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Final Thoughts on eCommerce

By admin on June 17, 2011 in

Perhaps the most fascinating thing about eCommerce is the sheerenormity of the opportunity and how quickly the industry has developed.

Back in the dinosaur ages of the Internet (1994), there was no such thing as real time credit card transactions.

In those days, you had to make your purchase over the telephone or via email and your order would be processed offline.

Thankfully times have changed.

Instead of sending cheques via snail mail, customers can now make instant payments and businesses can receive their money almost immediately.

However, even through the technology has rapidly progressed – the fundamental rules of e-Commerce remain the same.

To generate sales on your website you still need to do two things:

1. Drive quality traffic to your website; and
2. Have a sales system in place to convert browsers into buyers.

Without these two components, the process of collecting the money (ecommerce) is irrelevant.

That’s why we’ve left this module as the last part of the course.

The modules leading up to this one are all pre-requisites to making the sale.

But often, the first question that runs through the head of new website owners is “How do I collect the money?”

And that’s why many eCommerce sites fail – they jump the gun by worrying about all the bells and whistles before developing a plan to generate traffic to their site.

Clearly, the most successful eCommerce sites are not the ones that just come up with a ‘great idea’ but the ones that build their businesses around a pre-existing demand in the marketplace.

 

 

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4 Ways to Increase Online Sales

By admin on June 17, 2011 in , ,

“The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest”
Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was once asked what he felt was the most powerful force in the universe.

His response was “compound interest”.

Einstein was referring to how small incremental changes over time can produce amazing results.

Improving the conversion rate of your website is exactly the same.

Small changes – like improving your customer checkout process, can have a big effect on how many people end up buying from your site.

By experimenting with new ideas you’ll quickly get a feel for what works specifically for your business, but here are a few proven strategies to get you started:

1. Make it Easy to Navigate and Find Information

Good websites and online stores make it easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for.

This means:

  • Organizing your products and services into logical categories;
  • Minimising the amount of clicks to get from point A to point B; and
  • Allowing visitors to use a ‘Search’ function on your site.

In a nutshell, the better the user experience – the more likely your visitors are to buy something. The golden rule of website design is the simpler the better.

For example, Google is a multi-billion dollar company that receives millions of visitors to their website everyday.

Take a quick look at their “About Us” page:

http://www.google.com/about.html

Notice how they’ve resisted the urge for flashy graphics and spinning logos?

Clearly they have placed functionality above cosmetic appeal.

If you take a moment to look at popular websites like:

  • Amazon.com
  • eBay.com
  • Dell.com
  • Micosoft.com
  • Ford.com

… You’ll find they all have two things in common – a clean website design and a simple navigation system.

Once you’ve finished building your website, it’s worth conducting some basic usability testing.

This is as simple as getting a few customers and colleagues to review your website and asking them what you could do to improve your site design.

2. Make it Secure and Trustworthy

Before customers will be ready to give you sensitive information such as their home address or credit card number – they need to be reassured that your website is safe and secure.

Any doubt or hesitation on their part substantially decreases your chances of making the sale.

Steps you can take to build trust with your shoppers include:

  • Displaying a security and privacy guarantee (you can do this by installing an SSL certificate);
  • Assuring them that their email address won’t be spammed or sold to a third party; and
  • Having your website security audited by a third party like TRUSTe (www.truste.com) or the Better Business Bureau (www.bbbonline.com).

3. Offer Free Shipping
Offering your customers free shipping can be a massive sales booster.

Imagine this scenario for a moment: Two pizza stores are competing for business in their local neighbourhood:

A) Pizza store A sells their pizzas for $10 but charges $5 for delivery;
B) Pizza store B sells their pizzas for $15 but offers free delivery.

Who sells more pizzas?

The person who buys from Pizza store A is happy with their pizza – but feels a little ripped off by paying 50 percent of the pizza cost for delivery.

The person who buys from pizza store B is happy with the pizza and happy about getting ‘free’ delivery.

So even though the total price to the consumer remains identical ($15), why is it pizza store B will always outsell pizza store A?

The answer is basic human nature; we all want ‘something for nothing’.

