Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Informative Articles
Ecommerce that Makes Sense
We weigh the merits of ready-made and custom solutions to add ecommerce to your site.
In our last Tips we cautioned that just having a shopping cart on your website isn't enough to make ecommerce work. This month we'll weigh the merits of ready-made and custom solutions to set up ecommerce on your site.
IT ISN'T ROCKET SCIENCE ANYMORE
There was a time when selling products online required months of conjuring by highly-paid programmers. Those days are gone. Large companies with complex requirements still need custom programming (to tap a mainframe for inventory information, for example). But for the vast majority of small businesses there's a ready-made solution.
Be wary of web programmers who propose to spend a large number of hours building a shopping cart. Either they've done this before and are trying to charge you full price for something they already developed, or worse, they've been living under a rock for the past five years and have never done an ecommerce site.
ADDING ECOMMERCE TO AN EXISTING SITE
If you already have a website, the first thing you should do is check the ecommerce solutions your web host offers. You may already have a solution available, or you may be able to pay a small upgrade fee to access one.
If you have a website with a list of your products online, you may try a shopping-cart-only service, such as 1ShoppingCart (www.1shoppingcart.com). This type of service lets you add "buy now" buttons to your existing web catalog. When a buyer clicks the button, she's taken from your website to a checkout area on the ecommerce provider's site.
This can be a quick and easy way to set up a shopping cart. A mid-range account with 1ShoppingCart costs $40 per month. The downside is that, although you can add your own logo, the checkout area doesn't look exactly like your site. This may discourage some buyers.
CREATING A NEW SITE WITH ECOMMERCE
There are a variety of web-based services which provide a complete shopping cart and product catalog system. Yahoo Store (store.yahoo.com) is a good example. For $50 per month and 0.5% of each transaction (that's in addition to whatever you pay your credit-card processing company) you get a fairly complete package.
You choose from a variety of templates and then set up your store. It takes about 1/2 hour if you have copy and digital product photos. One benefit of a Yahoo storefront is inclusion
in their ecommerce directory. It's like opening a store in a mall that already has good traffic. The downside? Although it is possible to customize a Yahoo store, it may end up looking a bit "cookie-cutter" and unprofessional.
CUSTOMIZING A READY-MADE SOLUTION
For the most professional look and feel you'll want to hire a web development firm to customize a pre-built ecommerce system. Some web firms work with Miva Merchant (www.miva.com). Another example is Resolve Digital's REDiSHOP module. Costs are higher than a Yahoo store: a license is typically $500 - $1,000 and web development can range from around $2,000 to $10,000.
The advantage of this approach is that the firm uses pre-built functionality so you don't pay to reinvent the wheel. Your money will be spent on those aspects of the site which are unique to you-- professional graphics, layout, and branding-- all of which can increase consumer confidence in your site.
SETTING UP A MERCHANT ACCOUNT
A merchant account enables your website to accept credit card orders in real time. Customers enter credit card information and funds are deposited in your account automatically. Firms such as Charge.com provide this service fairly inexpensively.
Your credit must be approved and you have to pay setup, monthly, per-transaction-fixed, and per-transaction-percentage fees. These are generally around $200, $25, $.20, and 2.5% respectively. If you look around you may find a provider running a special and waiving the setup fee.
Most ecommerce systems offer a preferred merchant account vendor. If the prices are within the range noted above you might as well go with that to minimize setup. You can also get a merchant account through your bank, but it'll be more expensive.
CONCLUSION
If you'd like to test the waters of ecommerce inexpensively, a service like Yahoo may be your best option. If you want to present a more professional face to the public, hire a firm to develop your site by customizing a pre-built ecommerce product. And remember, avoid anyone who wants to build you a shopping cart system from scratch.
About the Author
Barry Harrison and Jim Grady are the co-authors of REDiTIPS. REDiTIPS is a free monthly newsletter that offers simple techniques to market your Web site and grow your business. We provide practical, low-cost ideas to help you promote your small business and reach new potential customers.
© 2006 "> - All Rights Reserved.
Showing posts with label fulfillment internet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fulfillment internet. Show all posts
Monday, December 15, 2008
Ecommerce Store Owners : Want Visitors? Here’s How. . .
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Informative Articles
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.
© 2005 Robin Porter.
About the Author
Robin Porter has been CEO of London based web designer Arpey Internet (http://www.arpey.co.uk) for over six years.
© 2006 "> - All Rights Reserved.
Informative Articles
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.
© 2005 Robin Porter.
About the Author
Robin Porter has been CEO of London based web designer Arpey Internet (http://www.arpey.co.uk) for over six years.
© 2006 "> - All Rights Reserved.
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