This week in eBay news the company announces a Seller’s Challenge that awards entrepreneurs with $25,000 grants. Also, the auction site’s latest policy changes roll out next week.
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This post was written by Perry Lowers on June 12, 2009
While most anticipate Internet revenues to be down or flat this year, investing in e-commerce and tweaking Web site are still on most merchant’s to-do lists for 2009.
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This post was written by Perry Lowers on May 22, 2009
Ecommerce And The Supersized Value Meal
Summary: Consumers understand that the money they have at their disposal is a commodity every bit as much as the goods you have in your e-store. You have to earn their trust, provide exemplary customer service and provide the information they need or they will keep looking for the value added service they feel is deserving of their business.
There was a time when questions were referred to the encyclopedia or someone smarter than you. Subtly this idea has been almost snuffed out of existence.
‘Honey, how many people live in Des Moines?’
‘I don’t know let me check online’
‘Daddy, can you help me figure out what a uvula is?’
‘Sure, do you need pictures? Just a few clicks and there you are, Dear.’
‘How many miles per gallon does that new crossover get?’
‘Let’s take a look at their website and find out.’
We have more access than we ever have to more knowledge than we ever thought we’d use. This is why ecommerce should never shrink from informational content.
The growth of the Internet is driven in many ways by a thirst for information. What is interesting is customers are initially less interested in where they find their information than they are in the quality of the information.
Long story short it may well be the information place on your website and optimize for search engines that may bring someone to your site initially. The knowledge-based content is effect IS the marketing tool of choice for knowledge-based consumers.
Ecommerce follows its brick and mortar predecessor is catering to an on demand crowd. No one likes to wait and they want what they want when they want it. Got it?
This may all seem a little bit selfish, but the ecommerce business that insists on being centered on the needs of the customers is likely the ecommerce solution that will garner the most business.
Consumers understand that the money they have at their disposal is a commodity every bit as much as the goods you have in your e-store. You have to earn their trust, provide exemplary customer service and provide the information they need or they will keep looking for the value added service they feel is deserving of their business.
Furthermore, because brand loyalty is diminished in the 21st century you have to continually earn the favor of your customer base. This is where marketing tools such as ezines, email marketing and ebooks can make a real difference for customers that want not just a product, but the knowledge they need to make the best use of that product.
There are many ecommerce businesses that do not have the same point of view. They insist on operating their ecommerce store in a way that fails to capitalize on something they have failed to comprehend. The Internet opens the possibility to provide value added materials in a cost effective environment. Customers do not have to choose your business so make sure they have ample reason to place your site at the top of your list.
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects. Get your own website online in just 5 minutes with HighPowerSites at: www.highpowersites.com. Start your own ebook business with BooksWealth at: www.bookswealth.com
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This post was written by Perry Lowers on December 18, 2008
Ecommerce Where Do I Begin
Ecommerce is not just for the brick and mortar company, but also for a one-man shop. If you’re a one man shop, that has a specialty item that, because of a lack of funds, cannot distribute to the big department stores, look at an online business. It can give you a presence, and a ready market.
But as with everything, you must have some of the standard elements to begin. I’ll try to give you an overview.
Storefront Elements
Your Storefront - Logos and graphics are important when putting up your
store. They should keep your regular customers coming to your site, as well as,
entice new customers into your store.
What I look for in a storefront, as an affiliate marketer, is pretty much the same as what a customer wants to see.
For instance:
1. Photos and description. Make sure your photos and images are loading properly, that can drive people away quickly.
2. Accessibility of links to product details.
3. Easy navigation to make the customer visit hassle free.
4. Ecommerce Shopping cart that works. (why do I say that? I was looking
at one possible affiliate partnership and decided to test the shopping cart). The
shopping cart came up with the item, like it should. I then put in the "1"-to select the purchase one item. Then I hit continue. It was then that the shopping cart software bulked-and forced me to go back to the beginning). I tried several times, then quit in frustration and bought elsewhere. Get my meaning here? (Ease of ordering is important for you, if you want sales)
5. Spelling - Try to have all words spelled correctly - Diminishes the quality of the information.
Important Things to consider
There are other important things to consider-especially when it comes to money expenses.
If you are wanting to build an ecommerce site, you will need an ecommerce Shopping Cart. Shopping cart software can run from free to as high as $500 per month. If you’re a one man shop- with a little money in your pocket, you may want to consider a free ecommerce solution to get you started. For example, OS Commerce (http://oscommerce.com/) is an open source, free ecommerce solution that is available for free. It features a rich set of out-of-the-box online shopping cart functionality that allows store owners to setup, run, and maintain their online stores with minimum effort. If you’re lucky your server will set it up for you. If not, you may need to have someone set it up for you for a small fee.
Payment Gateway - This is the service that will help you to process your payment methods: Be it Paypal, AuthorizeNet, Paynova, etc. You’ll have to check out the charges for each sale, chargeback, and monthly fees that they may charge.
I would like to stress the technical importance of this aspect of your business. Why? It will help you in handling orders, taxes, payment processing and order delivery efficiently. Again, if you don’t have all your ducks in a row, you can lose money.
