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We are looking for feedback from any podiatrists using the online store offered by OurHealthNetwork. We are considering it, but would like to know if other podiatrists are satisifed with their service.

 

Marcia - I am not familiar with it. Do you have any other information?

I will speak generically....I would be very doubtful if its worth it.

eCommerce is not easy. You need a lot of website traffic to even get people to look at the products, let alone convert to sales - its not as easy as it sounds.

Ranking well in search engines is not an easy task to pick up traffic from there.

There are some already big payers in the market - esp foot.com and Footsmart - look at the the list here:
http://www.dmoz.org/Shopping/Health/Feet/ which is nothing more than a sample (on top of that list there are >70 other sites waiting to be reviewed and added to the list) (DMOZ is the webs largest directory of websites)

IMHO, if your website gets less than a few hundred unique visitors (NOT hits) a day, there is no way its worth it. If you get more than a few thousand uniques, then maybe consider it. (Most podiatry sites do not come close to this). I say this as to offer products on your site, you are competing with all of the "big boys" who rank well on search engines for a whole range of keywords and optimizing sites to do this is a big challenge. So either you go head to head with these people or you capitalize on traffic you already get, and you need a lot ---

I made comments on search engines and ranking in this thread

 

Craig,
You can access their website at http://www.ourdoctorstore.com. They will customize the site by putting our practice name as a "false-front" of the store and link to our website.
I believe this service is more to direct your own practice patients to rather than outright web sales. I have had both positive and negative feedback on using their service. One respondent told me they have 15 podiatrists in their group and net over $600.00 per month in sales, mostly from their own patients. We are only have 2 prodiatrists, so I'm not sure it would be worth it for us. There is a $250.00 fee per year, and they bill us for all items ordered off our site, then reimburse us when they receive payment. Check out their site and let me know what you think.
I appreciate your taking the time to reply to me.
Thanks,
Marcia

 

Thanks for links...

It may be worth it. I like the approach taken by Dr Scott in the PM News letter. I guess its a trade off between over-the-counter dispensing in your office which has become big business, but involves carrying inventory etc vs write a prescription and direct them to your website which does not involve carrying inventory etc.

 

Does anyone know of any competitors to OurDoctorStore.com? Are there any other options?