Here’s a hard truth I’ve been sharing with ecommerce teams for two decades: most sales problems aren’t complicated. They just feel that way.
When online sales stall, businesses reach for the exotic fixes. New tech. Fancy tactics. A shiny redesign. But nine times out of ten, the answer hides in three simple words I started using twenty years ago while managing and training ecommerce teams: Product, Price and Position.
Get all three right, and you’ll generate sales. Get one wrong, and you’ll struggle – no matter how brilliant the other two are. In this post, I’ll break down each P, show you exactly where businesses trip up, and explain how to build a foundation that actually sells.
Why the Three P’s have stood the test of time
I came up with this framework years ago, and I knew it had landed when my teams started repeating it back to me. Something would underperform, and someone would say, “Well Mal, the positioning was off,” or “We were priced out on that one.”
That was the moment it clicked. It wasn’t just a saying anymore – it was a diagnostic tool. A fair challenge that forced us to look honestly at why something wasn’t working, then fix it.
Because here’s the thing: ecommerce operates in the real world. Customers aren’t loyal to your dashboard. They compare, they scroll, they click away in seconds. The Three P’s cut through the noise and force you to ask the only questions that matter.
The takeaway: if you can’t confidently tick off all three P’s, you’ve found your problem.
P1: Product – you can’t polish a turd
Let’s start with the one everyone assumes they’ve nailed.
Your product – or your proposition – has to make sense to real customers. Not to you. Not to your board. To the person deciding whether to spend their money with you or someone else.
When a great product isn’t enough
You can have the slickest positioning in the world and the keenest price going, but if the product doesn’t resonate, you’re pushing water uphill. As I’ve always said, you can’t really polish a turd.
That sounds blunt, and it’s meant to. Too many businesses pour budget into marketing a proposition that consumers simply don’t want or understand. The marketing isn’t the problem. The product is.
What to check
- Does it solve a genuine need? Real problems drive real purchases.
- Is the proposition clear? If customers have to work to understand it, they won’t.
- Would you buy it? Honest answer only.
The takeaway: fix the product before you spend a penny promoting it.
P2: Price – the ASDA Mamma Mia problem
Now let’s talk money, because this is where good businesses lose sales without even realising it.
You can have a fantastic product, beautifully positioned, and still get beaten on price for the exact same item. I learned this lesson vividly years ago – looking at you, ASDA and your Mamma Mia offer when it was released on DVD back in 2008!
Same product, cheaper elsewhere
Picture it. You’re selling a specific DVD at a fair price. Everything’s in place. Then a supermarket rolls it out substantially cheaper, and your sales dry up overnight. Same product, same customer, dramatically different price.
There’s no clever marketing trick that fixes that. If someone can get the identical item for less, most people will. It’s that simple. DVDs have largely gone the way of the dodo, however the principles still say the same to this day.
How to stay competitive
- Know your market price. Check what competitors actually charge, not what you assume they charge.
- Understand your margins. Sometimes the win is matching on price and making it up on service, bundling or loyalty.
- Be realistic. If you genuinely can’t compete on price, your product or positioning has to work twice as hard to justify the difference.
The takeaway: price isn’t set in a vacuum. Your customers are always comparing – so should you.
P3: Position – where your customers can actually see you
Here’s the P that quietly sinks more businesses than any other.
You can have the best products at the best prices in the country. But if they’re not in the right places – where potential customers are actually looking – you’ll fail to generate sales. Full stop.
Great products in the wrong place
Positioning is about visibility and context. It’s your product appearing in the right search results, on the right marketplace, in front of the right audience, at the right moment. If your ideal customer never sees you, it doesn’t matter how good you are.
Think of it like the finest shop in town, tucked down an alley no one walks past. The quality is irrelevant if there’s no footfall.
Where to focus
- Search visibility: are you showing up when people search for what you sell?
- The right channels: marketplaces, social, comparison sites – wherever your customers already are.
- Discoverability on-site: can visitors actually find your best products, or are they buried three clicks deep?
The takeaway: brilliant products deserve to be seen. Position them where the demand already lives.
How the Three P’s work together
Now here’s the part people miss. These aren’t three separate boxes to tick. They work as a system.
- Right product, wrong price? Undercut and beaten.
- Right price, wrong position? Invisible.
- Right position, wrong product? Traffic that never converts.
You need all three pulling in the same direction. That’s why, whenever something underperforms, I run it through the Three P’s first. It nearly always reveals the weak link – and once you know the weak link, you can fix it.
Where Hot Dog Solutions comes in
I’ve trained ecommerce teams at every business I’ve worked in, and it always comes back to these fundamentals. If you haven’t got the Three P’s right, your business won’t fly.
But that’s exactly where we help. At Hot Dog Solutions, we specialise in ecommerce – we go into businesses and run their ecommerce operations outright for our partners. We train teams, sharpen strategy, and get those three P’s firing together.
We’ll always tell you straight
Here’s what makes us different, and I’ll be honest about it. We’re not the agency that simply does what it’s told and cashes the invoice.
If we spot a weak product, an uncompetitive price, or positioning that’s leaving money on the table, we’ll say so. We’ll argue our corner where we feel strongly that you could perform better by doing things differently. And if you’re still insistent after that? We’ll do what you’ve asked – but you’ll always know exactly where we stand.
That kind of honesty is a rarity in agency town. It’s also the fastest route to results, because your success is genuinely our priority.
The bottom line
Twenty years on, the Three P’s still hold up because they’re built on how customers actually behave. Get your Product, Price and Position working together, and the sales will follow.
So here’s your next step: run your own business through the framework. Be ruthless. Which P is letting you down?
If you’d like a partner who’ll help you get all three right – and tell you the truth along the way – that’s exactly what we do. Let’s talk about turning your ecommerce operation into a genuine sales machine.
by Malachi Simons, Founder of Hot Dog Solutions.