Ecommerce Website design-If you are going to have someone build your ecommerce website you will need to figure that into your cost. If you’re planning to build your own website than most of your cost will be your own labor. Just a note: designing your own website is getting a little easier, even without HTML knowledge. But if it is open source software, you will be responsible for the maintenance and updates of the software when needed. And trust me, you will get some friendly reminders to update your ecommerce software by your server. Why? If you don’t update the patches, it can cause holes in the server, which affects everyone. What will they do if you don’t update? First time-remind,second time - but a hold on your account and business till you update.
Product photography - You will want to have quality pictures for your website. Not only to keep customers happy, but also attract affiliates to help you sell your products.
Contact - 800-number, contact number, or email contact for customer service/support. If you don’t have a method for customer service contact, than people will bulk at buying, because they may question the legitimacy of the website.
And let me stress, customer care is important on the Internet. It elicits trust, and when you break that trust the whole of the Internet will know about it. This will affect your customer base, as well as, the attraction of affiliates. In fact, if I find that the customer care of a product or service is an important asset to my affiliate business. If I hear rumbling of bad service or that the service is not up to par,- I’ll monitor it for a month - and if it’s just an isolated incident, it stays. But if it is how they are doing business on a regular basis, it’s gone from my site.
Good computer with a large hard-drive, and at least 1 gig of memory-2 gig if you have a Vista operating system. And a good FTP software program.
Shipping - You’re need to estimate your shipping charges. Determine whether you will only ship within the states or Internationally. And I would advise having a tracking system in place, for both deliveries and returns.
Marketing
Now that you have the major pieces together you will then have to begin the marketing process -Seo marketing, Seo optimization, email marketing, article writing, Adwords, just to name a few.
Desire and Success
I want to stress that an online business is just like a brick and mortar business. With that being said, be aware that in most cases a new business will take 1 to 2 years to break even and 2-4 years to start making a living from your business. And if you’re online, you will have to continually learn and adapt-and be prepared for the competition when you start seeing an element of success.
To conclude, when you get an idea for an ecommerce site, or any business - my advice, is don’t quit your day job until you know you are established and have money coming in. Learn everything you can, and the desire and the passion will carry you through the frustrating times, because the good times will definitely take care of themselves.
By: V Scanlon
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Vickie J Scanlon — Visit her site at: My Affiliate Place or free tools, articles, ebooks, how to info, affiliate opportunities, travel and tech accessories, security software and computers for your home office or online business.
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This post was written by Perry Lowers on December 18, 2008
Guide To Ecommerce For Home Business Startups
If you’re thinking of setting up a home business, the term ‘ecommerce’ may seem intimidating. Perhaps it conjures up images of Wall Street, company floats, and the excesses of the dot com bubble. Fortunately for prospective small business owners, the dot com bubble burst, and with it the myth that you need to be a large company with deep pockets to profit from ecommerce.
Last year, it is estimated around $170 billion was spent online (Credit Suisse). And this figure is only set to grow, as broadband becomes cheaper and more accessible worldwide. Small and home businesses still have ample opportunity to develop their own piece of that pie - provided they don’t make some crucial mistakes.
The foundation of any successful business is a good idea. In ecommerce, this idea must include a viable plan to draw an income, and a website marketing plan that takes into account current best practices.
The first idea - a plan to earn income from the venture - may sound obvious, but this was a key failure in a lot of the dot com startups of the early days. A modern variation can be relying only on an income stream like contextual advertising without having any products to sell. Unless you’re google, it’s dangerous to rely only on advertising. A good ecommerce business idea will incorporate the sale of physical or intangible goods. Intangible goods can include ebooks, online videos, downloadable software, audio, or other electronic media.
Intangible goods have an advantage in that the profit margin is higher. But some niches and industries are better suited to the sale of hard goods.
The online world is more fickle than offline, in that a prime location is not quite as fixed. In the offline world, if you had the money, you could rent a retail space in a large shopping square and be guaranteed a certain amount of passers-by. In some ways this is true online, but in other ways it is not quite so accurate.
If you were relying on pay-per-click (PPC) advertising as a means of sending traffic to your site, this holds true. Deep pockets can buy more traffic. The flip side is that even with PPC, you can still get a good amount of traffic without blowing your budget. And it can be highly targeted, profitable traffic. In this case, a certain investment of skill is required to learn the system. Fortunately, there are a lot of good ebooks that explain it fully. Perry Marshall’s is a good one.
PPC is not the only means of supplying traffic to an ecommerce site. Natural search results are the ‘holy grail’ of traffic because it is essentially free. Rank well, and you’ll get a lot of traffic which you won’t have to pay a dime for. With natural search, this scenario (big business, prime online real estate) doesn’t have to hold true. Optimizing for natural search does take some skill, but it can certainly be learnt by the prospective home business owner.
Traffic and a viable means to produce an income are the two successful ingredients of ecommerce. Master those, treat your venture like a real business, and the income earned online can be significant.
By: Rebecca Prescott
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
If you’d like more tips for successful ecommerce, click here. Or if you need more information on how to build an ecommerce website, click here.
Discover More About Start Selling Online With Ecommerce | Internet …
The future is here, the future is in eCommerce. With all the recent stock disasters everyone … Read more…
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This post was written by Perry Lowers on December 18, 2008
