Starting An E Commerce Site ~ Tips?

When we are creating a website, especially an E-commerce website there are some which we have to consider about. Such as links, good content, customer-friendly service or product, contact information, buying option, etc. I know these points we all know but they are the some features most of us forget.

If you're still considering what base to use for your website, the most recent one I used was Drupal using the Ubercart shopping system. It's pretty robust, full of features, and has a great community.

I set up my last site using the PayPal plugin. This allowed me to piggyback on their secure connection for sales, as well as accept credit card and PayPal payments. On top of that, each sale was insured under PayPal policy, providing another level of security.

As far as advertising goes, I've hit many a road block myself and eventually given up

Originally posted by lovetoeat

Originally posted by timewalker
reply to post by lovetoeat

 

That was pretty detailed what I am going to do. Does not bother me. Really can't explain that without direct knowing of what it is, or worse, being misinterpreted.

You are all a valuable knowledge base. I knew something positive would come out of it.

Thanks again. I will be checking this thread for a while I can tell.

ou

Word of advice...place a piece of paper accompanied with a pen, note down your interests and then begin to form your pyramid of knowledge. Sadly the majority overlook the fundamentals of what it is they are doing or trying to accomplish simply due to the mas consumption of input that in the end...is more than likely trash...!

Can't agree more with this. As a professional web developer and web host I can tell you most of our customers come to us and are like " we want an eCommerce site"

Our first question is always, what are you selling, who is your target market, who is doing logistics, how will you take payment.

95% usually answer those questions with I don't know... Which means we have to help people write their own business plans so we can build their eCommerce websites..

If you want to get started at a relatively low cost, I would consider using Joomla. It's free and has a ton of free extensions. You install Joomla much as you would WordPress but unlike WordPress, Joomla is an all around Content Management System rather than a blogging type software. There are shopping carts you can install into the CMS, which are free, to get you started. Once your sales increase there are options to buy a more advanced version of the shopping cart with more functions, but the basic cart should work for you. HikaShop is a good start. I have used that in the past and it is loaded with features and easy to use.

I have designed many websites in my time and have a minor in Web Technology, just so you know I'm not just some at home web guy who read a book.

There is some great advice here already, but there are some other things you should consider.

Internet marketing is all about math, doesn't matter what you're selling online; it all comes down to traffic and conversions.

I've heard no one on this thread say anything about that, but when it comes to online business you MUST focus on traffic and conversions.

Everything else is superfluous. SEO/ free traffic, ppc/ paid traffic means nothing if you can't convert the traffic.

And more important than the products you sell is building a LIST!

If you don't know what 'building a list' is, it's simply setting up an email capture forum where your visitors enter in their name and email to get something valuable for free. (like an ebook, audio, video...ect)

That builds you an a list of LEADS. Then you can segment your BUYERS list from your PROSPECTS list.

Focus on building your list more than anything else. It's an asset that you grow, and you can not only pitch your own offers, but affiliate offers as well; thus giving you the ability to 'make money overnight'

But then you'd need to learn how to 'treat your list' to keep them responsive..ect

Aweber.com is my preferred list management software.

Your landing pages are important. It's about conversion percentages! Split test everything. I don't know why no one has told you this yet, but this is the most important thing for marketing online.

Remember this one fact and it'll change your life:

Only 2% of first time visitors will buy the first time they land on your page (average for a decent site). By adding just ONE follow up email to your LIST, you increase that conversion rate from 2-3. a %50 increase in conversions just by ONE follow up. at 2 follow up's it jumps to %5, with 3 it jumps to %10, add one more, it jumps to %17.. %50 of your sales will happen AFTER your 7th contact. So if your email list follow up emails don't go back at least 7 emails, you're leaving money on the table.

If you create a page just to generate leads (commonly referred to as a squeeze page), you want to track test and tweak. (and split test with paid traffic)

An example: www.themakemoneylife.com...

I've been in the web development biz for a long time and I've had to scam people out of their money for things they could have figured out on their own. We'd sell SEO services for $20k for medium-grade websites, and that's pretty ridiculous considering it's not terribly difficult to do or learn. You could spend a few bucks on a book or two or just browse the infinite knowledge the internet has to offer and get the same thing, but it is time consuming.

