What the visitor sees?

The sense of eye sight plays a pivotal role in the success of any website. This is usually referred to as visual effect. The website should look pleasant and for this the copy, content, images, graphics, and animations should be balanced and synchronized. The overall appearance should look presentable and not as if everything is stuffed on to the website in a haphazard manner. The web design should look reliable and professional.

What does the visitor feel on going through your website?

The act of traversing through a website site is called navigation. The ease at navigation plays a vital role in the success of any web design. When a visitor visits your website he/she should be able to find what he/she wants with the least number of clicks. Usually it is better to keep the description of the offerings at the third tier so that they are accessible on the third click. The layout of the e-commerce web design should be simple and understandable. The visitor should not find himself/herself lost in a maze of icons.

How does the buyer check out?

The last step in any sales pitch is closing the deal. Similarly when any buyer visits the website the last step is the check out process. Is too lengthy or too short? Are the details sought in the last step enough for maintaining the contact with the prospective buyer? These are main issues that have to be taken into contemplation in the check out process. The process of check should be streamlined and as simple as possible because if this last step is faltered there are chances that you may lose a buyer.

Detailed Description of the Product:

The biggest limitation of the product, being sold on the internet, is that it is not tangible (cannot be touched). It can only be seen. The visual can be very colorful and attractive but the buyer is not going to buy unless sure about its features. The limitation can be sufficed by a detailed description of the product. This is the only way one can increase the probability of closing the deal. On the contrary insufficient information can prove detrimental for the business.

Are the financial transactions offered by a website fully secured?

It is the onus of the business to assure the buyer that the details that they are going to furnish for purchasing anything offered through the website is not going to be misused. Unless the website gives this assurance, the threat of financially security is going to going to loom large in the buyer’s mind. There are chances of the username and the password of the credit card getting into wrong hands. The business can assure online financial security through security certifications like SSL and facilitate the buyers with procedures for secured payments such as Pay Pal. When one wants an e-commerce web design, the above mentioned issue have to be given due importance. This can open up your mind about what needs to be clarified when availing the services of a professional web design company.

By: Alan L Smith

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According to the U.S. Department of Commerce the estimated total of e-commerce sales for 2005 was $86.3 billion, which is an increase of 24.6 percent over 2004. Overall business successes can sometimes hinge on that business’ ability to accept transactions over the internet. In addition, the internet can help turn a local company into an international company and open up new avenues of business.

However, creating an e-commerce website does not automatically mean website sales. In a future article I will focus more on the aspects of actually operating an e-commerce website, but for now, I will cover the basics that will answer most questions for businesses who are considering the move to selling online.

First Steps

Let’s assume that your business already has a professionally designed website. We usually ask new clients with existing websites who would like to start selling on the internet a series of questions to help determine the best solution for selling online:

Who is your target audience?

It is important to know who your customers are when taking into consideration the design of your e-commerce website.

What type of web hosting do you currently have?

The type of hosting can determine what type of programming is used on your website. Also, if you do not have sufficient resources to have an e-commerce website, then it is important to know this in advance so that we may suggest a suitable host for a client’s needs.

How many products are you going to be selling?

Sometimes a client may only have a handful of products, in which case, a shopping cart (either pre-developed or custom) is not necessarily the best solution.

What type of special features would you like your shopping cart to have (example: coupons, affiliate program, downloadable goods, etc.)?

This is quite possibly the most important question because the answers to our special e-commerce website pre-development survey are usually the basis for understanding the specifics of a client’s needs and for determining the price and time necessary to complete the project.

Explaining E-commerce

The next step in the process usually involves explaining to the client exactly how e-commerce works on the web. Below is a brief explanation of the technology behind the process and what is necessary to sell items on the internet.

The Process

Once a customer visits an e-commerce websites, adds product to their cart, and then clicks to check out, it official begins the transaction of the sale. Programming in the shopping cart enables the credit card information to be sent to what is called a payment gateway. The payment gateway’s sole purpose is to offer a secure way to pass this information through the merchant account and on to the credit card processing bank. The processing bank sends the information to the customer’s credit card issuer and the transaction is either approved or declined. From there, the results of the transaction are relayed back to the payment gateway where they are stored and sent to both the customer and merchant for verification. At this stage, the shopping cart usually issues a receipt to the customer and a notification of the order to the business.

