Canada and eCommerce

Canada and eCommerce

Canadian eCommerce growth was recently flat but still has an attractive upside...

Recent studies found that Canadian retail e-commerce growth was flat year over year (2003-2004). After further examination however, approximately 60% of the 100 largest non-travel sites succeeded in growing their sales over 20%.

Also interesting is the trending of Canadians from buying at non-Canadian sites to domestic sites (63% domestic, 37% foreign). This "domestic shift" clearly benefits the launching of a new eCommerce business in Canada.

The sales opportunity lies with the "early adopters", individuals primarily the 18-34 year old age range. This segment is more technologically savvy and more likely to purchase online. In a 2003 to 2004 sampling comparison, this segment's overall e-commerce spending increased 44%. The 35 to 54 age group increased only 5% and 55+ increased 18% (includes online travel).

Overall Internet Adoption rates still trail the U.S. and come in at approximately 52%. However, with the development of new Internet infrastructures and the maturation of Canadian ISP's, this number will likely rise in the next 3-5 years. The following quote from the Canadian government re-enforces this theme.

"To reach our new national goal (relating to e-commerce) Canadians will need to develop strategies that build an intelligent infrastructure to serve as the backbone of the e-economy- by encouraging investment, strengthening research, enhancing commercialization and ensuring that all Canadians have access to this infrastructure and know how to use it." (September, 2004)

Shifting demographics & lack of online competition equal a substantial opportunity...

Forrester Research reports that 48% of Canadian web shoppers are now female compared to 39% in 2003. 74% of web buyers are married and likely are home shoppers, compared to 68% in 2003.

With the gender gap closing, online home retailers have a great opportunity to target their core customer segment: the 30-40yr old female who owns or maintains a residence.

Within this sector, it is rare for U.S. based retailers to have online Canadian stores. Many brands will ship to Canada, for very high costs (customs duty & shipping) but this likely leads to an unpleasant experience for the Canadian consumer. These high costs, compiled with a lack of domestic Canadian retailers providing an e-commerce offering, are driving the stagnant growth of the online sales channel.

By being a "first-mover" in establishing a presence in the online marketplace within Canada, online retailers will facilitate sales from consumers that want to get products shipped from their native homeland after being paid for in Canadian currency.

Similar to the U.S., consumers are exhibiting multi-channel tendencies and embracing the emergence of broadband connectivity...

Canada is the only country in the world in which broadband overtook dial-up access in 2003. Currently 48% of all Canadian consumers have broadband access and they are 67% more likely to have high speed web-access than American consumers.

This impressive penetration may prove to be a strong driver for online circulars and new online merchandising tactics, as product differentiation are established outside of price.

Canadian shoppers are also parallel to U.S. consumers in their multi-channel behavior. 58% of Canadian shoppers have researched a product online and purchased offline, spending an average of $440. An online Canadian strategy must focus on integrating the online and physical store with store locator functionality and other tools to promote cross-channel behavior.

In conclusion, multi-national retailers should closely examine the Canadian eCommerce opportunity. Attractive consumer demographics, an established broadband infrastructure, and a shift in overall shopping tendencies make the Canada a high-growth and un-saturated area for multi-channel retail.

Ecommerce Turnkey Sites

Ecommerce Turnkey Sites

Turnkey host sites normally offer the complete package, which normally includes hosting as well as products. Turnkey means an already stocked business, depending on the store it might be stocked with from 10 products to thousands.

These hosts usually charge a setup fee to create your store. A domain name may or may not be included in the price and there is usually a monthly fee for maintaining your store.

Some stores provide you with products at a base price and allow you to add your own markup. Others charge a fee for each product sold while others simply pay you a commission off each item sold. You choose what best suits you, but you will make the largest profit from those that you can markup yourself.

Do not be lured buy quick promises of up to 50% commission. Often times months down the line you are still waiting on your first cheque as you have not sold anything. Sometime these products are very expensive or of such a quality that your customers will not buy.

Another thing some hosts fail to tell is that you have to promote the store yourself. So get ready, in addition to paying a monthly fee, you will have to start driving traffic to your website. This can prove costly but there are ways around it, such as through site optimization and site submissions.

One of the greatest things about these turnkey hosting packages however is that you do not need to hold inventory. All your products are pre-stocked and for some hosts, you do not even need to worry about accepting payment. Everything is taken care of, these services are usually all included in the monthly fee. This does seem to make your transition into the world of ecommerce a little easier but does not guarantee you the best monetary remuneration.

So the choice of E-Commerce Turnkey host is yours, only you and your business idea will determine the best host for you.

Ecommerce Store Owners : Want Visitors? Here’s How. . .

Ecommerce Store Owners : Want Visitors? Here’s How. . .

Have you recently opened an online store, and waiting for those customers to drop by and start shopping?

In cyberworld - unlike the real world - you just can’t pick a good location and rely on passing trade. You’ve got to work hard to get visitors to your virtual store.

Let’s take a look at how we can drum up a small stampede...

Are You Optimised?

To stand any chance of being ranked well in the free search engines, your site must be optimised for the keyword phrases you are targeting.

Research and develop a list of keywords related to your product line, using the free downloadable software at www.goodkeywords.com . From this list, you can find two or three well targeted phrases, with decent visitor traffic, and make sure your website is optimised for them. Include the phrases in the title, and meta tags, in the body text (several times) and “alt” mage tags.

Make sure your product listings are optimised too. The term “horse saddle” is searched for over 1900 times a month on one search engine alone, so make sure your product titles and descriptions include the relevant search term, rather than just the plain old product number, such as “Acme A35284”.

Are You Link Building?

Search engines are placing more and more importance on incoming links to your website – in a way, ty consider them to be votes for your site.

First, make sure you submit your site to the large list of directories that are crawled and indexed by popular search engine spiders. You can get the SEO friendly directory list free at www.info.vibesilencer.com

Next, pursue an ongoing campaign of getting links from other websites. Try to make sure the sites are on a related theme. You can find sites that are linking to your competitors by typing “link:www.yourcompetitorswebsite.com “ into Google, and then approach them to request a link to your website.

One useful piece of software for researching and keeping track of link requests is available at www.seoelite.com . (If nothing else, the free search engine optimisation course is one of the best free courses I have ever come across)

Are You Using Pay Per Click Advertising?

There’s nothing like Pay Per click (PPC) for a quick shot in the arm! You can often have traffic within an hour of setting up a campaign with Google Adwords (http://www.google.com/ads). Overture is Google’s main Ppc competitor (www.overture.com) and can take a few days to get up an running with, but they are now part of Yahoo! – and therefore mustn’t be overlooked.

Ppc search engines can provide you with extremely well targeted traffic that you can turn on and off like a tap. However, you must get your strategy right or you will haemorrhage cash ; develop a large list of targeted keywords, write a catchy text advert and don’t get drawn into bidding wars.

Are You Overlooking Your Existing Customers?

Once your online store starts getting customers, make sure you keep them. Develop a newsletter to keep in contact with them – and regularly send them details of special offers and new products. Repeat business is often overlooked – but it is a vital part of some of the webs most successful ecommerce operations.

And if you already have a “bricks and mortar” store, don’t forget to publicise your new online shop – include it in all your stationery and marketing materials.

