Ensuring Ecommerce Success with Your Online Storefront

Opening an online storefront can be a great way to sell directly to your targeted buyer. Whether you are a small manufacturer supplying your resellers and distributors or a store owner who wants to sell online to either other businesses or consumers, there are a number of options available to you. This article explains the pitfalls to avoid and some practical techniques to ensure your online storefront success.

Understanding Your Choices

Unless you are an experienced web developer/online marketer it is not advisable to attempt to build your own ecommerce solution with an off-the-shelf product. Your best choices for an online storefront are to have it custom built or to utilize an online storefront application that comes ready made with all of the elements you need to get started.

Deciding to Own or Rent

Opting to have a custom ecommerce website built means you are looking for a long term solution that offers you complete ownership, control, scalability and flexibility. You want a branded experience right down to the SSL certificate. It means you have the budget to dedicate to it and want to work with an experienced, trusted developer who will guide you through the planning and development stages.

If you are a small business and this is your first online store, then opting to have a ready made shopping cart solution integrate with your custom designed front-end is a quick and painless way to begin. There are many solutions out there, each with their own benefits and draw backs. Overall, though, you will be able to create a product catalog which will allow visitors to buy from you. The trade off comes with the features available to you in a packaged solution. There may be things you would like to have included in your site, but the catalog and shopping cart system you chose may not allow them.

Always keep the fact that the goal is to grow your online business in your mind. Every business wants to get bigger, and just as a business can grow beyond the capacity of their office space, an online store can grow beyond the capacity of its online catalog.

Advantages of a Completely Custom-Built Solution

1. The greatest advantage of your custom built solution is that it can be made according to your own specific needs and taste. It can look the way you want it to look and not according to available templates.

2. You have more flexibility to market your products the way you want. You can cross sell products within your content, and give users multiple ways to learn about what you sell.

3. It can be specifically designed to suit the particular needs of your potential and existing customers.

4. You are also not confined by the rules and limitations imposed by online storefront solutions.

5. Your product database is yours and under your own administration.

6. There is no 'waiting period' for products to be updated. Additions, deletions or edits to your products can be made live immediately by your assigned administrator.

7. You may track and report on leads and sales generated by your site in a manner that works within your system and meets your business needs.

8. And once you experience growth and need to expand your website, you can do so easily and at any time, provided the site has been expertly architected from the outset.

E-Commerce Checklist - 10 Things to Make Sure of When Selling Online

The list below highlights 10 things that are important to both your E-Commerce site and your business. Take a careful look at them and make sure you have all the pieces you need in place for your online store to succeed. And, if you already have an e-commerce site, run through this list to see if it could be doing a better job representing your company.

1. Professional Look and Feel: Make sure that your site looks the way you want the public to perceive your business. Cheap looking sites make buyers nervous. A professional looking website not only offers a better presentation of your business it also helps new visitors to accept you as legitimate, thereby encouraging them to do business with you.

2. Post your Credentials Prominently: Display your credentials up front so they are clearly visible: Your SSL or VeriSign security certificate, certifications like ISO:9000 or ABS Type Approved, memberships to significant organizations like NAM (National Association of Manufacturers) clearly posted ensure visitors they are dealing with a legitimate, qualified professional company.

3. Well Designed Terms and Conditions: In order to make your customers understand that you stand behind your products, your Terms and Conditions (sometimes known as T's and C's) need to clearly state your business policies, and be made readily available to visitors to your site. People are making a judgment about your business when they visit your site. Your T's and C's must clearly communicate to them how you run your business.

4. Make your User-Interface Inviting: If your storefront is difficult to navigate or just not fun to use then you will lose visitors before they even get started looking. Visitors who enjoy using your site and are able to get what they need are more likely to become loyal customers.

5. Don't Let Your Users Get Lost: When designing an e-commerce site, you must always remember to tell your customers where they are, and how they can easily get to where they need to be. Many sites forget that users want to feel comfortable within a site. Making it clear to them where they are at all times, and making it easy for them to move around the site will help your customers feel at ease within your site.

6. Easy Checkout Process: Once you have motivated a customer to buy, you must make sure that the process of making a purchase is simple and reassuring. Online shoppers are growing more sophisticated every day, and they understand that making a purchase online should be simple and self explanatory. Look at your process and ask yourself if you would feel comfortable buying from your own site based on what you see on the screen. If your process passes that test, then it is a good bet it will for others.

7. A Picture is Worth 1000 Words: A person quickly scanning to see that you carry what they need will want to see a clear, visually descriptive image. Make sure the images you use show the products as your potential customers need to see them. Enabling thumbnail images to be enlarged when clicked on, or providing several different views helps you visitor to make a buying decision. Images need to be crisp and well-lit for viewing clarity.

8. Descriptive Selling: Be sure to write product descriptions that give visitors the information they need to make an informed decision. When a user is comparing your product to one from another company, making sure that the customer's questions are answers can be the difference maker. It may be necessary for you to provide more detailed technical information or system requirements or a list of other equipment that is needed. Provide product information in a way that persuades your visitor to buy from you. And check your spelling!

9. Multiple Search Paths: Make sure there are multiple ways for your site visitors to find what they need. Don't make people guess at how you name or classify your products. If it is difficult to find things you may lose your potential customer. You are likely to attract visitors to your site who have varying degrees of knowledge about the kinds of things you offer. For this reason it is advisable to allow products to be searched by a variety of paths such as product name, SKU, model number and the broadest category to accommodate browsing. If you offer an on-site search feature make sure it is easy to use and intuitive

10. Stay Informed: Without sufficient data regarding what your site visitors do on your pages, it will be impossible to determine what is working well, and what needs improvement. Make sure you track your results: implementing a tracking and reporting solution will allow you to understand the behavior of visitors to your site. This kind of information allows you to make changes that result in better overall site performance and increased sales.

Conclusion

An online storefront is a great way to reach your target audience and make sales or acquire leads. Through the application of best practices you can achieve the kinds of numbers that are vital to the success of your business. The bottom line is you have to provide good content in a well laid out, professional looking manner that builds customer confidence and provides an enjoyable online shopping experience. Well written, persuasive product descriptions and sales copy coupled with sharp, visually descriptive images will help to show your potential customers you have what they need and are here to help them get it quickly and easily. Providing an intuitive search tool that allows for multiple paths to find products eliminates the need to guess and makes re-ordering easy for returning customers.

Your online storefront represents you: professional, trustworthy, helpful and pleasant. Present valuable web content in an organized, easy to use manner and people will be encouraged to buy from you.

Contact us to get an ecommerce website that works for you.

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