E-commerce and Online Business Reference

The internet is now taking over from the high street in regards of how much money is now being spent online, this surge in customers online has left many online retailers catching up with their websites and online business. The same techniques that can be found on the high street, such as customer service and payment options still apply to the web. Yet so many websites don’t seem to have considered these techniques when building their ecommerce solution. The importance of good customer service or user-friendly websites can’t be underestimated, as it is the difference between making a sale and web users dropping out at the shopping basket stage.

We will now look at the fourth stage of creating a user-friendly ecommerce solution that will gain you high sales and be beneficial to the web user. This fourth stage looks at the ordering process and how by simplifying this process and adding information for the web user, you will dramatically cut down the losses from your shopping basket.

A lot of new ecommerce software incorporate many options in which to make your online business work professionally, and make it simple to set up and run an ecommerce solution. It still amazes me just how many ecommerce sites make the ordering process more difficult than it needs to be. Small things such as entering the expiry date as a month instead of a number so web users don’t have to convert numbers to dates. The simpler you make the process and the less work the potential customer has to do the better the chance of you getting that sale.

At every step along the ordering process ask yourself how I can make this simpler for the web user. Many websites ask the customer to fill in a huge amount of fields, title, first name, surname, house number, dob, email, password, how did you find us, comments etc. Do you need all of this information? Look at how you can minimise each stage so that it benefits your customer and yourself. Look at ecommerce software and how you can utilise the best parts that suit your online business.

Every online business is different and have different marketing strategies, you must work out what information you need and what information the customer is willing to fill in to make a sale. The more information you are asking the potential customer to fill in, the more problems users might experience along the process.

A business could be based entirely online, so a product may be downloadable. So why would you need the customers home address? A simple name and email address would suffice as no postal or delivery options would be applicable. If an online business does send products via a postal service then make sure the customer has to fill in as little information as possible. Address fields can be built now so that the user just had to input their house number and postcode and the script automatically finds the rest of their details. Shortcuts like this are now installed in ecommerce software, so use them and benefit from the streamlined process.

Creating a simplified, streamlined ordering will have a huge effect on your shopping basket drop-out rate and boost sales. Having the customer convert quicker and easier is what the online business wants and what the customers wants so both sides are benefitting from the new ecommerce solution.

As more and more money is being spent online the need for good ecommerce software is becoming a necessity as more customers look to the web for their shopping needs. There is a huge amount of sites online that do not give the customer the usability that they need and want. A big problem is that a lot of websites have tried an ecommerce solution but have not taken into account the usability of their ordering process. This will result in users prematurely giving up and abandoning their shopping basket and order. This has a huge impact on online business for many companies, and they rarely have the ability to change this once they have spent thousands on the original set up of the website.

The next few steps will ensure that your money is not being wasted on websites that have poor usability and are not created with the user in mind. It is of huge importance that your ecommerce software has the ability to generate customers and sales. We will look at ten ways in which you can create good usability for your ecommerce solution so that your online business can maximise your customers and conversions so that the users shopping baskets converts into orders.

Our first step is to identify the users with their email address, if you look at the amount of accounts that web users now have, it is no surprise that people forget their usernames and account details. If you take into account the amount of email addresses you have compared to the amount of usernames, I guarantee that you will remember your email address a lot easier than your username.

The idea is to make the ecommerce solution and the experience as easy as possible for the customer, so by making their email address their username will benefit your website. Email addresses are easier to remember and are standard, which means that you don’t have to worry about special characters as they are always unique, so you avoid the problem of having another customer having the same username.

An online business must have simple techniques in order to produce a good, solid structure and ecommerce solution. Making data understandable and familiar to the customer, then the better the experience will be for everyone involved. It will give the customer confidence in your ecommerce software and make repeat business a reality.

Having the structure in place at the beginning of any online business is of huge importance and will save you time and money so that your resources are spent on other online marketing techniques that will grow your online business.

This first step to building an online business and ecommerce solution should not only make your website more user-friendly, but ultimately increase sales, conversions and leads. The usability of your website is very important but it is not the whole picture, the testing of your website and analytics should tell you what and where your customers are doing and going, so constant testing of your ecommerce solution is a vital part of a successful online business. Following usability guidelines and carrying out testing with real users should find that your ecommerce website will become successful and effective in your online marketing strategy.

