ForrestY
12-18-2009, 05:05 PM
1. Create a user-friendly storefront. Customers should be able to easily and effortlessly find the product or service they are looking for. You should have a search function on all pages of your store so they can simply search your site at any time to find what they are looking for. For shoppers that may be browsing your site, there should be ways to easily browse your inventory by various, organized categories. Merchants need to ensure that their site is organized and setup in a manner that makes shopping simple.
2. Provide in-depth product details and descriptions. Since users cannot physically see items available for purchase, online merchants need to provide potential customers with high quality images that allow them to see the product at all angles. Give your customers the ability to zoom in on products or to rotate images to show your products in their entirety. Furthermore, the use of video is becoming increasingly popular to give customers visual information about products. Video also allows you to use audio to describe your products and/or services so shoppers do not have to spend as much time reading product details.
3. Make sure your site is secure so that users trust you and feel safe buying from you. With the increasing buzz regarding Internet security, identity theft and credit card fraud, making customers feel safe and comfortable with providing your store with their confidential and private information is of the utmost importance. Furthermore, you will need to ensure that your host is compliant with the PCI, your shopping cart is compliant with the new PA-DSS and you have the proper SSL Certificates installed. Shoppers will automatically look for the closed padlock in the address bar of their web browser before they input any payment information. SSL Certificates are the means to obtain this image. For example, Miva Merchant 5.5 is fully PCI compliant and will be compliant with the PA-DSS by the July 2010 deadline. Another important feature that must be included on your site in order to create a sense of trust is to have “About Us” and “Contact Us” pages. Online shoppers tend to not trust sites that do not provide a physical address or details on how to get in touch with them via phone and email. In order to feel secure in placing an order, customers need to know that they can reach you if they need to.
4. Provide user testimonials and reviews of your products and services. The more positive things that people say about your store, products and other details regarding your business the better. Having a review system in place makes customers feel like their opinion matters and allowing them to review you will make them want to return to your store in the future as well as help attract new customers. Shoppers tend to like the notion of a site being interactive, especially in the current web 2.0 landscape. Potential customers will obviously trust the unbiased viewpoints and opinions of past customers more than what you say about yourself. Seeing the opinions of your customers can also only help you in your marketing, sales and promotion strategies.
5. You need to have a fast site! One of the primary reasons people shop on the Internet is to save time. Your page load times are critical so you need to make sure that you are using a business web hosting provider that has fast servers and knows what they are doing. Do not skimp on your web hosting plan. Make sure that the plan you choose provides adequate bandwidth for the amount of traffic your site receives. Additionally, there are rumors that Google is now using site speed as a factor in determining ranking of websites on its results pages. Also, give your shoppers an indication of their progress in the purchase and checkout process so they are aware of how long their transactions will take.
6. Complete proper, in-depth market research. You can setup your marketing and promotions plans by examining what your competition is up to. Make sure you are providing your customers with competitive pricing by spending time checking out the prices on the same or similar merchandise for sale by other online vendors. Research will also help you find your target demographic and figure out what their buying habits are so you can adjust your site accordingly. Online shoppers will generally examine many sites, in great detail, to ensure they are getting the best deal. Remember that unlike traditional brick and mortar shopping, customers do not have to walk or drive to other stores – they simply need to click their mouse a few times. Your competition is merely clicks rather than miles away.
7. Market and promote your products. Make sure you are properly reaching your target demographic. Use site statistics tools such as the free Google Analytics to aid in developing the proper marketing plans and to see what is and isn’t working. You can reach shoppers by via popular coupon sites such as the Google Local Business Center and Tjoos.com to name two. Utilize Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies to get to the top of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) including building links, directory marketing, social networking, article marketing, forum and blog posts and many other techniques. Ensure that your website properly uses meta descriptions and tags to guarantee the correct indexing and ranking in the search engines.
8. Be upfront about your shipping terms and policies. Hidden fees are frowned upon by shoppers and may turn them off to your store forever. When a customer purchases multiple items, offer reduced shipping fees. This will make shoppers feel inclined to buy more and to return to your store because they are getting a good deal. Moreover, offer free shipping for orders over a certain price whenever possible.
9. Clearly show which payment methods you accept on your home page. Typically, e-commerce sites should be able to accept any credit cards (again, you will have to be PCI Compliant first). Other payment tools include PayPal, Amazon Payments and Google Checkout. The more options you can offer your customers, the more customers will flock to your store.
10. Provide shoppers with a special page devoted to discounted goods or services. Many customers will look for Clearance and Sale sections of stores in the same manner that people look for these things in brick and mortar businesses. Be sure to highlight these sections and items and make them noticeable. Again, shoppers, especially in today’s economy, are searching high and low for any kind of bargains they can find.
