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eCommerce Essentials

A practical guide and handbook

Version 4 - 2013

eCommerce Handbook – Copyright 2015 2

Contents

Getting Started Selling Online ............................................................................................................4 General Online Business Costs .............................................................................................. 4 Online Business Checklist ...................................................................................................... 5

Business Fundamentals ..................................................................................................... 5 Technology Fundamentals ................................................................................................ 5 Create a Business Plan ....................................................................................................... 5

Turnover and Profits .............................................................................................................. 6 Domain and eMail ................................................................................................................. 6 SSL Certificates ...................................................................................................................... 6 Technology Selection ............................................................................................................. 7 Hosting ................................................................................................................................... 7 Graphic Design....................................................................................................................... 8 Custom Functionality ............................................................................................................. 8

Where do you fit in? ........................................................................................................................ 10 Online Success is Measurable ........................................................................................................... 11 Online Customers Expectations ........................................................................................................ 13

Multi-channel and Omni-channel........................................................................................ 13 Multi-channel .................................................................................................................. 13 Omni-channel .................................................................................................................. 14

Products Suitable To Sell Online ....................................................................................................... 14 Key Factor for Success ...................................................................................................................... 16

What do I have to do to be successful in online commerce? ............................................. 16 User experience, user interaction and design .................................................................................... 16

Attractive and sales-promoting design ............................................................................... 16 Content is king! Up to date and useful content .................................................................. 18 Quick product search and clear navigation ......................................................................... 18 Clear ordering process and basket ...................................................................................... 19

Make it possible to make changes to the basket ............................................................ 20 Provide information about total costs ............................................................................ 20

Shipping and Logistics ......................................................................................................... 20 Show availability and delivery time ..................................................................................... 21 Customer personal information .......................................................................................... 21

Trust and security ............................................................................................................................ 23 Trust logos and certification ................................................................................................ 23 Guarantee and warranty in plain text ................................................................................. 24 Offer a wide range of secure payment methods ................................................................ 24 Payment Gateways .............................................................................................................. 25 Is it really secure? ................................................................................................................ 26

Marketing and Sales ......................................................................................................................... 27 Do you know your prospective customers? ........................................................................ 27 The domain and store name ............................................................................................... 28 Search Engine Marketing ..................................................................................................... 28

Registration ..................................................................................................................... 29 Optimal use of META tags ............................................................................................... 29 Optimising design and content........................................................................................ 29 Active linking ................................................................................................................... 30

Paid advertising ................................................................................................................... 30 Optimal ranking: .............................................................................................................. 30 Plain text in the ad ........................................................................................................... 30 Concrete offers ................................................................................................................ 30


Extra incentives to buy .................................................................................................... 30 Product Portals .................................................................................................................... 31 Cross-Selling and Up-Selling ................................................................................................ 32 Newsletter, coupons and e-mail marketing ........................................................................ 33 Be sociable and show yourself ............................................................................................ 34

Contact options ............................................................................................................... 34 Long term customer relations ............................................................................................. 35 Discounts and Special Offers ............................................................................................... 36 Acquire new customers ....................................................................................................... 36

Banner advertising and subject gateways ....................................................................... 36 Cross promotion and public relations ............................................................................. 37 Don’t forget: constant control over your activities ......................................................... 37

Mobile commerce ............................................................................................................... 37 Customer service ............................................................................................................................. 38

Prompt order confirmation ................................................................................................. 38 Fast and complete delivery ................................................................................................. 38 Guarantee and complaints management............................................................................ 38 Periodic customer surveys .................................................................................................. 38 Additional after-sales services ............................................................................................. 39

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) .................................................................................................... 40 Google Panda ...................................................................................................................... 40

Google Webmaster Academy .......................................................................................... 41 The Basic Rules .................................................................................................................... 42 Quality & Relevance ............................................................................................................ 42

Site Structure ................................................................................................................... 42 Sitemap ............................................................................................................................ 43 Site Content ..................................................................................................................... 43 Navigation........................................................................................................................ 44

External Links & Content .................................................................................................................. 46 RSS Feeds ............................................................................................................................. 47 Widgets ................................................................................................................................ 47 External Links ....................................................................................................................... 47

Popularity ........................................................................................................................................ 47 Inbound Links ...................................................................................................................... 48

Press Releases ................................................................................................................. 48 Business Directories ........................................................................................................ 48 Networking Forums and news ......................................................................................... 49

Search Engine Submission ................................................................................................... 49 Search Engine Webmaster Tool .......................................................................................... 49 Social Networking ................................................................................................................ 49

Facebook Page for your business .................................................................................... 50 Tracking Your Success ...................................................................................................................... 51 Summary ......................................................................................................................................... 52 eCorner Information ........................................................................................................................ 53


Getting Started Selling Online

There are many people right now thinking of selling online. What are the real costs

associated with starting an online business or adding an online shop to an existing business?

This is a question asked often and the answer is not always as clear as there are many

different views and opinions in the market place.

This document has been developed to answer common questions and provide guidance, the

content contained was correct at the time written but technology and costs may change.

General Online Business Costs

When starting an online business selling products or services there are some costs which you

can expect before you make your first sale. Your online store is a sales channel and acts like

a sales person for your business. Selling online can be very cost effective as there are less

human resource and infrastructure costs unlike a "bricks and mortar" business. But do not

be fooled selling online is not free and your results will be directly dependant on your

investment, quality of service and products.