A Merchant Account

The first thing a business needs in order to accept credit cards online is a merchant account. The merchant account is usually a business back account that is either set up through a Merchant Service Provider (for example, http://www.cardservice.com) or through your regular bank. When a transaction is approved on your website, the merchant account provider will deposit the funds in an account such as your business checking account.

A Payment Gateway

A payment gateway is the online terminal for encrypting and sending transaction information back and forth between your website, the merchant account and to the processing bank. One of the most popular gateways is http://www.authorize.net Most merchant account providers can also sell you a payment gateway.

A Secure Certificate (SSL)

A secure certificate is a necessity when running online transactions as it provides your customers with a secure webpage in order to enter their personal and credit card information before it is sent through the gateway. How can you tell you are on a secure order page? Simply look for a small lock symbol at the top of your browser next to the website address and https:// before the web address.

Shopping Cart Systems

Through discussing all of the details of a proposed e-commerce business website, we can help our clients determine what the best shopping cart solution is; whether it is a pre-developed cart, or a new custom programmed cart. We go through an extensive interview process to make sure each e-commerce solutions is custom tailored to the client’s needs.

In Conclusion

I hope this information will be helpful to businesses that are just starting out with e-commerce, but remember, these are only the first initial steps to setting up your website to sell online. In a future article I will cover what happens after your internet store is “live”, how you will be able to perform updates to your store on your own, and some tips on how to market your site and products more effectively.

By: Sherry Holub

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E-commerce websites can increase the revenue of a business many times over. E-commerce offers the unique opportunity of expanding your customer base while saving costs. This appealing combination requires a lot more effort than just putting up a website. An E-commerce website will not improve your business prospects unless it is backed with aggressive and strategic marketing.

The success of an e-commerce solution depends on how effectively you attract visitors, get them to stay, turn their visit into a sale, and motivate them to come back. These points are discussed in more detail below.

Increasing website traffic

Directing traffic to your e-commerce website is an important first step. Some effective strategies for getting more hits on the website are:

Search engine optimization (SEO) of the website
SEO refers to the optimization of web content by including important keywords that are most used by internet surfers in searches on that topic and using optimized content writing style. SEO of your e-commerce solution will increase the website’s ranking in searches.

Placing internet advertisements
Internet ads can be placed on related websites. You can also pay to have your advertisement come up on related searches.

Cross promoting with the physical store
Businesses that have a physical store and an e-commerce solution can benefit by cross-promotion. Existing customers can use the e-commerce outlet to save on costs and make additional purchases. By introducing them to your e-commerce solution, you are also protecting your business from other e-commerce competitors.

Engaging the interest of visitors

Once your e-commerce website comes up, its design and content should engage the visitors into clicking on the content. This is possible through:

Intriguing headlines
The website content should not be too complex or verbose. Captivating headlines should be used to lure shoppers into exploring the products and services on the e-commerce website.

Highlighting offers
Offers and promotions should be highlighted on the website, so that they get immediate attention. Offers should be accompanied with deadlines to make the customer’s act faster.

Getting visitors to buy

The main purpose of the e-commerce website is to sell goods. You can convert visitors into customers by:

Making persuasive offers
Discounts and combo offers can make visitors finalize a purchase. Offering gifts and deals on a minimum purchase also makes people add items to the shopping cart.

Making products easily accessible
The design of the e-commerce website should make access to products easy. Shoppers should be able to browse and move items to the shopping cart in a minimum number of clicks.

Making checkout smooth and fast
Tedious form filling and time-consuming checkout processes make customers ditch the shopping cart halfway to payment. This can be avoided by streamlining the checkout process that required minimal amount of typing and clicks.

Inciting customers to come back

Customers need some motivation to repeat business with your e-commerce website. Incentives can be:

Reward points for repeat customers
Customers who shop repeatedly should be rewarded with discounts and faster checkouts.

Top class delivery services
E-commerce websites should provide good quality delivery services. They should also offer customer service to handle customer queries and problems related to orders.

Effective marketing and design of the website can make the difference between the success and failure of the e-commerce solution. Businesses should follow the above mentioned guidelines to maximize profits and build strong customer relationships.

By: Daljeet Sidhu

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In the present situation of market, e-commerce stores have become the necessity and an indispensable part in the course. Since, your e-commerce website is exposed to the millions of people at a single click, thereof, the chances are high that it is able to generate huge profits.