The marketing and promotion of an online store is an ongoing project. The most successful store owners know how important it is to set aside time each week to attend to marketing - whether it’s link building, writing a newsletter or keeping abreast of the latest online marketing developments – success comes to those who consistently put the work in.

Ecatalog - a Key Component of Your eCommerce Initiative

Ecatalog - a Key Component of Your eCommerce Initiative

In recent years, Internet virtually has become major driving force of economic and technological growth in many industries. It is fundamentally changing the way companies operate, do their trade and interact with each other and it is giving birth to new processes and business models that were previously unimaginable.

First type of the Internet business models that created a different business method was Business to Consumer (B2C) eCommerce. Business to Business eProcurement systems and web-based storefronts were two other models that emerged next. The eProcurement systems became widely popular instantly due to the factor that Internet-based automated buying solutions are capable of considerable reducing Maintenance, Repair and Operating expenses, which, in turn, makes direct impact on the bottom line of a company. Web-based storefront, on the other hand, provides a low-cost channel for the global marketing and sales of goods and services.

The next business model that changed the perception of doing business online was eMarketplaces. An eMarketplace is an online venue which brings together multiple buyers and sellers and makes it easier for them to communicate, collaborate and trade as members of a large community.

The fourth online business model has combined key aspects of all the above mentioned business methods and is known as Enterprise B2B Portal or Private B2B Exchange. The business world sees enormous changes across industries due to the emergence of this unique solution. Enterprise B2B Portal with supply chain management features is capable of streamlining procurement and sales processes, cutting overhead costs, increasing efficiency, while maximizing profit and helping bottom line savings for companies.

No doubt that B2B eCommerce presents enormous new business opportunities. But to realize these massive opportunities businesses must overcome some significant technical impediments. The most extreme and critical of these challenges involve creating, managing and distributing product content. All four of the above mentioned online business models face this crucial problem.
Product Content and eCatalog

Accurate and complete product content improves quality and speed of purchasing decisions by giving buyers the vital information needed. For sellers content differentiates their products and enables them to participate in multiple eMarketplaces, eProcurement systems and in their very own B2B Portal. The eMarketplaces and eProcurement systems must deliver content, with value added information such as ratings, reviews, regulatory compliances and service information to attract new users, retain the old ones and fulfill the needs of their diverse buyer and supplier communities.

Creating high quality product content is difficult because different suppliers use different descriptions, attributes and parameters to describe the same item. Managing product information becomes even more complex with the addition of value-added content such as editorial articles, service information and third party reviews.

Moreover, Buyers and Sellers have totally different approach and require different functions from a product content management solution. Buyers need a comprehensive content management system which allows them to take conclusive buying decision with minimum of effort and cost. Suppliers want a system that enables them to manage their brand, control their product descriptions, pricing, and discount policies.

The need for an advanced eCatalog

Despite its critical nature, product information management has been grossly underestimated by most of early eCommerce projects, which tend to focus on more high profile technologies, such as transaction engines and user interfaces. However, few of these B2B projects put required emphasize on the management of product content. As a result, many of them are beginning to realize that they have condoned the challenge of managing product information and that such oversights are hindering the overall effectiveness and scalability of their eCommerce initiatives. Actually, very few of eCommerce initiatives today have the right resources to support the activities required for aggregating, maintaining, and delivering high quality product content. In order to overcome this major hurdle eCommerce initiatives have to improve their ability to acquire, manage and update product content with the help of an advanced eCatalog system.

What is an eCatalog?

An eCatalog is an Online product content management solution with powerful user interface which provides efficient navigation, searching and integration capabilities to organize and publish product information and enable real-time handling of business processes related to buying and selling.

An eCatalog stores product content in a single database and organizes product information under a certain categorized hierarchy. An eCatalog also have sophisticated searching opportunities so that buyers can locate products easily.
Classifying products

Usually product information is acquired from different sources and is often classified under different taxonomies. This makes product indexing difficult and in many cases products end up being listed under several categories. International Harmonized Codes, a taxonomy used by many countries for customs tariff purposes, is one of the example of such systems. Because of this problem, HC and similar taxonomies are not really suitable for eCommerce.

That's why, most advanced eCatalog systems use classification system like The United Nations Standard Products and Services Code® (UNSPSC®), which provides an open, global multi-industry standard for well-organized and precise classification of products and services.

In e-catalogs the product content also has to undergo a normalization procedure to comply with a uniform product naming system. This uniformed nomenclature makes it easier for buyers to compare products and prices, and ensures exact match for relevant product searches. Depending on the quality of product information available, the eCatalog also requires rationalizing abbreviations and acronyms, synchronizing terminologies, converting unit of measurements, etc.
How businesses are loosing opportunities

Early eCatalog adopters made a crucial mistake by assuming that catalog integration is a fairly easy task in comparison to the other parts of eCommerce development. This misapprehension of reality occurred mainly due to lack of practical knowledge in this field and is based on the false assumption that one method fits for describing all similar products and it is possible to constrain product content with finite number of attributes and values. Observation shows that in many cases buyers are unable to take key procurement decisions due to poor content of the product, which results in lost business opportunities for eCommerce companies.

Benefits of using right eCatalog

An advanced eCatalog system similar to Rusbiz.com delivers a compelling value proposition. Using this type of solutions companies can integrate eCatalog capabilities into their business processes rapidly and manage sourcing, classifying, syndicating and publishing product content data effectively.

The return on investment from these solutions is also significant! Companies can expect increased revenue, better customer satisfaction, and shorter sales cycle.

Diversify With Ecommerce

Diversify With Ecommerce

Since 1972 Amsoil Inc. has progressively expanded its line of products. It began with one that proved to be the first of its catagory, an engine oil that had not been seen in the market place. Not too many years later, more need for superior synthetic automotive lubricants came into Amsoil Inc. awareness. Examples are the Food Grade Grease, racing applications and racing applications.

By the mid eighties Amsoil Inc. had more products available. These products where not the property of other contracted companies but Amsoil Inc. was the marketing and manufacturing origin of a widening divesification of product lines.

Opportunity to take advantage of these products in a variety of environments also proved successful. All types of automotive and commercial retailers where taking advantage of the technical support and leadership available. Racing has grown in atleast three areanas, no pun intended. Motorcross, Marine and Snomobile have made huge strides in the field of spectator sports as well as participants. Dealers have the opportunity to sponsor a rider or team in the field of their choice. This environment is an excellent fit for promoting Amsoil.

This an exciting business to be in because of its diversity of opportunites. The passion that keeps the engine of productivity moving is easy to refuel from a company that has the integrity at its foundation. The confidence that it will continue comes from the experience of the history and people behind Amsoil Inc.

Comparing Ecommerce Software Programs - 5 Tips

Comparing Ecommerce Software Programs - 5 Tips

If you've ever been interested in selling products online, this is certainly a great time to go into business. With more and more online users everyday, and people becoming more comfortable spending and making purchases over the internet, there is a lot of opportunity for budding entrepreneurs to tap into this market.

Once you've selected your market and the types of products you wish to sell, you'll need to choose an ecommerce software program that suits your needs though. Here are a few tips to help the process along.

What type of product are you selling? If you are going to taking orders for physical products that you package and ship to your customers, the ecommerce software you need will be very different than if you are selling digital products that are delivered directly over the internet. Make certain the software allows you to offer pictures, descriptions, and choices of sizes, colors, etc… if that is what you need.

