Amazon should be your role model

A relatively recent addition to the vast world of retailers, Amazon has grown from a book distributor to the go to stop for just about any product over night. Ok, maybe that's an exaggeration, but it did happen at light speed. They regularly add new merchandising techniques that make their customers more and more addicted, and make their competitors want to cry.

My current favorite is their most recently added cross-sell technique. "What did customers ultimately buy after viewing this item" is a refreshingly transparent way of helping customers meet their needs. Using this tool, customers can not only get a view into the other products customers with their needs considered, but they also see what they purchased. What makes this feature even better is it appears to run itself. If you take it at face value, Amazon doesn't have to do anything to keep it going. The customers populate it for them. And everyone knows customers trust each other more than they trust the man.

Genius.