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
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
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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