An Alternative Alternative Channel for Consumer Products

For decades, marketers of personal care products at the prestige and mass levels have had to deal with inept retailers who did little to promote excitement in their stores. Meanwhile in the grocery aisle, household goods companies faced ever-rising slotting fees for their products. But now marketers of household cleaners, cosmetics and shampoos are fighting back…online.

According to the Financial Times, companies such as Procter & Gamble and Kimberly-Clark are increasing their internet presence to establish new direct links to their customers—even though in the past, the cost of going online has hurt margins.

These moves come at a time when the relationship between retailer and marketer is getting more hostile. For example, Target’s recent circular promoted its store brands under the slogan “favor the brands priced right.”

To aid marketers in their battle with retailers, there’s Alice.com, a site designed to deliver products to consumers at the same price as they find in retail. If Alice.com can indeed deliver toothpaste and soap online for the same price as a mass retailer, and with free shipping, it would be addressing what one of the main blocks to greater online sales, notes FT.