You know the importance of creating a brand in order to make your product more widely recognized. Yet the majority of internet businesses don’t really do much to distinguish themselves from the competition. If you want to beat the competition at its own game, you need to create an unique selling point for your product. If you want your potential customers to believe your product is one that’s worth buying, this is the way to do it. Once you have an USP, you won’t even have to do much marketing for your product, as people will start to spread the word about it naturally.

Help Them Save Money: Figuring out how to save money for others with your product will help you figure out your USP. This doesn’t just work in every niche; it works for every product too! As long as you can tell your customers how your product will help them save more money than those of your competitors, you have a winning USP. Do not try to make a product that is cheap, though…you need a real balance. Don’t be a Copy Cat: A large percentage of internet businesses release products that are hard to distinguish from many others that are being sold. How do they claim theirs is any different? They’d have to point out some tiny advantage that their product has allegedly has over the competition’s. You can’t have an USP in this manner, as when you offer something that’s similar to what’s already out there, you’re obviously not being unique. It’s a mistake to assume that you can do things like everybody else and fool your customers into thinking you’ve created something original. Instead focus and put your hard work into giving a real solution to your target market, without really trying to be a “me-too” product that lacks individuality.

Your Customer Service Must be Great – One type of USP that’s very powerful is giving customers top notch customer service. There are many businesses in different niches that have marked a place for themselves by simply being there for their customers. If you can simply focus on serving your customers, answering their queries on time and help them in the best possible way, you’ll automatically be known in your market as a business that cares -which means it will make you stand out, attracting new customers to your business simply through word of mouth. That’s why you should never skimp on offering the best customer service you can.

The USP of a product, as we’ve seen, is of the utmost importance and something that should be a priority for any business. Many online businesses fail, not because their product is no good, but because they haven’t been able to show that they have something original to offer. The more you focus on differentiating yourself from the competition, the better value you will be able to give to your target audience and help them get the solution they’re looking for. Simply creating a product and launching it in the market is not the key to success, but the real key is letting your target audience know why your product is really worth buying.

Got a product? Want to know how to get it into retail stores? Getting a product into a big box retailer or even a mom and pop is what a lot of inventors and entrepreneurs dream about. No wonder, there are fortunes to be had. But you don’t have to be a Fortune 500 company to get your product into stores. As a former Fortune 100/500 executive, I’ve placed thousands of products into thousands and thousands of retail stores. Here are 8 Lessons I Learned While Getting Products into Stores for Pillsbury, Johnson & Johnson, Frito-Lay/PepsiCo, & Whole Foods Market:

1. You Don’t Have To Be a Fortune 500 Company To Act Like One. Start by doing your homework. You’d be surprised how many entrepreneurs I talk to that don’t want to take the time or invest the money to do the most basic things to assure their success. Fortune 500 companies don’t launch products blindly. Understand your consumer, your product, and your customer. Does your product help your consumer solve his or her problems? Is your product unique? Visit several stores where you can “see” your product. Now, ask yourself: If I were the buyer for this retailer, why would I buy my product and put it on that shelf?

2. Create a Superstar from the Start. Your product should be unique, a bestseller that makes you money. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But I’ve seen the big boys fall flat on their face forgetting this simple concept. Here’s what you need to do: Make sure the consumer not only needs but wants your product. Price your product competitively so there’s good profit margin for you and your retailer. (Biggest losers are only fun on television shows, right?) Create packaging that excites your consumer. Then create promotions that will motivate the retailer and the consumer to buy your product.

3. Build Your Team Wisely. Stop pretending that you can do it all by yourself because you can’t. You need shortcuts and someone to show you the way. Invest in your business. A consumer product expert, consultant, or information marketer may have a home-study course or group consulting. From product experts to manufacturing reps, brokers to distributors, there are knowledgeable people out there to help you. Find the ones with solid know-how and experience. They’ll save you years of time and tens of thousands of dollars.

4. Challenge Yourself to Grow Smart. Get your product in your first store, then build from there. When you get your product in stores, you build a track record. Retail stores don’t want sprinters. Show them that you’re a marathon runner. Big box retailers love vendors with endurance. So build a track record and prove that you can run with them for miles and miles.

5. Commit to Continuous Improvement. Fortune 500 companies are constantly searching for better ways to do things, how to make their products and teams stronger. Evaluate what is and isn’t working with your product and your business. You can’t have one part of your marketing mix right, like the best product, but not have the right promotions.

6. Do What Your Retailers Ask You to Do. Each retail store has their own policies, procedures, and processes for accepting new products. Find information about your targeted retail customer on their website, call or email, or make personal contact. You’re going to have to find out who makes the decisions about products like yours, how, and how often. Some companies, like Walmart, have very specific processes. Yet, they allow regional distribution, too. Same with Whole Foods. And some have open vendor days.

7. Be Prepared for the Presentation of Your (and Your Product’s) Life. Do your homework before you walk into that meeting with that big box retail store buyer. Know their language. Familiarize yourself with industry terms, such as categories, conditions of sale, discounts, EDI, and allowances. You will need a sample of your product, barcode, brochure, price lists, marketing plans, and specifics about your distribution and competition. You must have the precise information your retailers need and want to show that you can be a player.