Compatibility - Be certain your server or webhost's server is compatible with the ecommerce program you choose. Most online store's will want to have a secure connection, so make sure your webhost provides this option too.
Payment Processor - Make certain the ecommerce software you choose can integrate with your current payment processor or the one you are planning to use.

Most of the better programs allow integration with all of the popular merchant account gateways so you an quickly and easily accept and process payments via credit cards.

Support - Although there are several open source ecommerce programs that work very well for small to medium size online shops, keep in mind that paid versions will usually offer full technical support. This is an important consideration if you are serious about starting and growing your online business.

Search Engine Friendly - Many newer ecommerce software programs are search engine friendly. That means they create addresses and ecommerce websites that search engines like google and yahoo can easily 'read' to see what's in your store. This will increase your chances of your store getting listed in the search engines, possibly providing you with free traffic and more potential customers.

We hope these tips will help make your choice of ecommerce software and bit easier.

Good luck with your new online venture!

7 Tips To Increase Sales With Your Ecommerce Web Site

7 Tips To Increase Sales With Your Ecommerce Web Site

Ecommerce is just exploding right now on the Net. More and more people are doing their shopping online. Some Internet retailers are even beating out their offline counterparts. So what does this mean to you? It’s important that you are taking full advantage of your web site to get your share of the billions of dollars spent online every year. In this article we are going to cover 7 tips that you can put into practice immediately to increase your sales and revenue with your ecommerce web site.

1: Introduction
Make sure to have a brief introduction on the homepage of your web site. Your introduction should be concise and clearly identify the benefits of your visitors shopping at your site.

2: Navigation
Make sure that your site has clear and easy navigation, such as a visible search box on the top part of your web site, clear categories to browse through, a FAQ page that clearly explains your shipping and return policy, and etc.

3: Gift Certificates
People love getting gifts at certain times of the year, so make sure that you have gift certificates that your visitors can purchase right on your web site.

4: Customer Loyalty
Instead of just focusing on getting new customers why not take advantage of repeat business? Why not give your customers an incentive to come back and do business with you again? You can easily do this by offering coupons and special discounts to ones who have already purchased something from you. This is a lot easier than acquiring new customers since they already know you and feel comfortable shopping at your site. You can also add more value to your customers by adding live customer support to your site.

5: Special Offers
Make sure to have a section on the top part of your home page devoted to featuring your current special offers and sales items. In fact if you happen to have a lot of special offers you can just feature the most popular ones and then make a separate web page that shows all of your sales items.

6: Shopping Carts
People want the checkout process to go as quickly and smoothly as possible, so make sure that your visitors are always just one click away to checkout. Try to reduce the checkout process to as few steps as possible. Make sure to offer multiple payment options such as credit cards, Paypal, online checks, mail orders, and such. When you no longer have a product in stock make sure to either remove it from your site or clearly mark it as “out of stock”. There is nothing more irritating for a customer to go through the whole checkout process only to find out that you no longer carry the item they ordered.

7: Affiliate Program
Do you have your own affiliate program? The most successful web sites have one and you should too. By starting your own affiliate program you will develop an increasing online sales force where you only pay them when a sale is made. There is really no risk and it is one of the best low cost effective advertising methods that you can use.

If you put these tips into practice you will notice a drastic increase in your sales and web site revenue.

Blocking and Tackling | A quick look at some eCommerce fundamentals

Blocking and Tackling | A quick look at some eCommerce fundamentals

eCommerce can be VERY complex. To offer a world class customer experience, retailers must incorporate technologies and functionality that exceeds rising customer expectations.

eCommerce can be VERY complex. To offer a world class customer experience, retailers must incorporate technologies and functionality that exceeds rising customer expectations.

On the flip side however, site fundamentals still play a very large role in converting visitors into customers. Many retailers surprisingly lose sight of these site basics and leave significant sales on the table. This brief examines 4 quick “fundamentals” every eCommerce manager cannot afford to lose sight of.

Think Fast
Speed has become less of a problem due to the penetration of broadband, but don’t forget that a significant number of people still shop by a dialup connection. When creating a site framework, designers and e-commerce teams should ensure that the site is developed with pages loading in less than 9 seconds (over a dial-up connection).

Our recommended page size is within 60-70k in bytes. At that amount, sites will likely load within the maximum wait time of 9 seconds. Online retailers should avoid flash at all costs within their transactional site. Flash’s artistic aspects may help you establish a brand presence – but it will likely lose potential customers before they have even searched within your store.

Image is important
Images are a very important aspect of selling online and are often neglected. All product images should be of the highest resolution possible, be much larger than the product page original, and have multiple views. Dynamic imaging capabilities can improve the user experience to an even higher level by increasing interactivity (zoom & rotate). At a minimum – retailers should have at least two additional views outside of the product page image to help build emotion.

Be my guest
Shoppers do not like being forced to do anything, especially when they are ready to open their wallets. Forcing a shopper to register on your site before purchasing is a sure way to drive a portion of your traffic to your competitors. Too often , shoppers do not have the time or the inclination to fill out a lengthy form explaining what types of information they desire.

Always offer the ability to checkout as a guest. You will see less customer leakage within the checkout process and can still offer the option to register when the sale is completed.

Make sure it’s “above the fold”
Your homepage is the most important page within your eCommerce store. It sets the initial tone for the shopping experience and offers your best promotions and products to your visitors. Users typically visually scan a web page from top to bottom and then from left to right. All critical content and navigation options should be obvious to the shopper without having to scroll down. If you have your best promotions “below the fold” – you can bet that a large percentage of browsers are not scrolling down to see it.

Blogs, Podcasting, and RSS - How will these technologies affect eCommerce

Blogs, Podcasting, and RSS - How will these technologies affect eCommerce

At this moment in time, Blogs, Podcasting, and RSS are not going to fundamentally change any aspect of your online business, but rather, offer your company new ways to speak to your customer segments..

Blogs, Podcasting, and RSS Overview

You probably have heard all these terms an awful lot lately. You wonder about what these technologies do? What value to they provide? If you aren't up to speed on these new applications and how they are impacting online interactions then read this brief further.

Will these technologies impact you? To be honest, it's too early to tell - but awareness will drive innovation and maybe your team will develop an idea/application that utilizes these technologies to enhance a portion of your eCommerce business.

Here's the rundown:

Blogs

What they are:

Probably the most well known of the three, blogs allow everyday people to quickly develop a website presence and distribute any type of content that they desire. Look at the metrics relating to blog penetration.

• 7% of the 120 million U.S. adults who use the internet say they have created a blog or web-based diary. That represents more than 8 million people.

• 27% of internet users say they read blogs.

• Only 38% of all internet users know what a blog is. The rest are not sure what the term “blog” means.

What a “blog” actually means is weblog. In basic terminology, it’s the ability for someone to update web content directly though the Internet, using a web browser as the publishing mechanism. This makes the creation of content easy and many people are using blogs to establish authority sites within unique business and hobby/interest niches.

Where blogs impact online retail most is within these targeted online communities. Certain blog authors develop a large base of specific visitors, hence the site becomes a potential target market for viral marketing efforts. Many web entrepreneurs us this functionality to develop affiliate hubs within niche markets, and use search popularity to beat out larger retailers within corresponding natural search results.