I hope this list helps you. Please feel free to weigh in with additional steps to building a successful online storefront!
2. Provide in-depth product details and descriptions. Since users cannot physically see items available for purchase, online merchants need to provide potential customers with high quality images that allow them to see the product at all angles. Give your customers the ability to zoom in on products or to rotate images to show your products in their entirety. Furthermore, the use of video is becoming increasingly popular to give customers visual information about products. Video also allows you to use audio to describe your products and/or services so shoppers do not have to spend as much time reading product details.
3. Make sure your site is secure so that users trust you and feel safe buying from you. With the increasing buzz regarding Internet security, identity theft and credit card fraud, making customers feel safe and comfortable with providing your store with their confidential and private information is of the utmost importance. Furthermore, you will need to ensure that your host is compliant with the PCI, your shopping cart is compliant with the new PA-DSS and you have the proper SSL Certificates installed. Shoppers will automatically look for the closed padlock in the address bar of their web browser before they input any payment information. SSL Certificates are the means to obtain this image. For example, Miva Merchant 5.5 is fully PCI compliant and will be compliant with the PA-DSS by the July 2010 deadline. Another important feature that must be included on your site in order to create a sense of trust is to have “About Us” and “Contact Us” pages. Online shoppers tend to not trust sites that do not provide a physical address or details on how to get in touch with them via phone and email. In order to feel secure in placing an order, customers need to know that they can reach you if they need to.
4. Provide user testimonials and reviews of your products and services. The more positive things that people say about your store, products and other details regarding your business the better. Having a review system in place makes customers feel like their opinion matters and allowing them to review you will make them want to return to your store in the future as well as help attract new customers. Shoppers tend to like the notion of a site being interactive, especially in the current web 2.0 landscape. Potential customers will obviously trust the unbiased viewpoints and opinions of past customers more than what you say about yourself. Seeing the opinions of your customers can also only help you in your marketing, sales and promotion strategies.
5. You need to have a fast site! One of the primary reasons people shop on the Internet is to save time. Your page load times are critical so you need to make sure that you are using a business web hosting provider that has fast servers and knows what they are doing. Do not skimp on your web hosting plan. Make sure that the plan you choose provides adequate bandwidth for the amount of traffic your site receives. Additionally, there are rumors that Google is now using site speed as a factor in determining ranking of websites on its results pages. Also, give your shoppers an indication of their progress in the purchase and checkout process so they are aware of how long their transactions will take.
6. Complete proper, in-depth market research. You can setup your marketing and promotions plans by examining what your competition is up to. Make sure you are providing your customers with competitive pricing by spending time checking out the prices on the same or similar merchandise for sale by other online vendors. Research will also help you find your target demographic and figure out what their buying habits are so you can adjust your site accordingly. Online shoppers will generally examine many sites, in great detail, to ensure they are getting the best deal. Remember that unlike traditional brick and mortar shopping, customers do not have to walk or drive to other stores – they simply need to click their mouse a few times. Your competition is merely clicks rather than miles away.
7. Market and promote your products. Make sure you are properly reaching your target demographic. Use site statistics tools such as the free Google Analytics to aid in developing the proper marketing plans and to see what is and isn’t working. You can reach shoppers by via popular coupon sites such as the Google Local Business Center and Tjoos.com to name two. Utilize Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies to get to the top of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) including building links, directory marketing, social networking, article marketing, forum and blog posts and many other techniques. Ensure that your website properly uses meta descriptions and tags to guarantee the correct indexing and ranking in the search engines.
8. Be upfront about your shipping terms and policies. Hidden fees are frowned upon by shoppers and may turn them off to your store forever. When a customer purchases multiple items, offer reduced shipping fees. This will make shoppers feel inclined to buy more and to return to your store because they are getting a good deal. Moreover, offer free shipping for orders over a certain price whenever possible.
9. Clearly show which payment methods you accept on your home page. Typically, e-commerce sites should be able to accept any credit cards (again, you will have to be PCI Compliant first). Other payment tools include PayPal, Amazon Payments and Google Checkout. The more options you can offer your customers, the more customers will flock to your store.
10. Provide shoppers with a special page devoted to discounted goods or services. Many customers will look for Clearance and Sale sections of stores in the same manner that people look for these things in brick and mortar businesses. Be sure to highlight these sections and items and make them noticeable. Again, shoppers, especially in today’s economy, are searching high and low for any kind of bargains they can find.
I hope this list helps you. Please feel free to weigh in with additional steps to building a successful online storefront!