How to Enhance a Website to be Suitable for Online Shopping

January 27, 2012 0 Comments

This is a guest post by Glen. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Online shopping has become a fad since the Internet has reached the homes of many people. The reason why it is popular is because of these three things: convenience, cost effectiveness, and the wide variety of goods or brands that consumers can select on. Looking through online shopping stores can be quite entertaining too. It is because of the way successful online shops have been created. It’s not only a matter of design, but as well as the content found in it that adds up to entertainment.

Although online shopping can be a good venture to work on these days, taking some factors into consideration such as ecommerce website development including programming, website design, and internet marketing, and as well as shipping, taxes, and different payment options are things an online marketer or a company has to make research on and learn. The question is: How will you be able to compete with the rest of the online shopping websites and stand out? To enhance your website to become suitable for online shopping here are some guidelines:

Choose a good domain name

A domain name is what identifies your online store or your business. Some companies do not necessarily use their company name because the names have probably been bought and have become too expensive to repurchase or because of internet marketing and SEO purposes to get better rankings in keyword search.

Choose a good web host

A good web host has features that will help you stand out from other online shopping websites. Look for features that will enable you to operate your business smoothly such as web marketing tools, secure online payment and other transactions, reliable up time, and most of all, dependable online support.

Web Design

When you are strolling around the mall, what makes you enter a retail store? It’s because the colors are very attractive and the “sale” logos are placed in a strategic spot of the store. These only are a couple of important factors as to why people are drawn to shop. In websites, colors play an important factor in influencing the actions to be done by online shoppers. Graphic design, in general, plays a very significant role in persuading people to shop online. But limiting “website design” into colors and graphic design is a poor way of describing web design.

A good web design calls for functionality and easy navigation. All buttons, links, graphics, landing pages, website pages, contact forms, and other website elements should work as they should. It calls for faster speed, and that means being able to load a page with all its information in less than 4 seconds. It also calls for quality, and that means being able to put high quality content and high quality product photos and descriptions.

Product Pages

Product Pages are the “shelves” of the website. An online web store’s shelf, however, contains product information like size, color, texture, weight, height, and other notes to describe the products. This part of the website is very important as this will do the selling for you. You don’t have a sales representative to “do the talking” to encourage your customers to buy. All you need is a good product description and the other information to demand a call for action.

Successful product pages are able to display a good picture of the product, specifications, and customizations a customer can do to it. When customers work freely around product pages you are now able to capture a lead. Work around creating a good link or button to help your customers to check out.

Payment Options

The best thing about online shopping is convenience. People need not go to physical retail stores to purchase because it can already happen by some clicks in the mouse. But sometimes online retailers tend to forget or devalue this by not offering different payment options for customers. Most of the time, this is where customers leave the online shopping cart because they do not have lots of options for payment. To be able to overcome this, you can always setup a merchant account from Paypal as it accepts credit card payments, bank drafts, and of course, Paypal money.

Customer Registrations

Make customer registrations easy for your customers. You need not ask too many information just as so they can start making purchases because the most important factor in making a successful online store is keeping it fast and smart working. Also, be sure to add notes about privacy.

Checkout Pages

Checkout Pages are simply the “checkout counter” or the “cashier” of a website. This is also where some online stores fail to finally make a customer checkout. It’s the process that discourages them to finally buy. Some websites have confusing checkout processes where they offer other products that instead of encouraging sale–it drives interested customers away. Checkout pages should be simple, and if you cannot help but apply suggestive selling, you can design your website with other products related to the ones in the shopping cart but make sure they’re organized and are not in any way interfering with the payment button.

Contact Pages

There are visitors who do not right away make purchasing decisions but instead have more questions to ask about certain products and services. Contact Page button should be visible from the menu and as well as content links. To add credibility to your website, it is important to include the following contact details:

Telephone, Mobile, or a 1-800 number
Fax
Email
Physical Store or Company Address (if applicable)
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google+ accounts

Also, if you think you can afford to hire an online representative or develop ticketing options for your customers that would be best. Prompt responses to queries should be a standard as it helps you gain trust from customers.

Shipping Fees

The downside of going into an ecommerce business is shipping. Some customers are discouraged to buy because the product that they are purchasing costs lesser than the shipping fee. Offering free shipping all the time can hurt your business but offering free-to-reduced shipping or delivery costs in holidays for customers in the country can help you increase sale. Do not forget to add UPS, USPS, or FedEx shipping calculators to give your customers a glimpse of how much they should be paying for a product.

Finally, do not forget to add analytics for you to know how to improve your website and as well as the products and services you offer.

