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Ecommerce Information |
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Getting Started in ECommerce - Part Two
In Part One we talked a little bit about what Ecommerce is, getting a domain name and setting up a merchant account. Ecommerce is more than that, much more. To have a really good online presence that gets people to stop and shop you need a strategy for success. Your strategy must include your USP or Unique Selling Position in the marketplace. What makes you stand out from all the other online entrepreneurs looking for the same type of customers as you? Can you stand out from the competition based on quality, price or benefits? Once you know your USP, you can begin the monumental task of telling the world about your site. A really unique selling position will give you an advantage over all the competition - well that and a lot of planning and investing of your time and money. FOCUS Emphasize the benefits and the results the customer will get from purchasing from you and using your product or service. You can discover the benefits by listing all the features and then converting them to benefits. List everything your product or service offers. For each feature list a relative advantage from the customer's perspective. You can discover the customer's perspectives when they buy. Simply ask them, " Why did you place an order today or use our service?" BE very specific when creating your benefit statements. An example of this is, "You will save $100.00 sells better than "you will save money." "You will loose 20 pounds in 10 days" sounds better than "you will loose weight." Rank your benefits in order of importance to the customer. If you have enough of them, use bullet points for emphasis. Emotion sells. People make most buying decisions with their heart and not their head. Paint a picture of the results the customer will get when they purchase from you. " You will look 20 years younger." "You will be $100 richer." Make sure you include a call to action. Want them to make a buying decision today? Give them a reason to do so. Offer a bribe (discount, bonus, something for nothing). Your website must load quickly and function easily. If your site loads slowly people will get impatient and go elsewhere. Do all your links work? Have you tested your order page by running sample orders? Have you tested load time using different connection speeds? You can get a fr*ee analysis by visiting Submitplus.com. Make your website easy to look at and read. I find dark background tend to be more difficult to read than do pale backgrounds. The overall look of your site should be clean and professional. When we were first creating the Women's ECommerce Association, International we did everything in-house. Not being truly adept at HTML coding we thought we could just use a simple program to create a professional site. It was okay, but the one we now have is so much better. Why? Because we hired a professional. You can create a website with a good template program. We are using ECommerce Templates to create our new look for WUN Publications. It is simple to use and relatively inexpensive. When it comes to graphics, be conservative. Sites that are laden with graphics and flash tend to take longer to load. If your site takes more than 3 seconds to do so, you will loose many visitors and potential buyers. If you must use graphics, make sure the files sizes used have been reduced as much as your image editing/compression software will allow. View your site using as many different browsers as possible. In addition to Internet Explorer and Netscape, there is Opera, Mozilla, Lynx and those are just the ones that run on Microsoft Windows. WebMonkey has a chart of those supported by Macintosh, Unix/Linux and others. Also, many people will surf with their browser's graphics switched off. Make sure you know what your site looks like without the graphics and that it is still easy for visitors to surf. One last thought Make sure all your important information is above the fold. If you know that visitors are looking for something specific and you make them scroll down to find it, chances are they won't. Excerpted from The PMS Principles - Powerful Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business © 2005 - Heidi Richards Heidi Richards is the author of The PMS Principles, Powerful Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business and 7 other books. She is the owner of Eden Florist & Gift Baskets and the Founder & CEO of the Women's ECommerce Association, International http://www.WECAI.org (pronounced wee-kī) - an Internet organization that "Helps Women Do Business on the WEB." BASIC Membership is Free. She can be reached at http://www.HeidiRichards.com or heidi@wecai.org. You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as the bylines are included. A courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated.