Making a good impression on your online customers should be your main priority, potential customers are looking for information on your product or they would not be on your website. This information should be readily available from your ecommerce store, ebay store or Facebook Store and the user should not need to search for it. The information about your product and business should be positioned in such a way that the user should not need to question anything or go searching elsewhere to find it.

Ecommerce software has now evolved to create user-friendly processes that benefit your ecommerce solution and help customers on your website. This is of most importance when getting to the ordering process. Having detailed information of what, why and where the order is within the ordering process is of huge benefit to the potential customer and the online business.

In this stage 5 of building a user-friendly ecommerce solution we will look at addressing common customer queries through the ordering process. If an ecommerce store, ebay store or facebook store is going to work, then the ordering process must begin as soon as the potential customer lands on the website. The questions that the potential customer may have should be in easy reach if the process is going to carry on. Through each step of the ordering process common queries should be answered on a logical basis. For example, looking at the product – a description and price should be given. You may extend this to a comparison with other products or give examples of other products that the customer might be interested in.

Once the product is selected you will begin the crucial process of getting the customers information and making the sale. Through these steps the customer might have questions that you need to answer quickly and smartly. For example, when the customer reaches ‘delivery options’, an estimated delivery time should be displayed along with delivery cost. Customers may be asked for extra information such as home phone number, have a description on-page or via a link/pop-up explaining why you need that phone number.

A lot of ecommerce software packages now have installed description tags where these questions can be answered by the website builder and display on-page. This information is valuable to the customer as the more secure they feel about their order the more chance of them completing the order. Having an ecommerce solution that is informative to the user and has a simple ordering process will highly benefit your sales and give the potential customer confidence in using the website and ordering process again. Having a streamlined ordering process with constant informative descriptions will not give the potential customer an excuse to leave the website.

Go through the entire ordering process in your ecommerce software and ask yourself at each stage, what customers might be asking themselves? The answers to these questions should be provided at that stage either on-page or via a pop up, the idea is not to get the user to leave the page. A good ecommerce solution will have everything the customer needs for them to convert. Use your ecommerce software to your advantage and think what you want to see when placing an order online.

The past year was the biggest yet for online business, and it is set to continue through 2011 with even more ecommerce software being created that will have a huge impact on how businesses trade online. The rise in social networking sites over the past 3 years has changed the way in which we use the internet and now ecommerce is set to hit this sector in a big way. A new ecommerce solution is always an exciting addition to a new sector on the internet, and this is about to hit the social networking market. Although new ecommerce software is being created the fundamentals of creating an ecommerce solution still remain the same.

As we continue to build the steps for generating a user-friendly ecommerce site, take into account the area that you are going to sell too. The market of social networking is huge, so managed by the right internet marketing will be key to the online business. Whether you target this market or stick to traditional markets such as Ebay will depend on your budget and marketing. Having a presence in both forms can only help your online business and there is new ecommerce software available to manage both markets.

In this step we will look at how identifying required fields in the ordering process is essential to completing the order. There is nothing worse than filling out an order form online and having the form return because of missed information. An online business should be targeted for only information that is needs, if the business only needs an email address then only put an email address field as users are less likely to fill in huge amounts of information. The less information the user is required to fill in, the more chance of the user completing the order. In the ordering process it should be clear from the outset which fields need to be filled in and which are optional through the ecommerce solution.

This can be done in a variety of ways, to work out which is best for your online business is up to you. Only add fields that your business requires, for example don’t ask the user to put in their home address if your product is a download, or don’t ask the user put in two phone numbers, most people now have mobile and these are the best number to take for marketing purposes such as SMS and web promotions.

Mark each required field with either an * or say ‘required field’ next to each field. Most ecommerce software now incorporates these features and they can be manipulated to your brief. Creating informative data in the ordering process gives the user confidence and does not give them an excuse to leave the ordering process and become distracted by another web page.

Each ecommerce solution is different and no one knows your business like you so what fields you require is based upon your ordering process and marketing needs. Setting out the ordering process goals of your online business in the first instance will save you time and money, don’t overcomplicate the process. Include your most necessary information, the other details can be sourced later with online marketing.

