E-Commerce for All

Online Retail

When you get right down to it the fusion of the web and business is a bold lesson in abstract thought.

Think about your grandparents and the work they did. Their job could have been on the farm, in the factory, in a store or in the work of their hands.

If your grandparents were business owners most of their customers were met face to face. Customers may have gone to church with your grandparents or attended high school sports events and concerts. They knew each other and that made marketing much less taxing and far more trusting.

Advertising was often in the form of an print ad in a school program or a booster club for the airing of the local high school football games. The advertising wasn’t always essential to the success they had in their business, it was often used as a way to support the local reputation associated with their business.

Your grandparents knew the other business owners in town and often worked together to keep the local spirit of a town alive.

As larger retail businesses began to paint the landscape these small businesses (like your grandparents) often died when no one was really paying any attention. The vast number of empty storefronts in rural America pay tribute to the radical change in the 21st century retail market.

Why has online business created the need for abstract thinking?

Internet stores are composed of graphics and text… Not friends and family. These shopping carts are developed with software and not brick, mortar, glass and wood. These online businesses can operate 24 hours a day including holidays and the owner does not have to be present for a customer to make a purchase.

The business owner cannot see the site’s visitors or customers, they can simply track the number of visitors and some analytical data.

It is this uncommon sense of intangibility that may makes online stores seem more like some elaborate computer game and far less like traditional business.

In order for some businesses to move in to the Internet marketplace there was a need to hire younger more computer savvy employees who were schooled with an insatiable appetite to learn and utilize the skills associated with online marketing and business.

Early on many business owners did not believe the web was even worth their while and ecommerce was never going to be successful. Many of those business owners sat back as time passed, the Internet grew and online sales improved, equaled and then surpassed what the business had previously been able to do with a local brick and mortar shop.

Many brave businessmen were early pioneers in ecommerce, and while they may not have understood everything there was to know about ecommerce, the results were crystal clear – ecommerce was a force much more powerful than they would have ever thought and was the road to continued success and the future of business. Many business owners who could not break out of their brick and mortar box have since had to sell that brick and mortar business.

As time passes more and more online business owners have accepted their new role as Internet marketer, dream maker and web design professional. They have grown accustom to this brave new world where faces are not associated with the sale, where customers probably aren’t your neighbor down the street and where the online store doors are always open.

Online business defies the notion of a simple local marketplace by tapping into something more global and more deliverable. Many small shops around the world have become staging areas for a worldwide customer base. Niche products once lost in a sea of big retail shops can now be the primary thrust of a successful online company instead of just one of many diversified products one might have found in an old general store.

Online business has challenged our way of thinking and changed the way the world does business.

Melanie Small Business

Have YOU got what it takes?

What every single ecommerce business wants most is for online users to type in their credit card number and make a purchase of their products…. Nice and easy, right?

You can have the best developed shopping cart of its kind, but if no one is buying, then you simply have a really nice website…. Which isn’t making any money.

When it comes to ecommerce and online sales, how do you encourage site visitors to move from passive window shopping interest to a paying customer?

The short answer is easy enough… Prove yourself trustworthy and professional so the customer has the necessary confidence to make a purchase.

That, of course, is easier said than done.

This is the hardest concept in ecommerce to implement, but if you want more shoppers and less visitors, you will have to work hard and learn a great deal.

First and foremost, you and your store MUST make the shoppers your number one priority. Having said this, realize the treachery involved in that statement…. Yes, I mean 100% customer service from your and your site…. Even when you are sleeping.

You will have to do whatever ways you can to find a way to prove to your potential customer that you are looking out for their interests and are genuinely interested in passing along helpful information to them.

There are far too many sites that exist that ooze with insincerity and even more with a complete lack of professionalism. It is a very tough sell to believe that these site owners care about anything beyond their wallets. Certainly, you can’t fault them for having an interest in their financial future, but online users want need you to prove to them you can be trusted and that you are worthy of their business…. This is especially true in these uncertain economic times.

I haven’t done exhaustive scientific research on the following statement, but I have performed enough research and management that the guess is very well educated…

The online businesses that will be most successful in the next decade will be ones who are honestly interested in the needs of the customers.

For those of you who are fixated on the bottom line you really need to know that customer satisfaction is tethered to your bottom line. Consider it the cost of doing business, something you pay forward for the ability to live with yourself and sleep at night.

