Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

Whatever solution you choose, make sure you've got good web metrics (just like you use for the first site). If you do PPC, make sure you've got the landing pages targeted right for the keywords, and split test to optimize conversions (whether you do this in-house or have nerd Design Group do it for you) and keep an eye on you PPC spending ROI.

The biggest cost of a website isn't its creation - it's in maintenance. When you have a new product, image, or copy you want on the site - do you pay? How much? How much is the hosting fee? What's their uptime? How often will you get reports on traffic/conversion?

The samples of websites that nerd Design Group have, are basically simple consumer goods. Tankless water heaters aren't a buy it and plug-it-in affair nor an inexpensive purchase. Issues such as reliability, warranties/guarantees, pay-back, and city inspections all come into play (especially for the home-owner).

Ecommerce is much more than a web site that sells stuff and takes money.

One must consider the customer and their shopping habit. Is your target audience accustomed to shopping and purchasing online? If not, you have an uphill battle as you have to TRAIN your customers to use an online shopping cart BEFORE they even get to the fun part of reacing for their wallet.

The shopping cart system itself should be VERY EASY to use. OScommerce is one nice shopping cart, Paypal buy it now button is another, Zen Cart is pretty good, as is Magento and Virtuemart. Then there are the paid for closed source systems like Xcart and Interspire's shopping cart. The bar was set very high by Amazon when they created one click checkout, but then they patented the process cutting the rest of us out of the simpliest shopping cart experience. So, think: Less steps to checkout, the better.

Easy shopping and quick checkout is critical because if there are too many steps, or you ask too many questions of your customer while taking their order, you run a high risk of shopping cart abandonment (customers simply leave the web site regardless what they've put in the cart).

So, keep the amount of information you collect from customers to a minimum. Of course, you MUST collect contact information, ship to information, and the all important 'How will you be paying for this today', but don't be adding in a 'quality assurance' survey or collect intimate details of your customer's entire family and family history. Sime contact deatils, ship to, and payment info is good. If you need more than that, collect it later (or better yet, not at all).

Now, the basics.

You should have a security certificate installed. Sharing confidential information like Credit Card numbers is sensative, so get a security certificate and get it installed on your server. Most online payment gateways DEMAND this, so just get the wallet out and do it.

You should have a decent privacy policy, and a basic refund policy in place too. Write it up, post it, and live by it.

Have your contact us details out in the open so folks can call you, fax you, and email you is they have questions or concerns. Shopping on the web can be scary for some insecure folks, having a lifeline to a live operator is comforting and helps secure insecure sales.

Payment: take all the forms of payment you can afford to take. Visa and Mastercard are a given, but adding American Express is a nice plus for some (AMEX customers are very dedicated to shopping and spending) Discover card rounds out the collection, but I've found few use it. Paypal is also a valid choice, but PAYPAL as a sole means of payment alone is consider by many as a badge of AMATUER or PART TIME venture web site. Paypal is gaining acceptance, but keep in mind, if its not welcomed with open arms on Rodeo Drive, its likely to be smirked at on your web site.

Hacker tested: Some companies are making claims that being Hacker Safe or flying a badge that your site is tested on a regular basis and leads to increases in sales is still a wee bit skeptical in my mind. I've done sites with, and sites without. Perhaps the sales dollars are too low to really sow a difference, but it hasn't made my clients millionaires, just cost them monthly money.

Payment gateways should be seperate from your retail sales just in case. You don't want to be using your bricks and mortar merchant numbers with your online merchant account because if you lose the online account, you lose your retail stores. Sign up for an online merchant account. Yes, its more money, and more than doubles your costs, but it cheap insurance if anything goes wrong online, your retail stores remain unaffected.

I'm a big Authorize.net fan. I also resell for them (disclosure). They have a great payment gateway, very flexible, and work with the widest range of shopping carts out there. Fees are fair, and affordable.

Shipping: If you can, hook up with multiple shipping companies. I've merged shopping carts with two different shipping companies like FEDEX and UPS with realtime pricing (thanks for the great API guys). This allows customers to select fast or slow shipping that fits their patience and budget (faster costs more, slower is cheaper - you pick). For the super frugal, its nice to have a postal shipping selection too, and perhaps a fourth choice like 'Pick up' from your warehouse.