By integrating your brand image within the site experience at that SPECIFIC blog, you as an online marketer are able to segment your marketing PRIOR to converting someone as a customer. It is a place to communicate with current and potential customers about current offerings/promos while boosting the credibility of the brand.

Should you care:

If you have a very unique value proposition, or sell to a very specific or high-value customer segment, blogs can be a great way to increase overall brand awareness. You can better connect with your customers and provide detail into the current happening within the business (ex. Current sales on XBOX 360). Potentially, one person within your organization should own the monitoring of blogs within your vertical and look to post new content to meet the needs within the unique blog community.

Podcasting

What it is:

Pocasting should be just called mobile video broadcasting. However, Apple's marketing/development team did a great job with branding their device to a type of emerging media – hence the term podcasting! Similar to traditional radio and television, mobile video broadcasting delivers branded content in either a paid/free environment, on someone's mobile media player (Apple only does video currently, but that will change shortly). Retailers can potentially use this communication channel to deliver targeted content to their customer base, while integrating advertising within the video content.

Should you care:

Not really. Until video podcasting penetration increases, it's still a limited channel for advertising. The best application available right now would be an online audio content segment that is digitally delivered to an opt-in list. As technology advances, you can potentially do this from your current opt-in page on your website and not from Apple's iTunes platform.

RSS

RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication and is a method for electronic content distribution. RSS is transmitted via the internet, but what makes it unique is that no downloading efforts are needed by the end receiver of the content. The content streams instateneously within a webpage.
Advanced consumers have RSS news readers on their computers, either integrated into an email client, or utilize an aggregated web application such as News Gator. This essentially saves them time in aggregating all new and updated content that meets their interests.

Already gaining steam in the travel industry and within comparison shopping engines, RSS seems to be a valuable way to push news and time sensitive offers to customers. Travel companies are able to provide a streaming supply of last minute airfare offers to their customer segments, without that customer having to open an email or visit a webpage.

Should you care:

It completely depends on the nature of your business. Do you consistently offer new prices? Do you obtain new products to your assortment consistently? Do you have a customer base that is extremely loyal that you want to reach out to with messaging? If so , RSS may another channel to help build your brand.

Blogs, Podcasting and RSS | eCommerce Impact

Blogs, Podcasting and RSS | eCommerce Impact

Blogs, Podcasting, and RSS Overview You probably have heard all these terms an awful lot lately. You wonder about what these technologies do? What value to they provide? If you aren't up to speed on these new applications and how they are impacting online interactions then read this brief further. Will these technologies impact you? To be honest, it's too early to tell - but awareness will drive innovation and maybe your team will develop an idea/application that utilizes these technologies to enhance a portion of your eCommerce business.

Here's the rundown: Blogs What they are: Probably the most well known of the three, blogs allow everyday people to quickly develop a website presence and distribute any type of content that they desire. Look at the metrics relating to blog penetration. * 7% of the 120 million U.S. adults who use the internet say they have created a blog or web-based diary. That represents more than 8 million people. * 27% of internet users say they read blogs. * Only 38% of all internet users know what a blog is. The rest are not sure what the term "blog" means. What a "blog" actually means is weblog. In basic terminology, it's the ability for someone to update web content directly though the Internet, using a web browser as the publishing mechanism. This makes the creation of content easy and many people are using blogs to establish authority sites within unique business and hobby/interest niches. Where blogs impact online retail most is within these targeted online communities. Certain blog authors develop a large base of specific visitors, hence the site becomes a potential target market for viral marketing efforts. Many web entrepreneurs us this functionality to develop affiliate hubs within niche markets, and use search popularity to beat out larger retailers within corresponding natural search results.

By integrating your brand image within the site experience at that SPECIFIC blog, you as an online marketer are able to segment your marketing PRIOR to converting someone as a customer. It is a place to communicate with current and potential customers about current offerings/promos while boosting the credibility of the brand. Should you care: If you have a very unique value proposition, or sell to a very specific or high-value customer segment, blogs can be a great way to increase overall brand awareness. You can better connect with your customers and provide detail into the current happening within the business (ex. Current sales on XBOX 360). Potentially, one person within your organization should own the monitoring of blogs within your vertical and look to post new content to meet the needs within the unique blog community.

Podcasting What it is: Pocasting should be just called mobile video broadcasting. However, Apple's marketing/development team did a great job with branding their device to a type of emerging media - hence the term podcasting! Similar to traditional radio and television, mobile video broadcasting delivers branded content in either a paid/free environment, on someone's mobile media player (Apple only does video currently, but that will change shortly). Retailers can potentially use this communication channel to deliver targeted content to their customer base, while integrating advertising within the video content.

Should you care: Not really. Until video podcasting penetration increases, it's still a limited channel for advertising. The best application available right now would be an online audio content segment that is digitally delivered to an opt-in list. As technology advances, you can potentially do this from your current opt-in page on your website and not from Apple's iTunes platform.

RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication and is a method for electronic content distribution. RSS is transmitted via the internet, but what makes it unique is that no downloading efforts are needed by the end receiver of the content. The content streams instateneously within a webpage.

Advanced consumers have RSS news readers on their computers, either integrated into an email client, or utilize an aggregated web application such as News Gator. This essentially saves them time in aggregating all new and updated content that meets their interests. Already gaining steam in the travel industry and within comparison shopping engines, RSS seems to be a valuable way to push news and time sensitive offers to customers. Travel companies are able to provide a streaming supply of last minute airfare offers to their customer segments, without that customer having to open an email or visit a webpage.

Should you care: It completely depends on the nature of your business. Do you consistently offer new prices? Do you obtain new products to your assortment consistently? Do you have a customer base that is extremely loyal that you want to reach out to with messaging? If so, RSS may another channel to help build your brand. Call us today to learn more about these technologies and the potential impact they can have in reaching your customers with targeted messaging and fresh content.

Ecommerce and other strange animals

Ecommerce and other strange animals

eCommerce, Ecommerce, e-commerce; however you spell it, the term is now firmly lodged in our language. So just what is it?

At it's most simplistic level; eCommerce is simply the buying and selling of goods, services or information via the World Wide Web, email or other pathways on the Internet. It is here to stay and will play a bigger role in our lives over the years ahead. Ecommerce and Ebusiness are interchangeable terms. eCommerce can be broken down into the following sections:

- eTailing. These are mainly "virtual" storefronts which act as a catalogue of products of merchants and usually include a "shopping cart" system to enable consumers to purchase online with the use of credit cards. Today's Internet climate dictates that if you can't buy what you see online while you are online; you will probably lose the sale. The great advantage of etailing is international coverage at minimum cost and the ability to trade 24 hours a day with minimum staffing levels. The benefits to consumers are shopping from home and a wide range of choice. This range of choice can sometimes be a downfall as it confuses some consumers who in frustration may give up on buying the product at all!

- EDI (Electronic Data exchange). This is the business to business (b2b) flow of information between companies or within a company itself. The 90's saw the concept information equalling power. Whatever creates power also generates money and therefore creates new enterprises to supply this information. EDI is being replaced with XML. He with the most relevant data on his hard drive wins!