Glen is a part of the NetIdnow team that helps individuals and businesses alike on how to create an online store using WebStudio Website Builder—an online store builder that allows people to make a website with or without HTML skills. Glen also enjoys sharing valuable information on SEO and Web Design.

The Infinite Market: An Introduction to Online Business

September 14, 2011 0 Comments

This is a guest post by Alvina Lopez. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

As the Internet develops and grows in it’s capabilities, it also transforms and redefines the marketplace and business world. Twenty years ago an individual could start a physical company with far less concern for financial ruin or competition than she could today; but by the same token, that same individual can start an online business today and be successful in a way that a physical business never could.

People born with an entrepreneurial spirit in this generation have an advantage over the older generation in that they can start a business faster and with more creative flexibility than ever before with the internet.

No one, however, is born with all the knowledge and skills required to start a business, and starting a business online can be especially challenging in some unexpected ways.

If you are dying to start your own business online, but don’t know where to start, here are a few tips to get you on the right track:

First, you have to identify your niche. It is unlikely in our market that you will be able to offer a universally demanded product, so try to start off thinking small. Small doesn’t have any bearing on your profit margin in this sense—just try to target a specific need, like a software that controls your dishwasher. See how specific that is? And yet, the market is so super-saturated with consumers that there will be a buyer for almost anything. Don’t try to sell to everyone, just a small group that will faithfully buy your product.

Next, after identifying a niche, you’ll have to produce, buy, sell, or market the product that fills your niche. It is probably at this stage that you will have to decide what kind of online business you will run, based on the nature of your product.

There are three basic kinds of internet businesses:

Buying or selling digital products
Shipping tangibles to consumers
Providing online content to users

No matter what kind of business you sell, you’ll also have to become familiar with search engine optimization (SEO) methods and online marketing.

SEO is what determines how searchable your site is on engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, and so forth. The easier it is to find your website, the more traffic you will get to your site, and the more potential buyers you will get. Some companies specialize in SEO tactics to make other sites more searchable. Basically, SEO is finding the right balance of keywords, tags, titles, and links to your site, without being spammy.

Online marketing comes in many shapes and sizes, but the most important kinds that you should worry about in the beginning are affiliate marketing and ads. Affiliate marketing is a partnership between two online companies, where one site advertises for the other, and is entitled to a percentage of every sale the second company makes from referrals. Sounds complicated, but really it’s just having a review of or a link to another product or service on your site.

Similarly, you can put ads for just about anything on your site, and receive a few cents every time someone follows the link.

This is meant to be just a basic introduction to online business. One of the greatest things about the Internet is that you can research how to build an online business just surfing the web. There are hundreds of great sites and resources at your fingertips. It only takes a little motivation to get going. So get to it.

Alvina Lopez is a freelance writer and blog junkie, who blogs about accredited online colleges. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: alvina.lopez @gmail.com.

5 Reasons Why Buyers Will Leave Your Web Store Without Purchasing

September 1, 2011 0 Comments

This is a guest post by Alice Delore. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

As an online retailer, you work hard to put your products in front of buyers: You take professional-grade photos and write enticing product descriptions. Not to mention, you do all that hard work to actually get buyer traffic to your store via social media channels, search engines and perhaps even paid advertising.
However, what too many store owners overlook is the fact that once buyers actually get to your site, they can be easily repelled by your site, by a few common pitfalls that many e-Commerce websites consistently employ.
Here are my top 5 reasons why buyers will leave your web store without purchasing:

Your store has a flashy introduction

Most introductions obstruct site visitors from viewing your products when they land on your site.
Website introductions had their hay-day back in 2006… and even then, it didn’t last long. The truth is, buyers don’t want to see three minutes of stock images and abstract phrases morphing on their screen. Instead, they want to buy the products you sell or get information you offer. Fast. So please, skip the introduction and give it to them as fast as possible.

You site defies all laws related to web usability theory

If you don’t know a lot about web usability, that’s OK, but in order to maximize dollars spent by every buyer who visits your site, it’s best you learn the basics. Essentially, web usability theory tells us how site visitors interact with websites and therefore, how we can structure our sites so that they mimic that behavior. A rule of thumb in usability is to give buyers what they want (products or information) within two to three clicks from the homepage.

This will result in you converting your site visitors into buyers because it will be easier for them to engage with your store and find what they need.

Never forget that web users are impatient and short on time. If they can’t find what they want within seconds of being on your site, they’ll leave for good.

Your site is slow to load

A slow-loading site is not only something that will kill your potential customers desire to buy from you, it will also make it difficult for your site to rank in search engines.