Domain name is a big part of the ecommerce battle. The rest is meta tags, key words, having your store and shop's URL's search engine friendly. If your store can be spidered, its likely to be listed in search engines. Use google site maps if you can.

Also, never underestimate the power of buying google adwords, facebook marketing, Myspace, and paid search placement. Those few dollars spent can drive big returns to your web site to buy.

Consider affiliate marketing too if you can. Share the sale with folks who drive traffic your way. It helps, sometimes a Lot!

Get professional pictures done of your products. Make sure they are large enough so shoppers can see detail. Write as much as you can about te priduct. Include the most minute detail in your descriptions. The more info you can share, te less support questions you'll get (and you never know which words Search Engines pick up on sending traffic your way).

Then, work it, work it work it. We;ve been working with clients helping them build better and more profitable web sites. You migt want to consider checking out multiple websites and multiple shopping carts and testing how one performs against another. For example, my client Steve runs Virtuemart to sell lessons in his online training and testing website at www.testmycsr.com But, at his other website where he sells books and dry cleaning related products (www.clothingdoctor.com) he is using the Interspire shopping cart. Both perform well, but for some reason the Interspire cart sells more product.

If you wish to follow a web site converting from online catelogue to full blown ecommerce, keep your eyes on www.nailtrixx.net as this one will be going live soon. Its already keyword rich and very well SEO placed. Can't wait to see how it reacts to full ecommerce.

And, here is an example of a web site going from a domain name that hampers search and sales (https://www.necklacenecessities.com) with a shopping cart that customers report as cumbersome (GoDaddy cart) to manuever to a better domain name, with better search and keywords and a better shopping cart solution (https://www.necklace-extender.com). Compare and see what you think between two very similar sites.

Hope this helps you.

Darcy Moen
Customer Loyalty Network

You mentioned using Authorize.net as your merchant account, so I want to clear up a misconception in that statement. Authorize.net is a payment gateway (and the best, in my opinion). It transfers the data securely from the website to the merchant account provider, and then back from the merchant account provider to the website. Your friend will also need to get a merchant account for his online processing. If he already accepts credit cards, he can talk to his current merchant account provider about getting an new account for use with his site.

The credit card companies have been working on a standard for credit card data security that they expect everyone to follow who process credit cards. This new standard covers how you handle credit cards in your shop, as well as how your website handles credit card data online. The new standard is called the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

PCI Compliance provides a comprehensive set of requirements for security management, policies, procedures, network architecture, software design and other critical protective measures. Even though the PCI Council manages the underlying security standards, compliance is set independently by the individual credit card companies. Each has its own set of penalties that can range from $8 per compromised account to more than $138,000 per incident, with additional penalties ranging from restrictions to outright loss of use.

What this means is that your friend needs to verify that all aspects of the solution he selects are PCI Compliant; web host, the shopping card, the administration of the website, and the payment gateway.

You can read more about PCI Compliance here:
https://www.pcicomplianceguide.org/aboutpcicompliance.php
https://www.pcicomplianceguide.org

WOW! What a lot of responses. This is great "e-commerce 101" stuff, and could be compiled into a great article. I'd recommend:

- Upsell & Cross-sell. Make it easy "buy more" without having to leave the shopping process. It should be a simple check-box to add items in or upgrade to the next item.

- Upsell. When a customer has selected an item, show them the "next better" item once with an "upgrade now", and a clear description of the benefits of the upsell.

- Cross-sell. When a customer has selected an item, show them things that other customers have purchased along with the item they already have in their basket.

All that said, I have no idea what the cross-sell and upsell is for hot-water heaters... maybe it is a set of towels!

Hi Shelley

Other cross-sell and upsell items might include low-flow shower heads that save water while giving the same effect as higher-flow devices. Those are all the rage here in drought-ravaged Australia - and wherever we live we should all be careful not to over-use natural resources.

Shower timers are another idea. Especially as with tankless units you never actually run out of hot water. One manufacturer here uses the tagline "endless hot water".

Another phrase that comes to mind: "The economy may be tanking, but your hot water service doesn't need to".

Cheers

Chris

I would try Monster Commerce (Now Network Solutions). It is a good system that allows customization and all the things you need or want in a cart. The cost is reasonable, about $99 for the pro package.

They also help you through the process.

https://ecommerce.networksolutions.com