- Email and faxing. Direct marketing through email. Unfortunately, it also creates the equivalent of what we find in our physical mailboxes every day; junk mail - electronic junk mail is known as spam. Terrabytes of spam is circulating around the Internet at any given time, which slows down our global network. While this is one of the negative aspects of eCommerce, direct marketing ploys, if carried out properly are a very successful and acceptable way of generating income for a business

- Security services. The broad exposure of (and sometimes hyped) dangers of credit card and direct debit transactions via the Internet has rocketed the growth of many companies who provide security services to protect consumer & business transactions. This can include authorisation/encryption technologies and creating secure areas on web sites. This will be a growth area for as long as eCommerce is with us because you can guarantee that as soon as a new "unhackable" technology is introduced - someone has hacked it. Some hackers view themselves as rebels, antiestablishment and "socialists"; but in reality they actually fuel the security services market and provide huge dividends for shareholders in successful security services firms. Good one guys... you won't change the world for the better by sniffing around bank accounts!

- Statistics. Demographics and survey results regarding Internet habits is a huge industry. Web planners rely on information from these sources in planning web sites and justifying marketing and promotional expenediture.

- B2B (Business to Business). When I began in Computer Hardware sales some years ago, I spent a great deal of time and money on national and international phone calls to locate components. In 2001, if contacting a supplier meant having to pick up a telephone; I wouldn't bother doing business with them. The B2B world of today means that wholesalers and retailers have a means of fast and efficient communications and transactions; the Internet.

Bill Gates is reported to have said something along the lines of: "In a few years, there will only be 2 types of businesses, those that are online and those that are out of business." You may not buy anything online yourself, but I'll guarantee that most of the companies that supply you with goods and services do - knowingly or not we all have our role in this brave new world......

Ecommerce 101 – Online Credit Card Processing

Ecommerce 101 – Online Credit Card Processing

Back in 1998 (through 2000 or so), I worked for a small company (called PaymentNet / then Signio) that handled online transactions. Verisign later purchased this company, and the product team I led integrated the "client" - the portion that took the credit card information and sent it to our servers for processing. The product name is Payflow Pro - maybe you've heard of it?

I'm going to limit this discussion to Visa / MasterCard credit cards -- Amex and others operate slightly differently.

First, there is the bank that the consumer’s credit card is attached to. That bank is called the "acquiring institution" ... it handles the "credit" you have on your credit card.

Then, there is the merchant bank. That's where the business opens up a "merchant account" to be able to accept various forms of credit cards.

The merchant account is connected to another company called a "processor". This "hidden" layer is the company that actually moves the funds from the acquiring institution to the merchant account (that process is called "settlement"). The processor also handles talking to the acquiring institution to make sure that the customer has the funds available (a process known as authorization).

Some well-known credit card processors are First Data Merchant Services (FDMS). Nova and PaymentTech.

Sitting on top of the processor is one of two primary systems either a swipe-card terminal (like those you see in Wal-Mart) or a "gateway" company that does basically the same thing, but over the Internet - that's what Verisign Payment Services and Authorize.Net do.

Note that the waters are even muddier in many cases, for example, Wells Fargo can act as every piece of the puzzle in some circumstances.

So, what actually happens when you purchase something at Wal-Mart using a credit card?

a) You place your items from your "basket" onto the counter and scan them. the checkout system provides a total.

b) You swipe your card through a "terminal", which reads the # off the magnetic stripe.

c) Wal-Mart dials their processor, and asks if you have the funds available on your credit card. The processor talks to your bank (the acquiring institution). If funds are available on the card, they are marked as "held" in your account (an authorization) - if not, the transaction is declined (yuk). Authorizations that are never settled tie up your credit card funds for a period of time, usually 10 days or so.

d) At the end of the day, Wal-Mart marks all the transactions they want to receive funds for, and submits them to their processor in a "batch". The processor then contacts the acquiring institutions and transfers the funds to your merchant bank - which may make the funds available instantly (in a day or two), or may hold them for a while, or may hold the funds in a "rolling reserve" (keeping some funds held back in case a consumer fights the transaction, called a chargeback).

In the online world, replace the cash-register with an online shopping cart, and the electronic credit-card with terminal with called a "gateway" such as Payflow or Authorize.Net. the process is basically the same, with slightly more complexity.

My site, CommerceStore.com handles the entire "shopping cart" and storefront process, including talking to the gateway. It knows how to talk to every major gateway (online credit card terminal) available. In addition, we have direct relationships with various banks that can help you open a merchant account in the US or in Canada, and the system works with PayPal. There's a whole lot more, including AutoResponders, built-in affiliate system, etc.

As a merchant, all you really need to know is that all services purchased through CommerceStore.com will work together. Be careful going "a-la-carte" with ecommerce credit-card services: if the gateway you chose can't talk to the processor your bank uses, or your software can't talk to the gateway, you're hosed. That situation was MUCH more common (things not working together) back in the mid/late 90's than it is today. However, most “brick and mortar” banks (like your local branch) still don’t have a clue about online credit-card processing … if they attempt to sell you a “leased terminal”, it’s best to run the other way and find a solution from reputable online source.

Ecommerce - Boost Your Business ROI

Ecommerce - Boost Your Business ROI

Did you know that over 90% of all online orders are processed by credit cards and that web sites that offer customers the ability to pay with credit cards can achieve up to 300% more sales than those that do not?

It's a fact. Not only do more customers buy, statistics prove that customers actually buy more when given the option to pay with their credit card. Here are some recent trends that will reinforce the need to sell your product or service on the internet- if your business is not yet doing so:

-At the end of 2000, over 400 million people worldwide had Internet access. That number is expected to reach over 1 billion by the end of 2005!

-Almost 100 million people in the U.S. are now making a purchase after using the internet to conduct their research.

-U.S. Consumers spent a record $13.7 billion in online purchases during the 2003 holiday season. A follow-up study conducted jointly by Goldman Sachs, Harris Interactive and Nielsen/Net Ratings pegged sales during the 2004 holiday season at $23.2 billion, up 25% from the previous year. This comes at a time when traditional retail sales are growing in the low single digits.

-Forrester projects that total e-commerce sales in the U.S. will increase by approximately 20% per year, growing to $229 billion in 2008, making online retail transactions 10% of total U.S. retail sales by 2008.

In addition, in a survey conducted among more than 500 small business owners, the overwhelming majority indicated that they were either very satisfied or at least somewhat satisfied with their company's e-commerce return on investment (ROI).

It's no wonder- when compared to traditional forms of direct marketing such as mail order catalogs, the cost of establishing and maintaining an e-commerce website is minimal. Additionally, new affordable, user-friendly storefront applications simplify the task of establishing and maintaining a professional e-commerce website. It is now affordable and doable- even for the novice small business owner- to convert their brick-and-mortar operation into a click-and-mortar operation and triple their revenues in a very short period of time!

What’s more, if your company sells products to consumers or businesses and you don't have a fully automated e-commerce website, your business is simply not operating at its full potential and you're sending customers to your competition!

It is no longer a luxury for the small to mid-sized retailer to have an e-commerce enabled site-but a necessity to stay competitive in the marketplace.

