eCommerce Website Hosting, Design, Maintenance, and Marketing

eCommerce Simplified

There are currently over 400 million online consumers worldwide and the numbers are increasing with every passing minute. Businesses such as eBay and Amazon have helped to educate and familiarize consumers with the concept of buying online. Every day, the number of people shopping, communicating and doing business online is growing at an amazing rate.

Where traditional commerce operations realize an annual growth rate of approximately 4.5%, eCommerce sales are exploding at a rate of 28% and higher.

Whether we like it or not,

eCommerce (online) storefronts are the future

This is GOOD news for every business owner

Anyone can compete online with the right knowledge and tools. When a business has a professional online presence, the size and location of the business are not readily apparent, nor are they a limit on the ability to successfully compete nationwide, or even worldwide.

The basic steps for a successful eCommerce business are as follows:

1) The Right Product

A product that people want or need to buy. – If you already have a physical storefront, then you know that having the right products in your store is a must for your business to succeed. An eCommerce business is no different. Yes, sometimes the right advertising campaign, or the right sale will generate some business, but if you are in business for the long haul, you have to have a product or service that people will buy – preferably, one they will buy over and over again. It is easier to keep a satisfied customer coming back than it is to get someone new into your store.

2) The Right Price

Pricing is very important, too cheap and you will not make enough money to stay in business, too expensive, and no one will buy from you. You don't have to be the lowest price, as long as your prices are fair, and you offer good service. You can add value to your products by doing something as simple as providing detailed instructions on how to install it, or use it, or make it last longer, or one of a thousand other things that your customers will find valuable. And adding this information service to your products' web presence will actually increase the likelihood of your customers finding you, because the search engines LOVE finding "relevant" information about your products on your web site.

3) The Right Place

A professional looking design and feel for your eCommerce website and storefront. - If you look at what really makes the difference for consumers online, you'll learn credibility is what matters. The Internet has a big credibility and trust problem. What makes consumers nervous? Credit card fraud!! Most online fraud reported involves undelivered merchandise or nonpayment. Online, credit card fraud is over 15 times greater than offline. That's enough danger to get consumers worried about typing in their credit card number. Where does design enter the trust equation? One study of over 2,500 people asking them to rank and comment on the credibility of Web sites shed some interesting light on the subject. People were randomly assigned two sites in any of 10 different categories, then asked to concentrate on whether they found the sites credible. Initial results were no surprise at all for those who recognize the value of design. "Identity of Site Operator" accounted for almost 9 percent of the credibility measure. "Name Recognition and Reputation" was next with a little over 14 percent. "Information Design/Structure" more than doubled that number with over 28 percent. Overall, the most important factor consumers indicated when trying to determine whether a site was "credible" was "Design Look" with a whopping 46 percent. Why do design and information architecture account for more credibility than name recognition? The answer may have to do with the very nature of the Web. Differentiation between websites is difficult. Many "real" world cues consumers rely on (such as quality of photographic reproduction, the paper stock a catalog or a mailer is printed on, a store's cleanliness or status location, or the customer service acumen of salespeople) aren't available online. The Web "flattens" the shopping experience. Online, one site is as far away as another. All are displayed on the same monitor and face the same technological limitations. As all consumers know by now, barriers to entry for those wanting to set up an eCommerce storefront are fairly low. Taken as a whole, consumers look for something that says, "Yes, this company is credible." It just so happens design and information architecture are the two major components of that "something." In the "real" world, any consumer receiving a beautifully printed direct mail piece (mailer, catalog, etc.) immediately knows the company sending it is solid. No fly-by-night operation can afford glossy, four-color catalogs on heavy stock with beautiful pictures. Whether they know anything about the process of producing such a piece or not, consumers know expensive when they see it. Expensive "looking" means credible. On the Web, a lack of this kind of tangible credibility cue causes consumers to turn to the intangible. Even if they don't know how much designers cost (or even what constitutes good design), they know quality when they see it. Even if they could never comprehend a site architecture diagram, they intuit the difference between sloppy, illogical structure and structure that reflects lots of thought and research. Sites that just work better mean credibility. When you get ready to put up an eCommerce site, stop and ask yourself how important credibility is to your business. If you're a fly-by-night spammer, it’s not that important. But if you're a company with hopes of not repeating the mistakes of your dot-com predecessors, get interested in credibility. In an increasingly and intensely competitive world, a recognizable brand isn't enough. You need a brand people can trust.

4) The Right Upkeep

Maintain your site once you have it. We cannot stress this enough. No one wants to spend the time searching for a product online, finding a site that they like and feel comfortable about buying from, find the product at a price they are willing to pay, and then find out it is no longer available. Broken links and missing pictures will also convey an image of your eCommerce store that says you aren't taking care of your business. Imagine going to the grocery store and finding a broken bottle of ketchup on the floor in one aisle and spilled milk on the floor in another... how long would it be before you went back to that store? and what if when you did, the broken bottle and spill were still there?

5) The Right Marketing

Once your eCommerce site is up and running, you have to let the world know how and where to find you. The 2 out of 3 rule applies to marketing your eCommerce website just as it does to most things in life. You can do it FAST. You can do it INEXPENSIVELY. And, you can do it RIGHT. But you can only pick 2 of those 3 ways to do it. You can do it fast and inexpensively, but it will not get done right. You can do it fast and right, but it will not be inexpensive. Or, you can do it inexpensively and right, but it will not be done fast. If you plan on staying in business for very long, you MUST do it RIGHT!!! That only leaves 2 options for you. And which way you do it will probably be determined by your budget. Fast or Inexpensive??

About the Author: Taureth is the co-founder and head SEO of Devil's Advoc8 Inc. an eCommerce website design, hosting, maintenance, and marketing firm. You can find out more by visiting their homepage at www.DevilsAdvoc8.com This article may be distributed or reposted freely as long as this section remains attached and unaltered.