. I even created a way to check inventory on all these products. A system setup so well, others m

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

embers paid a small fee for semi-weekly inventory lists. But alas, not only did my inventory system fall into the wind due to vendor policies, but the entire vendor fell into a tornado due to various negative factors. Luckily for me, I had already found two other vendors that I was able to lean on while breaking aw

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

ay from my initial vendor and all their calamities.

What is read here is, lucky for me I learned to focus on a particular product line. I took the time to figure out what I would like to represent, did some research on whether there was a market for it, and began my search for vendors selling such a product line.

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

I got somewhat lucky in that the two vendors I did find, I found without having many requirements. They drop-shipped using my company name, so I signed up. Now down from 3 vendors to 2, it wasn't until one of those two remaining vendors actually went out of business, did I find myself trying to find another one to

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

ill the void. I had already optimized and promoted that particular product catalog for a few years, so it was getting good traffic, and I really didn't want to lose that. But I found that finding a vendor wasn't as easy as it seemed to be when I first set out. Still not wanting to lose the web work I had put into m

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

y out-of-business vendor's product line, I left the catalog open and let my human visitors know that the search for a new vendor was underway (and that can be somewhat tricky, because you don't want your customers thinking you are going out of business too).

After that, the requirements I formed for inquiring abou

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

t potential vendors led itself to quite a little list. Fortunately, I was able to find vendors that matched my criteria. Although, finding them didn't come without time consuming research and communication. The good ones though – they are typically quite friendly, somewhat responsive, and fairly informative/liberal

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

with their responses to your questions. There is a key however, to inquiring on whether a company meets your criteria. If you ask too many questions, the vendor most likely, as many people will do, put it on their list of things to do because they know it'll take 15-30 minutes to reply. If you ask too few question

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

s, you could end up bugging the living daylight out of them, only to find out 3 e-mails later that they're missing an essential factor.

What's my list of criteria for GiftsForYou.Biz? If "is it plugged in" is the first question for malfunctioning equipment, the first question for determining if a vendor is right f

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

r your business should have already been taken care of in your search: Do they provide the products you specialize in? In the case of GiftsForYou.Biz, that would be crystal. The second question is whether or not they drop-ship? Although storing inventory isn't an issue for me, going to the Post Office or UPS (or ev

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

en having them pick up) isn't practical. So, I need for my vendor to be able to ship the product for me. The third question then falls into place with drop-shipping in whether they will ship using my company name. Other questions after those then fall in to more business policy type questions. For instance, which s

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

hipping methods do they use, what is their standard delivery time frames, do they ship internationally, do they ship to Canada, what type of shipping costs do they use, and what is their ordering process? What are their rush shipping options, or do they even provide rush shipping? What are their return and damaged

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

product policies? Other questions might include how I might know when products are out of stock? How do they handle bulk orders? Do they provide note/gift cards or gift wrapping?

Some of the questions you might ask, and even perhaps all the questions you ask might be clearly outlined on their site, I have found it

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

’s still better to ask, if for the very least to establish communication prior to signing up (which sometimes you can't avoid). Typically I will even pay for one or more small items (after establishing their usability) to get a feel for their product quality. In dealing with drop-shippers, your company reputation i

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

largely in your vendor’s hands. Although you will maintain communication with your customers, a lot of times your communication is based on the information you get from your vendor. If they're unresponsive, you will find yourself stringing your customer along, thus losing their trust. That then leads to a downhill

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

trend and the potential failure of all your hard-earned work.

Focusing on a specific product line will not only help to narrow your search for vendors, it will also help in your marketing efforts as well. You may find that if you carry more than one product line, you don’t really fit well when being “categorized”

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

in and around the web. In addition, should your multi-product line vendor, for whatever reason, become unusable, you will find that finding a replacement vendor a bit easier for one product line, than finding a vendor that covers all the product lines you were promoting. Not to mention, these multi-product line co

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

mpanies, the good ones anyway, are few and far between. And we’ll save product saturation for another discussion.

Finding and choosing a good product line, along with finding and choosing a good vendor, are both as important as finding and choosing your web host, payment processor, online catalog, shopping cart, a

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

nd other technological aspects of starting your online business. Information on these topics are covered more in my "Web Site Promotion Tips" article located at: http://giftsforyou.biz/websitebuildingtips.shtml

Keith D Commiskey
http://kdcinfo.com
http://giftsforyou.biz - Crystal Figurines - Crystal Gift

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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