You know yourself that if you are searching in Google, and a site is slow to load, it’s likely that you will hit the “Back” button and find another site to browse.

While there are not quick fixes for most issues which slow your site, there are some quick ways to find out what might be slowing things down. One of the best resources is Google Page Speed, an open-source hub that helps web site owners improve their site’s performance.

Your buyers must create a new account before they can make a purchase

Many web developers and usability experts will agree that forcing a buyer to create an account before they can purchase is just asking for lost sales!

While it can be valuable for you to collect customer data and get them wired into your store, don’t underestimate how many sales this could be costing you.

As a store owner, it is your job to make it as easy as possible for buyers to make purchases without placing hurdles in front of them.

You only offer one payment method

Buyers love choices at every step of the purchase process and that includes choice in how they pay you!
If you can offer PayPal (arguably the most popular among buyers) as well as Google Checkout or another alternative such as MoneyBookers, buyers will appreciate the options.

Hot Payment Tip: If you offer payment via PayPal and have either a Premiere or Business account, advertise the fact that you can accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover card. Some buyers don’t realize that they can pay via PayPal using their credit card (thus protecting their credit card information AND preventing them from having to sign up to PayPal) so make sure you point this out.

Which of these web store blunders does your site feature?

Alice Delore is an education specialist for SaleHoo.com, an online community of over 95,000 online sellers and retailers. Their product range consists of an online selling course, ecommerce software and their flagship product, a wholesale directory.

Is eCommerce Right for Your Small Business?

June 30, 2011 0 Comments

This is a guest post by Marc McDermott. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Deciding whether or not to launch an eCommerce business is an important decision best not made in haste. Keep in mind that expansion into a new market like eCommerce requires planning, research and an investment in new technology. It’s important to analyze whether the benefits can be expected to outweigh the costs before diving in. Do that by considering the following questions recommended by SCORE, a non-profit association focused on promoting small business growth:

Can you showcase your product or service online?
Do you have an existing website that you can position for online sales?
Are you prepared to invest in a full-fledged eCommerce website?
Is eCommerce a strategic business direction for your firm?
Can you offer faster, 24-hour customer service online?
Do you have a dedicated IT staff and/or budget?
Do you currently accept credit card payments from your customers?
Do you have established supply and delivery chains?

If you answered an honest “yes” to a majority of these questions, you may be ready to start developing your eCommerce strategy. A compelling business case can be made for making the leap to online transactions, but you need a foundation built on careful planning and a true commitment to your business and your customers. Merchants who already have a successful traditional retail operation should talk to their merchant services provider about merchant account options for credit card processing on the Internet. It’s also advisable to choose a consulting firm that’s experienced in building an online eCommerce presence to make the most of this new, potentially profitable opportunity.

If your answers are an even mix of “yes” and “no”, slow down, take a deep breath and re-examine your interest in jumping into the eCommerce pool. Analyze whether expanding to online will make it easier for your customer base to purchase what you’re selling. Take inventory of your infrastructure and determine what needs to be added — hardware/software, functionality, supply/delivery chains. Your merchant services provider should be able to help with some of these questions, and can set you up with the right merchant account if you decide to move forward.

If you answered mostly “no” to these fundamental questions, you have more work to do before eCommerce will pay off the way you want it to. Do a thorough requirements analysis to determine what changes need to be implemented in your current infrastructure to support the move. Consult with the experts, including your merchant services provider, to make sure the risks are manageable before committing to an online business.

Marc McDermott is the Online Marketing Manager at Merchant Express, a provider of merchant account services and payment processing technologies with a specialized approach to credit card processing, merchant bankcard processing and transaction processing services.

Free Traffic with ShopWiki

August 4, 2010 1 Comment

If you are an online retailer that is looking for some free traffic especially for the coveted fourth quarter, then check out ShopWiki. This great shopping comparison site has been around for some time now with its simple to use interface quick product searches. They are a product aggregator that collects products and prices from online retailers with a web crawling spider. I have used this website before for one of my ecommerce sites and it brought some good traffic in. I couldn’t complain as it was free for me. If you have an affiliate program, then they will usually give you better placement because they are earning a percentage of your sales. This is optional though and will not make or break your chances of getting listed.

Check the site to make sure that you website it not listed. It is a simple search that you can do by going to their Approved Store page and then clicking on the alphabetical letters at the top of the page.

If you find that your store is not included, then they have an easy submission form that will allow you to give your store url and the Shopwiki spider will start to crawl your pages. This can take some time, so if you want to see some traffic for the holiday, then you better submit today. If you have an affiliate program, you can contact them to see if they can list you faster, and they might be able to assist.

iMark Interactive