WebDev

Internet has opened a new era of business opportunities. Each day, thousands of new consumers are joining the Internet. More and more companies are adopting Internet as their primary sales and distribution channel. According to Forrester Research -The survey of 130 U.S. companies indicates consumers spent $76 billion shopping on-line in 2002. This represents a 48 percent increase over 2001, and projections for 2003 come close to $100 billion, representing 4.5 percent of total retail sales.

As a business you probably understand that in order to stay competitive you must integrate ecommerce to your present business strategy. A little research will show you that there is an extensive array of technology and solutions for enterprise and web store building available in the market. You also perceive that ecommerce sites can cost you from a mere couple of hundred bucks to hundreds of thousand of dollars. How to choose something from so many options that will exactly fit your present need?

Although, this might look like a daunting task, a little preparation will definitely help you taking the right decision in your quest for an appropriate ecommerce solution. To understand your requirement better and create a proper ecommerce strategy, you have to ask yourself a number of questions. Below I jotted down some of the questions that, hopefully, will spur your imagination.

Businesses, which are still sitting on sidelines and not doing business on the Internet, should think seriously about their position! If you are one of them, chances are there, that you have to pay dearly for your indecision as you might lose significant market share to your more proactive competitors in a very short period of time.

Apart from the fact that e-commerce is growing at the rate of more than 25 percent a year, the use of online features can bring efficiency to virtually every aspect of business process, be it supply chain management or customer support management.

But, how can you build an e-commerce business and take advantages of all these great possibilities? After all, you are pretty sure that anything to do with new technology is complicated, time-consuming, and expensive.

Believe it or not, this is just a misconception that most business owners have about the Internet technology. The truth is ? in order to run a business online and reap profits, like any new effort, you need to do a little homework, have patience and determination, and get going.

Take the following steps seriously and in no time you will be able to embrace fascinating world of online business.

Businesses, which are still sitting on sidelines and not doing business on the Internet, should think seriously about their position! If you are one of them, chances are there, that you have to pay dearly for your indecision as you might lose significant market share to your more proactive competitors in a very short period of time.

Apart from the fact that e-commerce is growing at the rate of more than 25 percent a year, the use of online features can bring efficiency to virtually every aspect of business process, be it supply chain management or customer support management.

But, how can you build an e-commerce business and take advantages of all these great possibilities? After all, you are pretty sure that anything to do with new technology is complicated, time-consuming, and expensive.

Believe it or not, this is just a misconception that most business owners have about the Internet technology. The truth is ? in order to run a business online and reap profits, like any new effort, you need to do a little homework, have patience and determination, and get going.

Take the following steps seriously and in no time you will be able to embrace fascinating world of online business.

I had a rude awakening recently. I checked the days worth of sales from one of my sites and there were none. This had never happened before and of course I was anxious to find out what was wrong.

I quickly found out that the credit card processor Clickbank was under a hacker attack. Their service was effectively paralyzed by computers around the world flooding Clickbanks computers with bogus requests for information.

They weren’t the only web site being attacked. Similar attacks have happened against Yahoo and CNN in the past.

This is the first one that effected me directly… right in the wallet.

Time For Emergency Action

Nobody knew how long Clickbank would be down.

I wasn’t going to wait around to find out! I had to take emergency measures to cope with it.

I was not only losing sales that couldn’t be placed, I was also losing money on online advertising. Pay per click accounts were sending people to my site which they couldn’t order from.

The first thing I did was pause my pay per click accounts until I got things under control. This saved me from wasting money on useless advertising.

For some people, shopping online is as normal as driving a car. It’s become part of the norm. For others, the prospect of making internet purchases is a scary one. Here are a few tips to make your online shopping experience more rewarding.

Research the company or business that is selling to you:

- Look for a phone number and address; all legitimate businesses will have one.

- Understand the return policies, in case you’re not happy with the product you receive.

- Ask questions. If the company has quality service, they’ll have the answers for you.

Research the product or service you are buying:

- When shopping online, you don’t get the benefit of picking it up the product and taking a good look at it. You may want to just use the internet for your research and later see if you can find it in a local store . But the internet also allows you to search for the best deals. So, in this sense, you may choose to use the local store to put you at ease about the product, and purchase it online to get the best price.