Most of my teen and adult life I spent in restaurant/food management… I can tell you in no uncertain terms, you MUST earn your customers trust, approval and patronage. There is just no other way. So maybe you got in to ecommerce thinking it was a great deal… Easy money? Sorry to disappoint you, but when a customer entered one of my restaurants I have the GENUINE opportunity to look them in the eye and demonstrate my concern for them and their experience in my restaurant. Your online store DOES NOT give you that ability… You have to must work even harder than any brick and mortar small business. This I promise you.

The quickest way to grow your sales is to earn them with trust and professionalism….. and if you watch your bottom line too closely with regard to your customer’s satisfaction…. It will move for your, indeed as it falls through the floor. The mix is quite unique, but you must find this balance in your business.

Melanie Small Business, So you want to be a Shop Owner Series

Inspect Your Design

Website design and usability are paramount influences for online shopping. If your store looks 1997 or relies on inferior website design methodology it may be holding you down. Existing shoppers are used to the site and its quirks, but what about new customers?

What impression do new shoppers get from your shop? What have you done cause them to come back?

Take some time and deep introspect to research your competitor’s websites… Not so much to “Be Like Mike”, but rather to be better. What seems to work well on their store? What have they done really well? How does this research stack up with your shop? What have you learned and what are your going to do about it?

Many ecommerce shops will phase in new site designs every two years or so to stay current and fresh. There are always new techniques, innovations and software applications to assist in the development of something that catches attention and is highly functional for users and business owners alike.

Redesigning your store in a hasty and unplanned manner will only lead to dysfunction and dissatisfaction. Build your new store on a test or development account so you can test the links and the new functionality of the shop’s design. Have friends, kids, grandmas and colleagues test your development site to catch any flaws in the design. Make a promise to yourself that you will not discount even suggestions or concerns from your tester, which you deem dumb or untrue…. You will never see things like they do. Suggest you give them each a product to search for and buy, testing your search, navigation and very important checkout. There is nothing worse than launching a new site design that is riddled with errors and broken links.

The use of flashing text, unprompted sound or multicolored text should be avoided… Think about the user. The text may certainly get noticed, but generally for very wrong reasons. Simple, compact text and easy to read will provide the best means for shoppers to understand what your shop is designed to provide.  You may have both visually challenged and portable device customers that may use technologies that have space constraints. Many new site designs keep these limitations in mind… Sadly, many do not.

Anytime you are developing a new or redesigned  ecommerce shop enlist the help of several trusted individuals who are willing to tell you exactly what they think of the store. Honest feedback is important and invaluable when considering something with as much potential as an online store. A traditional businessman wouldn’t dream of constructing a building without consulting an architect… So why should online business not strive to enlist the help of web professionals in ecommerce development techniques, design, usability and website appearance?

Melanie E-Commerce Design

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last, Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”
– Zig Ziglar

Humanity is impatient and desires acknowledgment, we’re not used to delayed gratification. We want what we want – and we want it right now… Yesterday even!

There is an unfair proposition in online marketing and commerce as a whole. This inequality can be found in list building, blogging, search engine marketing and virtually every other area of establishing a web presence.

Delayed Gratification

For the website owner there is no such thing as instant gratification. You are not likely receive the feedback you’re hoping for initially and it can seem as if you are improving your website for only one person and quite frankly you’re getting tired of impressing yourself.

Many times it can seem like establishing your ecommerce store is a bit like being asked to fill the Grand Canyon with a teaspoon. You persevere, but it’s hard to see the results.

The silver lining is while you keep working to establish your web store and its position you are finding better ways to describe your products, better content/copy to present, and all of the rough edges are slowly getting smoothed out. Still you have great difficulty measuring your progress.

Ecommerce is really a thankless job that is best suited for individuals that understand the true virtue of patience and are willing to work grievously hard to envision a future when the present doesn’t look so great.

“The ability to discipline yourself to delay gratification in the short term in order to enjoy greater rewards in the long term is the indispensable pre-requisite for success”
– Brian Tracy

We live in a modern time when immediacy is so important to so many people, that a significant number of businesses come and go simply because the owner failed to understand that delayed gratification is the payoff for perseverance, hard work and patience.

In 2006 there were 671,800 new businesses created and 544,800 businesses closed according to the U.S. Small Business Administration.

We know that many of these small businesses did not have a clear understanding of the long term trench warfare that comes along with the territory of a new business start up.

This post is actually plotted to encourage you to think long term. Your ability, as a small business owner, to look further ahead than the next sale is crucial if you want to succeed.

Ecommerce can certainly provide a substantially improved market for your products, but you still must do the hard work, and put your best face forward even when your website statistics may seem as if your playing in an empty concert hall.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.”
– Winston Churchill

Melanie So you want to be a Shop Owner Series