I am running a gift shop because I love to sell to people who buy because they want to. Customers who are giving freely want to buy some item they hope will like it. I have site which lists literally thousands of items. I love that because I don't have to push any certain item.
The other nice thing is that I have so many items I can pick anything to promote. If I tired of pushing diamonds I sell kid's clothes or magazine sales or whatever. I like to work really hard on a product and keep selling good. When I see sales falling off I look for a new product to push. You can't do that when you sell one to three versions of a single product such as vacuum cleaners.
I am running an online gift shop. My prospects are usually looking for a gift it for a friend or family member. They have a certain kind of item in mind and with the very large selection I can offer it is easy for most customers to make their selection.
If you are in sales this little tip I got from a car salesman. I bought a car last January and we were chatting. This guy had been a lawyer! He had a stroke that nearly killed him and his doctors warned him to do something less stressful. I know from experience car sales is hard for most people.
I asked him how he figured car sales was nor stressful. He said cars sales is simple: customer comes in and either likes the car doesn't like it. He likes it I write the papers. He doesn't like it I ask him to come in next week to look over our new selections. I will have to admit that a simple two step approach like he uses makes sense. And by the way he wrote papers on three cars the morning he sold us our car.
I have been using this like it buy it, don't like it come back when you want to and if you like it buy it approach. Saves a lot of hassle for me and the customer. Maybe these college guys do know more than I ever gave 'em credit for.