MORE RESOURCES: Apple Valley Approves 2.6 Million Sq. Ft. eCommerce Project Along 15 Freeway, Council Vote Ahead Victor Valley News Shopify Among Fastest Growing E-Commerce Leaders: Check Out Names Just Added To IBD 50, Stock Spotlight List, More Investor's Business Daily Is WordPress The Right Choice For eCommerce Websites? Search Engine Journal Tariffs tilt the scales: US e-commerce sellers poised for margin gains amid trade tensions FreightWaves Interview: Ecommerce lessons from growing Norsland Lefse Digital Commerce 360 US Pressures India To Open Its $125 Billion E-commerce Market To Amazon, Walmart: Report Yahoo Finance K-ecommerce: Interview With Partner Channel Manager Rich Fowler About The Web Store Platform Pulse 2.0 Latest B2B Ecommerce news, research and case studies Digital Commerce 360 From Model to Menswear Founder Practical Ecommerce US presses India for full e-commerce access to Amazon, Walmart amid trade deal talks: Report Times of India Best ecommerce hosting of 2025 TechRadar How will you buy your Heineken in 2030? BeverageDaily.com Ecommerce earnings recap: What you missed from Movado Digital Commerce 360 New Ecommerce Tools: April 24, 2025 Practical Ecommerce Ecommerce Trends: 5 shifts happening because of new tariffs and trade rules Digital Commerce 360 BigCommerce's New Enterprise Partnership Promises Seamless Site Performance for Major Retailers Stock Titan New ecommerce rules spur cost-benefit debate in Turkey Arabian Gulf Business Insight | AGBI Amazon signals major shifts for B2B ecommerce Digital Commerce 360 U.S. pushes India for full ecommerce market access for trade deal - report (AMZN:NASDAQ) Seeking Alpha H-E-B opens eCommerce fulfillment center in Houston H-E-B Newsroom Albertsons integrates shoppable video ads into e-commerce site Chain Store Age EU warns shoppers to avoid cheap cosmetics from ecommerce sites Cosmetics Design Europe Tariffs, Temu, and Shein: What Supply Chain Leaders Can Learn from the U.S. / China ECommerce Shakeup Logistics Viewpoints - North America, Western Europe Spell Opportunity For E-Commerce Brands Looking to Expand in 2025 Sourcing Journal Section 230: Implications for Digital Platforms, Online Businesses and E-Commerce Crowell & Moring LLP Bringgās Dynamic Delivery Slots to Offer Precise E-Commerce Delivery Windows Supply & Demand Chain Executive India under tariff pressure to give Amazon and Walmartās Flipkart full market access Financial Times US ecommerce sales in 2024 more than double those of 2019 Digital Commerce 360 Distribution of the e-commerce market in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2025, by country Statista US ecommerce penetration nearly a quarter of all Q4 retail sales Digital Commerce 360 US to push India for greater ecommerce market access Libyan Express Cloud Retail raises Ā£2.4m following pivot from Jiffy businesscloud.co.uk Topic: E-commerce worldwide Statista CAIT Calls For Levying Luxury Tax On Ecommerce Purchases StartupNews.fyi LOT Cargo successfully automates US ACAS pre-load filing with CHAMPās Traxon global eCommerce caasint.com Chinaās top ecommerce firms retreat from refund-only policy StartupNews.fyi Ecommerce Stocks To Follow Now - April 22nd MarketBeat 79+ Brand New E-Commerce Statistics for 2025 Exploding Topics Retail eCommerce Platform Market Is Booming So Rapidly | Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce openPR.com As US slams door, can the rest of the world offer Chinese ecommerce a lifeline? | Opinions Campaign Asia Kroger goes all in on ecommerce Supermarket News Top 13 Ecommerce Trends (2024 & 2025) Exploding Topics Lighting-centric e-commerce brand debuts Home Accents Today New MetapackĀ® Survey: How Consumer Expectations are Reshaping Ecommerce After a Quarter Century of Retail Transformation Business Wire Trade bodies decry āunregulatedā and āunethicalā practices of ecommerce and quick commerce companies The Economic Times 5 Trends Influencing the Future of Ecommerce Entrepreneur How Pattern PXMās Content Brief is driving conversion on ecommerce marketplaces using AI Amazon Web Services US Presses India to Open $125 Bn Ecommerce Market to Amazon, Walmart outlookbusiness.com |
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