With that in mind, when you grow bigger you'll encounter a lot of web developers that will say "Your website needs better SEO" or "Your website isn't eye-catching enough" and try to sell you on their services. We're dicks, I'll admit it but we're not as bad as car salesmen I don't think? At least I'm not since I long stopped selling useless services to people and businesses that don't need it. I'm not selling myself here I'm just saying that a successful e-commerce site needs to be weary about these things the most because it can easily put you into debt.

Another thing you'll want to consider is that advertise through PPM instead of PPC at first, or if you advertise PPC make sure you'll be making a big impact on it. Successful e-commerce websites also offer affiliation rewards, which if you're not very good with web-stuff, you'll either have to hire someone, buy a plugin for whatever CMS you're using or go open source. Affiliation rewards spreads your site very well and you can pick if you would rather pay by PPM or PPC. It's a win-win situation.

Lastly, know your competitors and acknowledge what they are doing well and what they are doing poorly on. Offer things that they aren't offering, just study your competition to death. You won't be successful without doing this. As for Amazon, good luck competing against them but there are ways to advertise yourself to make yourself seem better than Amazon, you'll just have to be creative to figure that one out. For example, Amazon sells your purchase info to PRISM right? Since you're not involved with such shady practices you could advertise yourself as independent like that but that could backfire since most people probably don't even know what PRISM is. Then again, the whole "green energy" movement is an attractive keyword which simply means nothing. Any website can post that they are being green, even if they decide to use pens instead of pencils. There's no law stating that you have to do one thing or another to be green, you can just say you are. Unfortunately most companies will lie about these things so they can attract more customers, so being in the biz, you'll have to start thinking on how to keep these potential customers even if it means being shady. You could always not be shady and talk somewhere about how you're not like others that meaninglessly flaunt lies but it's all up to you.

There's no real right or wrong way to go about this, it's more about your ethics. However you'll need to remember that you're running a business, not a charity. As the old saying goes, keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer.

To run a successful retail and wholesale business, you need not to develop a brick and mortar store necessarily. The successful running of your business initiates by taking your business online with a developed and strong marketing and advertising strategy. Most important of all you need create an effective ecommerce website design. Here are some of the tips which will guide you further to create a ecommerce.
Link Removed

WooCommerce (WordPress extension) is very good

You can get a decent WooCommerce template over at themeforest.net for under $100

A bit of customisation and you are good to go

This would be my recommendation

Cheers

originally posted by: timewalker

Originally posted by DrZrD
reply to post by timewalker

 

Take a look at some of the free resources available before you consider purchasing a solution. Here is a recent list of available free solutions:

Free eCommerce

And here is link to an open source eCommerce community where community members will help you put your own store front on the web.

osCommerce

Best regards,
Z

Thanks for the links. I will have to dig into them more.

I will definitely have to do merchant services, maybe through Paypal Payments Pro. I understand they have a pretty good and very price reasonable solution.

Not at first, but inventory management will be a concern later on down the road too.

So this is why I am looking into the payed hosting services, room to grow without a total revamp down the road.

From my first time round, I found PayPal screwed up my accounts, so I am wondering if anyone has tried SecureBuy? If so, could you provide a performance review?

www.oscommerce.com...&payment&securebuy

a reply to: NikTheGreat

The bringing in the 'traffic' information is invaluable, and touches on the importance of becoming a salesperson and following up any interest/leads on a more intimate and pesonal level for small online businesses. But, also of great importance is Marketing (keeping the traffic on your site and enticing them to buy), as this is where I ran into a wall of high priced options. I am in the process of researching marketing strategies that will take my message far and wide. At this stage, it seems the 'linking' or 'binding to other websites' segments may turn out to be a very time-consuming and daunting task. Do you or any other readers here have any shortcut strategies, because I don't want to spend all my time online when my online business requires me to be be offline creating the product?

www.marketingdonut.co.uk...

You can address to this Australian guys Link Removed - they are experts in e-commerce. I have worked with them for three months and I can undoubtedly recommend them to you. They will help you with web development, creating the right internet-marketing strategy and correcting your mistakes. Good luck!