A huge problem with users not converting online is the usability of the ecommerce software or website. Many users are put off by the complicated ordering process and funnel systems that are not helpful when making a sale online. A general web user will know what they want before even arriving on your website and it is your job as an online business to make the sale process as easy as possible for the user to buy your product. Many potential customers get lost within an ecommerce solution that is over complicated and does not use a friendly system that the customer will enjoy and understand.

A lot of ecommerce software that is currently on the market do not utilise the user-friendly guidelines that should be adopted by all ecommerce solutions. In some cases it is left up to the web designer to build the site and make it work but most of the time web designers do not know the best techniques to make the customers convert and therefore generate you a profit. This is left up to online marketing experts to pick up the pieces and make the best of a poor user-friendly website.

In the next step for generating a user-friendly ecommerce solution we look at keeping the users informed of where they are at all times. This may sound like a simple web technique but many businesses still have not inserted this into their ecommerce solution.

Let us take the example of travelling on a journey, you will have a destination, in this case to buy a product, but you are on a website that does not tell you how far you have gone or how far you still have to go. An online business should tell the user exactly where they are at all times in the order process and how many steps is needed to reach their destination. If the user does not know where they are or what has to be done they will become confused and more importantly frustrated and leave the shopping basket. New ecommerce software makes it easy for you to set up these ordering steps, which is a major step forward as any online business needs to apply this to be a more user-friendly site.

Keeping users happy is one of the major problems an ecommerce solution faces, the happier the user, the more chance the odds of converting and getting the sale. Letting users know exactly where they are at all stages is a simple process and is incorporated in new ecommerce software. The 5 step simple procedure is usually login, delivery details, delivery options, payment options and confirmation. These steps should be clearly marked as a ‘breadcrumb trail’ at the top of the ordering process for the user to follow. If the user is a repeat customer then the process can be even shorter as their details should already be saved within your ecommerce software.

By telling the user where they are on your website they have a better understating of products and the ordering process and are more likely to convert as there is no need for them to go off the structured trail of the website. The more familiar the user is with ordering online then the more chances of that user converting. By providing a structured trail of events leading to the sale the user will have all the information they need and no need to search for it.

The money that is now being spent online due to new ecommerce software has significantly increased over recent years, this is down to better ecommerce solutions and accessibility of the internet. This has caught a lot of businesses stuck with their original models to sell their online services and products. New ecommerce software incorporates all of the new marketing techniques required to compete online including ecommerce templates and ebay templates. As new opportunities to sell come up on the internet, an ecommerce solution needs to evolve with them.

Many online businesses have had the same website model for many years and are sometimes reluctant to change, this is sometimes because their model is working for them or it is down to cost of building a new ecommerce solution. The integration of, now common, selling techniques and portals such as Ebay, Amazon and Facebook should be high priority for any online business. The possibilities of the new ecommerce software solutions will continue to grow as the new social media and buying tools become more common and user-friendly. Making the right decisions at the start of the design process including ecommerce templates, ebay templates and other design features is crucial to the future success. By choosing a user-friendly, integrated solution that covers all selling media, is now a must to give you a competitive advantage in a highly competitive market.

Every ecommerce solution has the same fundamentals associated with them but the website developer must have the know-how of how to make their ordering process as user-friendly as possible. In this next step to building an ecommerce site we will look at making the ordering process flexible for customers to create the highest possible conversion rate. By making the ordering process flexible, web users should feel in control and therefore not come across big problems which will make them leave the ordering process. One of the problems that users may come across is finding their home address with a postcode lookup when entering an address. Some web users may have an obscure or new postal address that is not recognised on the present list. This will mean that they cannot enter their address and will leave the ordering process and find somewhere else to buy the product.

Being a flexible online business especially in the ordering process is a crucial option for a successful sale. Customers want options when buying, you will rarely find a first-time buyer on the internet so online customers are used to buying with a particular method, whether that be with a credit card, Paypal or Google. Offering as many of these options as possible adds to the flexibility of the ordering process and makes your product easier to purchase. By incorporating high-quality ecommerce templates and ebay templates adds to the user experience and gives confidence to the customer.

An ecommerce solution doesn’t require the web user to login, which is known as a ‘quick checkout’, all that is needed is one page with the needed information and process the order. By offering more options to the customer the more chances the customer will convert. By having various payment options and ‘quick’ ordering processes the user will feel in control of their order and you are not forcing them to put in information. Being flexible will allow your online business to grow and learn from what the web users are doing on your ecommerce software.