You want to succeed at eCommerce? Welcome to a very big family. Right off, let's be clear - there are lots of ways to do business on the internet. And lots of ways to both make and lose money. Successful eCommerce websites come in all shapes, kinds and colors and while I can't cover every type of site in this series, I will present the basics you need to consider and apply for an eCommerce web site to be successful.
Let's begin by assuming you have some of the fundamentals, that you understand the language and that you are serious. I'm not going to tell you how to set up a web site or get a decent hosting account. We're beyond those basics. The basics here are the factors which will influence the success (or failure) and the degree of success your eCommerce web site experiences.
First and foremost, you need to provide value for your customers. Absurd as it seems to have to repeat that, a lot of so-called eCommerce sites provide no or very little value for their visitors. Pretending to offer value is not the same thing as providing value. Promoting miserably written, hackneyed, cloned ebooks filled with questionably useful and/or outdated content doesn't make a high value web site. Sure you might make some money. Once. And you'll end up with a high refund rate - and an unhappy credit card processor. That path means you're taking advantage of inexperienced customers and abusing their willingness to trust you. This isn't the way to a long-term business with steady repeat customers.
Value on the net is not very different from any kind of off-line retail sales -- a quality product line that will attract potential customers and a competitive price that will lead to purchases. An honest, quality product that will meet the expectations you've created in your buyers. Hyped junk just doesn't cut it.
Next, you've got to have a smooth, user-friendly, easy to follow process all the way to your thank you page. The simpler, cleaner and clearer you can make the process, the better. Where it makes sense you can augment this user-responsive site profile by adding live-response chat.
If you do decide to use call-in or live chat, it's imperative that your operators be well-trained, understand your products and your system and be customer friendly. This can be a problem if you outsource. The less expensive out-source call centers can turn out to be very expensive in terms of lost sales and customers who never come back.
You'll need to check very carefully and be 100 per cent certain the operators actually speak and understand the primary language(s) of your targeted customer group. You'll need to provide extensive background information and highly flexible, well-written scripts.
You should collect your own customer evaluations - separately. Don't rely exclusively on any monitoring or customer satisfaction surveys provided by the call center. Track your ROI to be sure it's money well-spent. Don't stop monitoring just because the results looked good for the first two or three months. Things change. Make sure you're tracking desired actions linked to the call center separately from those NOT related to call-in or live chat. Mixing outcomes leaves you in the dark about what's really happening.
You probably should have an attractive website. An ugly site can work, but to do that you need to absolutely know exactly what you're doing and why it should work. And you'll have to test like crazy to optimize (of course, you should be doing that anyway). The ugly site tactic is not for the inexperienced. Very few individuals really have the grasp of marketing, market and customer psychology that makes for a successful "ugly" site.
To provide a pleasant experience, you need to be careful in what you use - colors, text-size, graphics, animation and white space can add value to your site or turn it into a user nightmare. Test your site with people who will tell you the truth. Just because you love it doesn't mean anyone else will. In general, aiming for a professional appearing site is your best option. Look for the highest ranked, busiest sites in your business area and study the layouts they use. Extract the common features that you see on those sites. While other factors heavily influence traffic and ranking, appearance has a strong effect on visitors and sites that do testing evolve toward optimizing visitor behavior.
Keep in mind that a site's desired actions affect the design and layout. You'll want to study sites where those actions are most similar to the desired actions you target on your web site. If your goal is direct product sales, there's not much point in emulating a site that's optimized for newsletter sign-ups or AdSense.
If your main goal is direct sales (and if it is, then you need backend products too), provide incentives for customers to buy AND to return. The return factor is critical to a long-term strategy for success. Anyone who buys is your best possible future customer. Keep them, track them, make them special offers. Use coupons, discounts, special deals, customer-only offers and back end sales. Your customer base is your gold mine. Since they've shown enough faith in you to buy, do your utmost to never damage that faith. Treat them like the priceless resource they are. Think long-term: successful eCommerce websites are all about value and customer service.