8. Maintain That Small Company Mentality Even When You Become a Big One. One of the things that will give you a competitive edge is that you won’t have all the bureaucracy of a Fortune 500. Red tape and sludgy big company processes can kill new product innovation. Believe me, I know. Use your nimbleness as your competitive advantage. You can use a variety of savvy online and offline marketing techniques too, like websites, blogs, social marketing, mobile marketing, coupons, ads, and public relations, ways to touch consumers that use your entrepreneur’s cutting-edge to your advantage.

Here’s the good news. You can do this if you keep moving forward. Take action. With a little smarts, good sense, and effort, you can get your product in stores and onto shelves. And you don’t have to be a Fortune 500 company. Everyday people just like you get their products into retail stores. All big businesses, even the Fortune 500 companies I’ve worked for, started with just one idea and usually one person.

Do you think you are spending your lot of hard earned money on your necessities and at the end feel dissatisfied? The only reason is you find the same things somewhere at less price or better quality or even both. You would have got the best thing at best price if you had compared the prices and traits of the products you wanted to buy. But who has time to go places? Compare and again turn to the store where you think the deal will be the best? Who has that extra time? And so to give a shopping aid to buyers like us, the best price comparison sites are launched which allows users to search, compare and buy sitting at their home/office.

Just one mouse click and we get all products relevant to our search request listed along with the traits and price and the seller information. We can read the testimonials written about the vendors by other buyers who have already used the products. This helps to find a vendor who we feel is trustworthy. Once we choose our product after all browsing and comparison, it redirect us to the vendor. We can shop either online and if we have chosen a local store we can message/email the store and simply pay and collect our product.

Simply join the trend. Use the latest technology i.e., World Wide Web to aid you and make your shopping experience simpler. Log on to the site. Search and browse the best product list created just for you. Go through all product characteristics and prices. Compare according to your focus whether cost or some specific product quality. Choose a product and then finalize your buy. You will be redirect to the vendor and you are done with your reasonable and confident shopping. Have a never before satisfying shopping experience.

To make it clearer I will tell you one of my shopping experiences and I am sure you can relate it with your experiences. I wanted to buy a card reader. It was an urgent requirement for me at that time. I saw a discount tag at a mall and quickly bought it. A few days later a friend of mine was carrying a better quality card reader than mine and the worst thing was she bought it at much cheaper rate. I was so disappointed with my shopping decision. It would have been better if I had compared the qualities along with prices at different shops and then bought the reader. But always in such situation caused by wrong and hasty buying decisions we tend to find excuse for ourselves that, “I did not have time. So my deal was relevantly fine;” But out of the blue I learned about online price comparisons that could save a lot of my time and allow me to compare my dream products such that I can buy them at my dream rate. I used product price comparison site and it changed the whole idea of shopping. I can simply compare one product available at several different stores and that too sitting in an easy chair at home or while working and in fraction of time. My options increased, I got satisfying quality at reasonable rates. And I was so confident that I am buying the best thing at the best price. I, a customer like you guarantee that once you start shopping with price comparisons sites, you will not find a better shopping companion than this.

When you first launch your new clothing brand chances are you are going to burn through your budget very quickly. Situations will arise causing you to spend money when you didn’t think you had to. Between initial photography, website and inventory your budget could be gone before you even launch so it is important as an entrepreneur and business owner you roll up your sleeves and learn as much as you can to get your brand growing. Don’t assume people will just hear about it. You need to perform some marketing actions. These actions don’t have to be expensive if you are willing to learn as much as you can.

The internet has become a giant encyclopedia filled with tutorials and information just waiting to be read. You will quickly find that you cannot always pay a vendor to accomplish a certain task for you. Unless you have bottomless pockets and endless investors you will want to spend your money wisely. With a down economy right now you have to account for every penny spent. Let’s face it the internet is most likely where the majority of your audience is hanging out. Online marketing is an area that is seeing explosive growth. By the signs there is absolutely no slowing down and the power of the internet is only going to pull more and more brands into it. When launching a new clothing brand many entrepreneurs don’t realize just how much can be done online themselves. You don’t have to spend your entire day on Twitter and Facebook but rather think outside the box and try different things to generate traffic to your website in order to gain visibility. You don’t have to have a large offline marketing budget to become visible and build traffic either.

If you want to launch an online marketing campaign there are many resources on what needs to be done that are updated daily. You need help redesigning a logo? Do a quick search online for endless amounts of photoshop tutorials. When you first launch your clothing line it will be bootstrapping time. Hustle, learn as much as you can and watch how you spend. If you need to spend money spend on things that are extremely important like more inventory. You don’t always need to hire an expensive photographer to take product photos. Ask your friends and family if they have a decent camera you can borrow and learn the settings. If you need to photograph products you can easily make a homemade light tent that can create very professional looking product photos for a fraction of the costs. Most importantly you must believe in your brand from the day you start your idea. Take your time and come up with something that people will enjoy. Remember sleep less and work more. If you want your clothing brand to make it you will have to make some sacrifices.