Ecommerce & SEO

Ecommerce & SEO

The purpose of any business website is to promote a product or service online. The purpose of an ecommerce website is to take it one step further and to allow your visitors to purchase your products or services directly from your website. This model has many great advantages over the non-ecommerce website in that it allows for the generation of revenue with little-or-no time spent in selling past the cost to have the website designed and maintained, and it does not require the visitor to call you during business hours thus helping secure the sale to an impulse buyer. If your website provides all the information that the buyer would want, you can save significant money in sales time spent in that the visitor can find all the information they need to decide to buy from you without taking up your time or that of one of your sales staff. But ecommerce sites have a serious drawback as well; very few of them can be properly indexed by search engine spiders and thus will fail to rank highly.

A non-ecommerce website may have the disadvantage on not being able to take the visitor's money the second they want to spend it, however if it can be found on the first page of the search engines while your beautifully designed ecommerce site sits on page eight, the advantage is theirs. The vast majority of visitors will never get to see your site, let alone buy from you, whereas a non-ecommerce site may lose sales because they don't sell online but at least they're able to deliver their message to an audience to begin with. So what can be done? The key is in the shopping cart you select.

SEO & Shopping Carts

The biggest problem with many SEO-friendly ecommerce solutions is that they are created after the initial product. Shopping cart systems such as Miva Merchant and OS Commerce are not designed with the primary goal of creating pages that will be well-received by the search engine spiders. Most shopping cart systems out there today are not in-and-of-themselves even spiderable and require 3rd party add-ons to facilitate even the lowest form of SEO-friendliness. The money you may have saved in choosing an inexpensive shopping cart may very well end up costing you your business in the long run, especially if you are using your shopping cart as the entire site, which we have seen may times in the past.

What Can Be Done?

There are essentially two solutions to this problem. The first is to create a front-end site separate from the shopping cart. What this will effectively do is create a number of pages that can be easily spidered (assuming that they're well designed). The drawback to this course of action is that your website will forever be limited to the size of the front-end site. Which brings us to the second option: choose a search engine friendly shopping cart system.

Finding an SEO-friendly shopping cart system is far easier said than done. There are many factors that have to be taken into account including the spiderability of the pages themselves, the customization capacity of the individual pages, the ease of adding products and changing the pages down the road, etc. While I've worked with many shopping cart and ecommerce systems, to date there has been only one that has truly impressed me in that it is extremely simple to use, it allows for full customization of individual pages and the product pages get fully spidered to the point where they have PageRank assigned. A rarity in the shopping cart world.

Easy As Apple Pie

Mr. Lee Roberts, President of Rose Rock Design and creator of the Apple Pie Shopping Cart, was kind enough to take the time to speak with me regarding how he developed his system. Trying to get an understanding of how this system was born I inquired as to what differentiated their system from others. Without "giving away the farm", Lee pointed out that his system was unique in that the search engines were a consideration from the birth of this project. Rather than trying to jerry-rig a system that was already in place, he initiated the development of a system whose first task was to allow for easily spidered and customized pages. A significant advantage to be sure.

In further discussions he pointed out a few key factors that should be considered by all when choosing a shopping cart system. While more advance shopping cart systems that provide for SEO-friendly pages may seem more expensive, they save you the cost of developing a front-end site, maintaining the pricing on a static page if one goes that route, and of course - if all your site's pages are easily spidered and you can then have hundreds of additional relevant pages added to your site's overall strength and relevancy you have a serious advantage in the SEO "game". If a shopping cart system costs you an extra $100 per month to maintain but it's use provides you with an additional $5000 in sales that month did it really "cost" you $100?

What Lee has effectively done is to provide a shopping cart system that enables search engines to fully read and index every page. Additionally (and perhaps because of his history as an accessibility expert) the system is extremely easy to work with as a user and as an SEO. And of course that's our primary concern at Beanstalk.

Conclusion

It is not to say that the Apple Pie Shopping Cart is end-all-be-all of SEO for an ecommerce site, if it was Lee wouldn't be in the process of building a new version that will include many new features for Internet marketing and tracking, and we would be out of work. That said, if you've got an e-commerce site or are looking to have one built, one must consider what type of marketing strategy will be taken with the site and if SEO is one of those, insure to find a system that provides the same advantages as this one.

It may cost a bit more up front but doing it right the first time is far less costly than building a site that can't be marketed properly and to it's maximum potential.

Developing a Winning Ecommerce Strategy

Developing a Winning Ecommerce Strategy

One bright spot on the economic horizons around the world seems to be continued consumer spending and ecommerce is clearly a part of this, with sales estimated to be in excess of $9.9 Billion in the next three months according to ACNielsen. But, there is a dark cloud hovering over this sunny ecommerce landscape called poor web site design. Let's explore some of the reasons why consumers are not reaching for their credit cards after perusing an ecommerce web site.

There is a huge knowledge gap about how the web is really driving online and offline commerce. A recent eCommercePulse survey of more than 33,000 surfers conducted by Nielsen/Net ratings and Harris Interactive indicates ecommerce sites are driving more purchases offline (phone, catalogue, retail store sales) than online. Many consumers are using the web to effortlessly compare features and pricing – then, calling the company or visiting their local retail store to make a purchase. Clearly many companies need to factor this information in when analyzing their online and offline marketing expenditures and related ROI.

According to a recent Zona Research and Keynote Systems Report released earlier this summer over $25 Billion (USD) was lost in ecommerce due to users abandoning the web site prior to a purchase being made or during the process. The users just gave up because the load times (the amount of time it takes a page to be displayed in a browser) were painfully slow. Today's online shoppers aren'ta real patient group, they want information presented in 12-18 seconds, or
they are off to another site that works Unfortunately many firms have allocated a disproportionate amount of resources for advertising and not enough on good web site design and back end infrastructure. It's critical to make the market aware of a site, but if the potential customers are not presented with the right navigation and menus (read information architecture) they will not buy. Case in point, according to recent Dataquest surveys (and others) between 20-40% of most users don't purchase because they can't figure out how to easily move around the web site.

Many firms fail to properly integrate their ecommerce components with the overall site design. The in-house developers or outside design firm concentrate on the sexy parts of the web site design process (the graphics, branding, look and feel) and only focus on the ecommerce process after the primary web site design is completed – making ecommerce an afterthought.

A large number of ecommerce web sites don't even list a phone number, arbitrarily forcing people to contact the company electronically – this is a real problem, as many people don't want to use e-mail or forms as their primary means of communicating, they want the immediacy of the telephone.

It's very surprising, but approx 30% of ecommerce sites don't have a search capability that actually works – in many cases it just returns gobblygook. This is a real irritant for many online shoppers who want to find goods and services quickly and efficiently – the need for speed should be the ecommerce merchants marketing mantra and a good search capability gives users a way to quickly find products.

One of the most important parts of any web site is the home or index page, as it aggregates the design elements and information architecture. So many index page are cluttered and poorly designed, loaded with poor graphics, bad menu structures, oddball words or my absolute least favorite, 30-60 second Flash animation sequences which force the user to sit and stare at a blank screen while the animation loads.

Privacy statements are about as exciting as filing taxes (unless you know your getting a refund) – they are out of necessity filled with legal terminology that needs to be addressed succinctly and in a way that makes a consumer feel comfortable about doing business with an ecommerce web site. Unfortunately, many ecommerce web site privacy statements look like an afterthought, or, are so "attorney driven" (three pages – who has time to read this?) people are turned off by them. It's very important that a privacy statement be a compromise doc brokered between legal and marketing.