Last time, we started to take a look at the most common reasons why most people don’t make progress on their e-commerce and Internet marketing goals. Today, we continue the discussion. [See part 1 of this article at http://www.ecommercediva.com/articles/excuses2.html]

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Excuse #5: ” I just don’t have time. I’m too busy dealing with [customers, clients, day job, family, etc.] to deal with my web site.”

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Isn’t it interesting that the folks who have the fewest orders to fill or have the fewest clients to serve are usually the same people who say they don’t have time to market their products or services?

That’s because the most successful entrepreneurs - the ones with all the orders and clients they can handle - know how important marketing is to establishing and growing their business. They don’t put marketing at the bottom of their to-do lists, waiting until everything else is done before they get to it. The successful ones make the time; they schedule it in on an ongoing basis. It’s a winning habit.

THE REMEDY:

A year ago, I had big plans to re-vamp my web site. I was going to publish my e-newsletter twice a month ? every month, and I was going to upgrade my own e-commerce capabilities. Those were my Internet marketing "resolutions" for 2004.

And I broke them all. *Every single one.* (One of them I broke even before the month of January was over!) For every goal, I had an excuse. And the excuses won.

But this year is different. It’s 2005 ? time to get live! At the end of the first quarter, I’m already off to a good start. In January, I launched my new web site, http://www.EcommerceDiva.com and new "Supersize Your Bootcamp" training program. And you’re reading another newsletter issue. So far, so good!

But this article isn’t about me. It’s about YOU! What are *your* Internet marketing goals?

This spring, I intend to (check all that apply):

___ Finally get that web site up and running.

___ Add e-commerce to my current web site.

___ Overhaul my existing web site.

___ Get more web traffic.

___ Get more leads, prospects, or subscribers to my web

site.

Have you ever gone grocery shopping just before a holiday? The aisles are packed with people pushing carts, shelves need restocked, all the checkout lanes have long lines…not a fun experience.

Just like in-person shopping, making online shopping easy and painless is key to getting customers to purchase from your store.

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Let’s examine the internet shopping process from start to finish exposing some places in the process that your store may have a squeaky cart.

Make the Product Easy to Find

Offer a search capability if your store has a large number of products. Most buyers don’t have the patience to wade through 20 pages of products to find what they want.

Share Availability Early On

Now that the customer has found the product, let them know that it is in stock and ready to ship. Right on the product page or when they place it in their shopping cart let the customer know their purchase can be on its way soon. Don’t wait until after they’ve placed the order to tell them it will be another 6-8 weeks.

Streamline the Order Form

Often times people to stop to realize the income potential of their “junk”. And, when they DO decide it might be worth selling, they never give eBay a second thought.

As I preach over and over again to my customers, don’t ever think that you have something that nobody else would want, unless you’ve really taken the time to do a little eBay research.

I’ve sold my wife’s old tea pots, bowls, AOL CD’s, books, etc. that we no longer had a use for. And, it usually brings a lot more cash to the table than a yard sale or flea market sale would.

Most items in good condition will bring a pretty fair price on eBay if you take just a bit of time to locate the correct category for that item.

Then again, there are times when you may have something that really doesn’tlook all that great. What should you do then?

Well, depending upon what it is, you may want to sell it “as is.”

Case in point is a lamp I’m getting ready to auction off. (My wife brought it home to me the other day.)

How four partners build and manage an exclusive art posters web site by emulating the way the echo works. Imagine a top-notch photographer, some demanding visitors and an e-commerce site that wants to make money. But not at any price and in any conditions, within a policy of exclusivity and selectivity. You have got three quarters of our “Echosystem Build”:

1° The top-notch photographer submits an outstanding photo to the web site whose committee of selection decides to select or not select ? ring a bell ? ? it.

2° The selected photo is voted or not voted by the demanding visitors.

3° The elected photo is put into a catalog that is strictly limited to 64 items.

To cap that, the number of photographic digital enlargements is strictly limited following the estimated World Population, which gives us the forth quarter of our “Echosystem Build”.

Such an e-commerce does exist, it is called www.oneppm.com: Each and every photo is edited once and never again and delivered with a numbered authentication certificate. The catalog applies the well known “one-new-goes-in-one-old-goes-out” rule.