It has been estimated that in the next few years, there would remain almost no physical storefront that does not have a virtual store. Obviously, this is because of the availability of the various application available for developing e-commerce sites.

Here, in the wake of the ongoing success of such e-commerce applications that are giving a new dimension to the businesses, we would like to provide you with a brief on how it has been possible:

1. We have a number of options available where there exists an already prepared e-commerce site, such as Amazon, eBay, and MSN Shopping, where the selling starts by just creating an account and putting your products and services. There is no doubt that it is easy to implement, and easy to put products and services in a minimal amount of time. On the other hand, it offers less flexibility, and your are required to give a percentage of your sales.

2. Another application is the option of the packaged sites, or in other words, template e-commerce application that purchases an e-commerce solution, and customise the website according to the needs and requirements of the project, by the help of the CMS available in the online industry.
And, these CMSs give the liberty to the non-tech savvy the ability to modify, edit and make changes whenever they feel the need. These packaged solutions are easy to implement, with a considerable assistance from the development companies. The advantage that it provides the branding before handed, which is generally no available in the already developed sites as mentioned above.

3. Custom developed solutions are the need of the hour. As the name goes by, all the features that are essential in an e-commerce store such as, user interface, product catalog, the secured checkout and order process, and the multiple payment options, and many such features that are developed keeping in mind your needs and requirements of the business. The company that offers you the custom based solutions would offer you fair enough SEO practices that gives you visibility in the search engines. No doubt, they are comparatively expensive but help your e-commerce site- a sure shot asset to your business in the long run.

However, a good web designing and development company would provide you with the tailor made solutions to all your business requirements and that would help you in the long run because they provide you with the latest technology and application that are available in the market along a place in the search engines, which is the most difficult to attain.

By: Manish Rawat

About the Author:

If you are looking for a definition of eCommerce, an explanation of how it works and what it can do for you, look no further. This article aims to give you an idea of what the subject entails and how it can be used to your company’s advantage.

E Commerce (Electronic Commerce) is the process of selling any goods or services over the internet. The advantages to using the internet as a platform to sell your products are numerous but the pitfalls are just as many. To avoid the traps and make the most of this selling medium, there are a few things to consider.

The E Commerce Website

The E Commerce website is the location where your products can be found. A good way to start taking advantage of the internet as a selling tool is to use an established website to advertise your products such as eBay or Amazon. While this method guarantees your products some exposure, due to the consistent traffic on these sites, whichever company you choose will levy a charge for listing with them and a commission once sold. This method is also limited in terms of forging your company’s online brand. Establishing your own e-commerce website gives you complete control over how your products are listed and how the site looks. You can also use your own website to publicise contact details and allow visitors to make enquiries.

Getting Visitors to Your E Commerce Website

The lure of established auction or sales websites is their consistent traffic. When creating an e commerce website for your own company you will need to ensure people get to see it. This is an ongoing process which is known as SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) which ensures that search engines take away the correct information from your site and rank it as highly as possible. In addition, SEO includes promotion of the site and should be an ongoing process.

E Commerce Software Solutions

This is the system which runs on your website and creates the content for visitors to see. There are numerous e commerce software solutions out there. They can be categorised as follows:

Open Source E Commerce Solution – These solutions are free to download and try but keep in mind that they were developed by a community and as such they cannot provide support for your implementation.

Commercial E Commerce Solution – These solutions are similar to open source packages except they are produced by a company and require a license to be purchased. The advantage to this solution is the company that produced the software can be relied upon to provide support.

Bespoke E Commerce Solution – These solutions are produced specifically for one website by a web design company. This should give you a unique looking online shop and you will be able to agree with the design company the exact features you are after. While this may require the highest initial outlay, it will go a long way towards making a complete online presence for your business.

E Commerce Hosting

This is the service used to host your online shop. There are many different e commerce hosting service providers who supply suitable packages but essentially you will need, web space, server side scripting (ASP or PHP for example), a database (to store your product information) and an SSL certificate. An SSL certificate allows your visitors to encrypt data they send to your site. This is essential to operate a shop securely wherever you require visitors to enter sensitive information such as their credit card details.

Hosting features extend way beyond those mentioned above but they are the essential requirements for setting up an E Commerce online shop.

By: Luke Hynek

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