Even though logically we understand that the delivery price for pizza store B is built into the purchase price, emotionally we’re still attracted to the thought of ‘free delivery’.

Offering free shipping to your customer’s works on the same principle – test it out and you might be surprised at the difference.

4. Generate Repeat Orders
No matter what industry you’re in – it’s much easier (and profitable) to generate repeat orders from existing customers than to be constantly chasing new customers.

Repeat shoppers to your website have the highest conversion rate online, so keep in touch with them by sending:

  • Thankyou emails;
  • Discount offers;
  • First pick at new or limited stock; and
  • Limited time promotions.

Everybody loves a bargain and a quick email blast can be especially handy if you need to move old or discontinued stock.

If you’re looking at increasing traffic to your website, we offer a range of internet marketing solutions including search engine optimisation, pay per click advertising and social marketing.

 

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Selling Online: Should You Sell a Product or Service?

By admin on May 25, 2011 in
Another question you might be asking yourself is:
‘Should I be selling a product or a service online?’
As we’ve discussed earlier, there are a variety of ways to make money online and selling products or services can be very profitable.
The decision to sell a product or service (or both) really comes down to your individual business goals – both avenues have their pros and cons.
In the context of this course, we’re defining a ‘product’ as a commodity offered for sale and a ‘service’ as work done by a person for another.
Products can be physical goods like books, CDs, gadgets or digital goods like e-books and digital music downloads (to do this, you’ll need a shopping cart website).
Services can include anything from accounting advice, to landscape gardening or music lesions.
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Defining Your Website’s Primary Goal

By admin on May 25, 2011 in

Building a great website is a lot like building a great house.

In most cases – success or failure comes down to how well the project was planned from the beginning.

Your Website Plan is the ‘blueprint’ for your new website.

In its simplest form, the plan communicates what your website is going to do and how it’s going to do it.

When you first thought of building a website, there’s a good chance your objectives were to:

  • Build credibility with your customers;
  • Inform potential customers about your goods and services;
  • Project a professional image; and
  • Stand out from the competition.

Whilst these are all great objectives to have in place, they’re really only a ‘means to an end’. The ‘end goal’ of commercial websites is to make money.

After all it’s great to have a website, but what’s the point of putting in all the money and hard work if you can’t achieve a positive return on your investment?

How well your website makes money will depend on:

  • The business model you choose;
  • Your ability to generate traffic to your website; and
  • Your ability to convert ‘browsers into buyers’.

And whilst it can be tempting to jump in and start building your site, every good website must go through a basic planning process to ensure its ultimate success.

Let’s start by identifying the different ways you can make money with a website.

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Good Online Store Design

By admin on May 22, 2011 in

We’ve all heard the line ‘Don’t judge a book it’s cover’…but let’s get real for a moment.
In the real world everyone judges you (and your business) by the image you project.

The same goes for your website.
For many businesses a website is the first point of contact for potential customers, so it’s vital that you make a good first impression.

The three key components of any web design are:

  1. Presentation
  2. Functionality; and
  3. Usability

Presentation refers to the way your website looks.

Great websites are easy to spot because they;

  • Look clean and professional;
  • Make sensible use of colours and graphics; and
  • Attract the right target market.

Bad sites are equally easy to spot, because they:

  • Look poorly designed;
  • Are difficult to use;
  • Make bad use of colour combinations and garish graphics;
  • Have text that is too difficult to read; and
  • Pages that take too long to load

Functionality refers to your website’s ability to give users what they want.

For example, if you wanted to a book an airline ticket online, a site withgood functionality would allow you to:

  • Easily view the available flight times;
  • Compare pricing options; and
  • Make a booking with your credit card.

A less functional site, would:

  • Not have the ability to check pricing or book flights;
  • Contain vague or ambiguous information; and
  • Have a confusing payment process.

And finally, usability refers to how easy (or difficult) it is to use and navigate your website.

Have you ever visited a site that took too long to load?
A website where the text was too small and you struggled to read it?
Or a website where the menu system was confusing to navigate?

That’s bad usability in a nutshell.
Regardless of whether you’re looking for a complete online store design, or simply shopping cart software – we have a range of solutions to suit.

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