We are a full service ad agency so I don't mind shooting arrows in the direction of my peers – too much attention is being placed on web site advertising metrics (clickthrough rates, certified traffic to substantiate ad rates, etc.) and not enough on how people find and use an ecommerce web site. The industry standard web site analysis tool is Web Trends, but one of the least understood aspects of this
product is tracking how people find and move around a web site via reports which can be pulled from the server log files; i.e. where did the visitors come from, what pages do they visit, how long do they stay, what are their traffic patterns, etc.? Ecommerce companies should be analyzing these "digital customer tracks" to better understand how to improve their front end marketing processes and
back end web site design.

Developing a Winning Ecommerce Marketing Strategy

Developing a Winning Ecommerce Marketing Strategy

One bright spot on the economic horizons around the world seems to be continued consumer spending and ecommerce is clearly a part of this, with sales estimated to be in excess of $9.9 Billion in the next three months according to ACNielsen. But, there is a dark cloud hovering over this landscape called poor ecommerce web site design. Let’s explore some of the reasons why consumers are not reaching for their credit cards after perusing an ecommerce web site.

There is a huge knowledge gap about how the web is really driving online and offline commerce. A recent eCommercePulse survey of more than 33,000 surfers conducted by Nielsen/Net ratings and Harris Interactive indicates ecommerce sites are driving more purchases offline (phone, catalogue, retail store sales) than online. Consumers are using the web to effortlessly compare features and pricing – then, calling the company or visiting their local retail store to make a purchase. Clearly many companies need to factor this information in when they analyze their online and offline marketing expenditures and related ROI.

Unfortunately many firms have allocated a disproportionate amount of resources for advertising and not enough on good web site design and back end infrastructure. It’s critical to make the market aware of a site, but if the potential customers are not presented with the right navigation and menus (read information architecture) they will not buy. Case in point, according to recent Dataquest surveys (and others) between 20-40% of most users don’t purchase because they can’t figure out how to easily move around the web site.

Many companies fail to properly integrate their ecommerce components with the overall site design. The in-house developers or outside design firm concentrate on the sexy parts of the web site design process (the graphics, branding, look and feel) and only focus on the ecommerce process after the primary web site design is completed – making ecommerce an afterthought.

Many ecommerce web sites don’t even list a phone number, arbitrarily forcing people to contact the company electronically – this is a real problem, as many people don’t want to use e-mail or forms as their primary means of communicating, they want the immediacy of the telephone.

It's surprising, but approx 30% of ecommerce sites don’t have a search capability that actually works – in many cases it just returns gobblygook. This is a real irritant for many online shoppers who want to find goods and services quickly and efficiently – the need for speed should be the ecommerce merchants marketing mantra and a good search capability gives users a way to quickly find products.
One of the most important parts of any web site is the home or index page, as it aggregates the design elements and information architecture. So many index page are cluttered and poorly designed, loaded with poor graphics, bad menu structures, oddball words or my absolute least favorite, 30-60 second Flash animation sequences which force the user to sit and stare at a blank screen while the animation loads.

According to a recent Zona Research and Keynote Systems Report released earlier this summer over $25 Billion (USD) was lost in ecommerce due to users abandoning the web site prior to a purchase being made or during the process. The users just gave up because the load times (how fast it takes a page to be displayed in a browser) were painfully slow. Today’s online shoppers aren’t a real patient group, they want information presented in 12-18 seconds, or they are off to another site that works.

Privacy statements are about as exciting as filing taxes (unless you know your getting a refund) – they are out of necessity filled with legal terminology that needs to be addressed succinctly and in a way that makes a consumer feel comfortable about doing business with an ecommerce web site. Unfortunately, many ecommerce web site privacy statements look like an afterthought or are so “attorney driven” (three pages – who has time to read this?) people are turned off by them. It’s very important that a privacy statement be a compromise between legal and marketing.

We are a full service ad agency so I don’t mind shooting arrows in the direction of my peers – too much attention is being placed on web site advertising metrics (clickthrough rates, certified traffic to substantiate ad rates, etc.) and not enough on how people find and use an ecommerce web site. The industry standard web site analysis tool is Web Trends, but one of the least understood aspects of this product is tracking how people find and move around a web site via reports which can be pulled from the server log files; i.e. where did the visitors come from, what pages do they visit, how long do they stay, what are their traffic patterns, etc. Ecommerce companies should be analyzing these “digital customer tracks” to better understand how to improve their front end marketing processes and back end web site design.

Ecommerce: A New Artform

Ecommerce: A New Artform

What creative project do you have in the back of your mind? Writing that novel?
Putting together a bluegrass band? Painting the sunsets over the Rio Grande?
How about starting a business?

When you think of the term creative endeavor, does launching or running a business come to mind? To most creative people, business is the antithesis of creativity. Yet slowly, ever so slowly, the nature of business is changing. The need for innovation in business is gradually overtaking the need for control as the resource that makes the difference between success and failure.

Really? But isn't business essentially about control? Controlling resources and controlling people? Yes, but business is also about innovation and communication, both of which live at the heart of creativity.

There are two reasons why I believe creativity will become increasingly valued in business. Control is certainly critical in business, both resources and people need to be managed carefully. But control is easier to teach than innovation. Given an equal need for both innovation and control, control is the easier skill or talent to find and implement. Thus innovation rises in value because it's more difficult to find and utilize effectively.

Are innovation and control equal needs? They certainly haven't been in the past. Control has been the leading force in business since the beginning of the industrial age. That age has ended however, and we now live in an service-based information world of commerce. This means the resource that needs to be controlled is more likely to be information rather than, say, coal. Information can be managed easily across electronic wiring and storage media. That means important work of business will be creating and disseminating information, and that requires a creative mind.

The other reason I believe creativity will rise in importance in business is that in our information-based economy, the resources required for business are fewer and less costly. If you can run a storefront on the Internet that can reach millions across the globe, you don't need capital to build a store that sits in a city and reaches thousands. The juice it takes to make the Internet company successful is not capital so much as the creative ability to reach and build a customer base over an infrastructure that's effectively free.

Napster was a wonderful example of this. A teenager was able to create a service that was quickly utilized by millions upon millions of users. Of course Napster had a glaring flaw: the company was trading in products created by others, and trading without the consent of those who produced the products. But the heart of the matter is that someone without substantial resources could build a highly-used, well-recognized brand out of little more than a creative idea. Using the same infrastructure, surely someone will come up with another intriguing idea that will capture our imagination and a big audience, and it will probably happen soon. And the next wave of creative Internet entrepreneurs will have learned from the Internet crash and its aftermath.

The Internet isn't dead. It's just stumbling a bit while taking its toddler steps. Internet start-up ideas will continue to attract creative people, simply because the free infrastructure invites innovation and resists control. Control is the deathword to creativity. Creative people have shunned business for that reason alone. Yet in a world where creativity and innovation become the critical elements for success, you bet creative people will begin to see commerce as an avenue of expression.

During the high days of Internet exuberance, I used this column to make the claim that business will be the creative medium of the early 21st century. I still believe it's true, simply because the basic elements still exist a encourage a creative approach to business. The resources to support a new company do not require control so much as creative manipulation. Given this free and open canvas, creative people will rush in, despite the lingering notion that business is somehow anti-creative.