Copyright 2005 Richard Keir
Richard teaches, trains and consults, on and off-line, on business and professional presentations, eCommerce, site building and programming. And writes a lot. Visit http://www.Building-eCommerce-Websites.com for articles, information, resources and links and check our blog at http://www.Building-eCommerce-Websites/blog for opinion and ideas.
Let me share with you a secret that most marketing... Read More
Online shopping is convenient, but many companies whose web sites... Read More
BENEFITS OF A DATABASEBy maintaining your list as a database,... Read More
As the holiday shopping season begins in earnest, consumers say... Read More
The sad truth is, general Web users would love it... Read More
How much holiday shopping did you do on-line this year?... Read More
After building and transferring many e-commerce sites it still amazes... Read More
If you learn how other people make money online, I... Read More
If you want to sell on the internet, your need... Read More
The World As It Then WasThe dynamic economic growth of... Read More
In spite of the increasing attention on how the Internet... Read More
When shopping for e-commerce hosting there are a lot of... Read More
Knowledge Management for beginnersKnowledge Management (KM) can be defined simply... Read More
Can you encounter the number of times where a Credit... Read More
Online customer service is still one of the most frequently... Read More
ClickBank.com can offer you multiple solutions for your e-commerce business.... Read More
If only I had known that autoresponders are a necessity... Read More
1. Balance - You want to find a directory rich... Read More
The fourth step of how to start an Internet business... Read More
For many businesses, e-commerce represents a tremendous method for generating... Read More
Shopping online has become more and more popular in America... Read More
It is often assumed if you want to accept credit... Read More
PayPal is secure in its domination over the electronic payment... Read More
Recently I went looking for an online merchant account, with... Read More
Whether you sell a product or merely sell time to... Read More
Many people are saying that the internet is dead. So... Read More
Increase Company ProductivityAfter years of hard work, finally your business... Read More
Yes, it's true, coupons are not just for newspapers anymore.... Read More
Deciding when to get your own merchant account for internet... Read More
According to NOP World, 48% of all Internet users have... Read More
There are lots of ways to advertise for free but... Read More
I'm a plain man who uses plain thinking in devising... Read More
Many surfers already know about Froogle, Google's shopping portal that... Read More
Because of this encouraging surge in activity, many individuals are... Read More
If you are a small to medium size company and... Read More
To obtain more local customers for your business, consider expanding... Read More
An internet business is by far the best way to... Read More
Many people are saying that the internet is dead. So... Read More
Do you sell something online? Do you have a business... Read More
Have you ever had someone who owed your business money... Read More
China's IT industry is expected to see a sales revenue... Read More
With consumers purchasing billions of dollars of merchandise online each... Read More
When it comes to e-commerce everything is a little bit... Read More
1. To find out what type of content visitors want... Read More
Only a few manage to sell everything under the sun... Read More
Back in 1998 (through 2000 or so), I worked for... Read More
Pakistan with highest growth rates in 1960s and bad politics... Read More
You're excited. You have a great idea for a profitable... Read More
Paypal is one of the wonders of the web. Never... Read More
If you have been wrestling with the idea of applying... Read More
Greetings!Friends and relitives ask us all the time " How... Read More
There are many tools available to a webmaster to analyse... Read More
There are F words in business. We have seen many... Read More
In spite of the increasing attention on how the Internet... Read More
Selecting the right emarketplaceAlthough, IT spending has been staying flat... Read More
A common frustration among merchants who sell online via a... Read More
What does 'the can' mean? Well, its literal meaning relates... Read More
The World As It Then WasThe dynamic economic growth of... Read More
Having a successful member only, paid membership site is one... Read More
ClickBank.com can offer you multiple solutions for your e-commerce business.... Read More
So you want to start a business? Good for you.... Read More
If you have little or no capital but you want... Read More
Overview:What is web advertising?Internet Advertising is popularly known as web... Read More
What is the Internet?In order to provide a discussion on... Read More
If only I had known that autoresponders are a necessity... Read More
Online customer service is still one of the most frequently... Read More
E-commerce |