Advertising Your eCommerce Web Site

Advertising Your eCommerce Web Site

8 Tips for Increasing Your Online Sales

Once you’ve launched your eCommerce web site, you’ll need to show it off to the online world. Whether you’re paying someone to submit your site to all the major and minor search engines and directories, it’s still up to you to continually advertise your eCommerce site in order to keep attracting business.

Many online business owners will tell you that within six to nine months of your launch date you’ll start seeing increased orders for your products. However here are 8 things you can do to lure people to your site now!

1.Advertise on http://www.Craigslist.org . This entry will only last for 10 days and you must submit to one city and category at a time. You can include photos and/or advanced HTML in your ad.

2.Write a press release and send out for free to the following sites: http://www.prweb.com [this one has been around for several years]; http://www.prfree.com and http://www.openpress.com Paid submissions will get you more views, quicker listings in the search engines, and the ability to post photos and keep track of your statistics.

3.Submit your site[s] to http://www.isedb.com/html/Web_Directories [You’ll discover loads of directories here, from the highly specialized to the mainstream. Many of the sites have ratings; indicate whether they’re accepting new submissions, and if there’s a fee for submitting].

4.Search engine positioning. When advertising your eCommerce site, always have the following information on hand: A. Your Web site title. This should be approximately 7-12 words. B. Description. Have 3 different descriptions of varying lengths. 15 words, 25 words, 100 words. Have them summarize the essence of your site. C. Keywords. 10 – 50 of your most important keywords arranged in order of importance. Again, some online directories will allow you to contribute more keywords than others.

5.Write articles about your products/service. Be an online expert. What makes your site so unique from the thousands of others in your chosen category? Is it your customized service? Your low prices? Your high quality? Don’t over promote your product, but concentrate on what will help others. It’s highly recommended you include at least two or three testimonials.

6.Exchange links with other sites that have quality information and are related to your field in some way. For example, I sell a lot of soap so I link with mostly gift basket, crafting and candle sites.

7.Free classifieds. These can sometimes get you listed in the search engines, but don’t expect too much response from them.

8.Offer a freebie. For example, if you have an eBook for sale, you won’t give the entire book away, but having a chapter or two online will increase interest – and sales. If you make or sell a product, offer a free sample with a paid order. Or free shipping on sales over a certain amount.

Follow one or more of these helpful tips and watch your online business bloom!

Ecommerce - Making Your Bank Account Grow

Ecommerce - Making Your Bank Account Grow

Ecommerce has opened the door to many small businesses and individuals to compete on a global level with their products and services. Basically sellers look for buyers to purchase their goods online knowing that the choices and convenience it affords will tempt customers to buy.

So, what is it that sets your business apart from others?

You might be lured by so many product choices to stock your store. There are many claims to gaining quick and easy guarantees to top spots, but maybe you need to wake up and smell the coffee.

Let's assume firstly that you are at least showing up in the search engines. That way, visitors will start trickling in to your site. But what do you have to make them stay? These are the factors I see affecting most new ecommerce businesses.

Target Market: Who is your target market?

Marketing 101-, you do not have to be a guru to realize that people must have a desire in order for you to fill it. My first site was made to accommodate everything-from a pin to an anchor; but no visitors. With such a wide product base, I was targeting no specific customer group one and got no response.

That strategy also spells commercial suicide for many small ecommerce sites on the web. When you are small, how can you hope to compete on the same level as the big boys?

What you need to do is to develop a niche, one that has enough customer base, are hungry for your product offerings and have the ability to purchase. Niche Marketing is one of the new buzzwords on the net as small businesses attempt to differentiate their goods from others to create value for their own products.

Website Design

How appealing is your website? The cleaner the look, the simpler the concept, the better it works for most ecommerce sites. Are their exceptions? Sure! However, for the majority of customers, they do not and will not spend time wading through pages of worthless info to find your product. Make your products stand out. Quick and easy links from the front page directly to the product with ease of ordering.

I have gone on sites and have decided to buy only I am not able to find where to order. That, my friends defeats the process of setting up a sales site, after all if the order button is not prominent to whom or what sales are you hoping to achieve.

Make sure all sales pages have a clear order button as sometimes having it more than once increases the likelihood of making a sale.

If you cannot design your own website to be commerce friendly, even though you might need to cut costs, consider at least investing into some straightforward hosting package that gives ready made templates that are easy to customize even without HTML knowledge. If you do have the money, hire a professional, the money will be worth it.

Product Choice

For any product, you can think of there exists a niche for it. However, you need to define clearly what your product line is going to be before you begin. This has an impact on the domain name you choose to buy. Research has shown that domain names with the name of the product or service, adds additional relevance to site and improves ranking and aids in faster listing of the site on the search engines.

Therefore, if I am selling shoes for people with small feet then I can buy a domain name like www.smallfeetshoes.com. It does not sound pretty but guess what, right away you would have included probably your three most important keyword in the domain name and this will help in site listing and ranking.

Ecommerce is not really rocket science, but it does take a few hours of research in order to be fully knowledgeable about the process. If you are planning to get into ecommerce, try reading today, there are many places on the net with relevant info. Who knows it might save you from a future headache and lost cash.

Ecommerce: Installing and Configuring your Shopping Cart

Ecommerce: Installing and Configuring your Shopping Cart

You decided you're going to sell your products online. Or perhaps you don't want to sell them yet, only display your catalog. So how do you go ahead and implement your virtual shop? The answer is short: you need to install a shopping cart in your website. But let's go step by step and expand this simple answer to a brief explanation of the process. It will be better to know all the players involved in bringing your store up to life. There are many shopping cart solutions out there, you need to find the one that meets your needs. You will find open source solutions and paid ones. They will have different types of customer support and some of them may be ready to install in your hosting account. You need to find the right solution for you, if you're not an experienced user get one with good customer support or even hire a professional to help you in the process of setting it up.

First: you need a domain name for your store, and need to host it at a hosting company. If you already have the domain, you may skip this step. If you don't, you need to register the domain and then place it, host it, at a web server. You need to choose a hosting company which offers what you need. You will most probably need a database for your store and programming language support. Which language depends on the requirements to install the shopping cart of your choice. Some examples of programming languages are ASP, Php, Perl.

Second: if you plan to sell products, you need a payment processor, a company to process the payments you receive online, in real time. You can use a third party solution like PayPal, where you do not need to open a merchant account. Or you may choose a payment processor company to accept credit cards online, where you also open your merchant account. Examples of these are Authorize.Net, WorldPay and SECPay. All companies charge different fees for their services, it is important to go over their fee structure and find the right solution for you. Most shopping carts come with payment processing integration modules so you can seamlessly connect your cart to the payment processor of your choice. If your processor is not included, you should consider requesting the integration development, if possible, or opt for a different payment processor.

Third: you need to install the shopping cart script in your domain, and configure it using the Administrator interface. This is a private, password protected area of your site that you use for all the store maintenance and admin tasks. You need to:

- choose the layout and looks of your site. - establish your products categories or groups, so they are organized - load your products - set your payment processor information - configure shipping options - configure taxes

This is only a short list including the more essential tasks. There may be more aspects involved in your particular implementation, depending on your particular needs and on the shopping cart you chose to install. If you think all this is rather confusing, you should consider getting professional help to get your store working.