There are costs which will not be covered in detail in this document such as:

Cost of products

Warehousing

Logistics

Traditional marketing

Business taxes

Accountant and financial institution fees

All these traditional costs still exist and do not magically vanish if you sell online.

If you are reasonably technically capable and don’t mind doing some work yourself then the

budget can be less than $100 a month for the online store. If you have a professional

designer and web developers create a design and add content then your budget will need to

start around $2,000 + $100 / month. The more design and functional complexity the more

cost and therefore budget required.

Your monthly costs may include such items as hosting, software, maintenance, content

management, search engine optimisation and search engine marketing.

But you can start small and add functionality later so the online store and your budget grow

with your business. Successful selling online requires as much business acumen and planning

(maybe more) as any traditional business. Getting started is not hard but there are so many

opinions on the technology that can be confusing to a non-technically minded person. There

are also many technical terms and issues which often just confuse.


Online Business Checklist

Business Fundamentals

What is your business model

What kind of resources will you need

What is the demographic focus

What expertise is available

o Self-managed

o Need assistance

Market and demographic shifts occurring

an ABN/ACN/ABRN ...

Tax model

Domain name/s

Technology Fundamentals

Business email addresses

SSL Certificate (recommended if you accept credit cards)

A merchant bank account or PayPal

Choose a pricing model

Shipping company to deliver products

Design and some development for your website

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Content Marketing

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Web analytics to track touch points with visitors

Create a Business Plan

Make sure you know your market

Multi-channel: Use many different channels to find customers like eBay, Getprice,

Online

Omni-channel: engage with your customers the same way across all channels giving

them a seamless experience offline or online

Integrate the shopping experience

How you will deal with

o Content

o Pricing & inventory

o Logistics

o Service & support

o Payment & refund/returns

o Security

Develop an easy-to-use purchase process

Consider localisation requirements


Consider customer relationship management and personalisation

Make sure that you select a scalable platform or solution

Make sure you have a team in place

Marketing Campaigns and requirements

Integrate to external systems, suppliers or 3PL

Turnover and Profits

So what can you expect to make from an online store?

This question is very hard to answer accurately. Most small businesses that operate online

fail to properly track all the costs and expenses that they incur for their online store. The

most obvious cost that is not considered is the business owner’s own time and effort.

The effort that you apply to the online store will be proportional to the success and

profitability.

Like any business an online business needs to be run to make money.

If managed properly and operated to a plan then an online store can be a tremendously

profitable business. The overheard that creates operational issues for bricks and mortar

stores such as property rental can be minimal for an online business.

Domain and eMail

To run a successful website you might need a domain name and business email addresses.

Visitors who come to your website may want to send you messages and we highly

recommend that you do not use a personal email address. So you may need a sales and an

info email address at least. Expect to pay around $99 per year for 5 email boxes, the more

you get the cheaper they get. To set up a .com.au domain name you need a registered

business with an ABN or ACN in Australia. You can expect to pay $99 for two years. Domains

for .com will cost less but for Australia we recommend you get the .com.au domain. You can

get cheap domain names but the service provider may not provide the DNS hosting which is

necessary and will be an extra cost so check carefully. We have found with some of the

really cheap overseas domain providers that the domain name is not transferrable for 12

months and is basically not usable.

Check the terms and conditions. There are many good Australian domain providers and

prices vary greatly. Always ask if the DNS (Domain Name Server) costs are included or extra.

SSL Certificates

The SSL or Secured Socket Layer is about providing security and confidence in your online

shop. It is highly recommended that you have your own SSL if you expect to be really

successful online. Many hosted solutions will come with shared SSL which means that it is

secured. However when your visitors go to secured pages the URL (or your domain name)


will change to that of the SSL Certificate owner who will be the payment provider or hosting

company. This can cause concern and basket abandonment (potential buyers that add a

product to your shopping cart but do not complete the sale).

SSL Certificates from a reputable provider will start around $185 / 2 year and you may have

to pay a fee to your web developer to add it to your website. You will need a fixed IP

address.

Technology Selection

Generally you will find a number of different levels of products and packages that vary in

price and capability.

Depending on the size and complexity of your online store you will decide on the right

hosting environment to use. eCorner can provide advice and guidance to help you get the

right package for your business.

A good tip is to start with a smaller package and then you can easily upgrade if you need to.

Hosting

Shared Hosted – means that you will be provided with a virtual hosting space that is shared

in a hosting environment by many other companies’ websites or online stores.

Virtual Private Servers (VPS) – the concept of a “server” usually describes a device in a

hosting data centre where your application is running. Use virtualisation software many

virtual servers can be created and run in a physical server/s. This gives you a dedicated

environment but at lower cost.

Dedicated Servers – for large and complex stores that one or more (real) dedicated servers

might be used to host and run your online store. In general this will apply to larger

enterprise companies with many products and / or very high visitor rates and online traffic.

Software as a Service (SaaS) – SaaS is a form of shared hosting where everything is provided

as part of the hosting package. Included are not just the actual hosting but also the

necessary ecommerce software and management. This is sometimes referred to as “Cloud”

based ecommerce solutions or hosted ecommerce solutions.


Graphic Design

If you have something special in mind for a custom logo or

banner then it might need to be designed by a professional

graphics designer. In general we would recommend that you

get started with the designs available or talk to a web

designer about your ideas. If you want a special design then

they can help by working with you to refine your

requirements but take a look at what is available for free first.

A custom design can cost as little as $600 - $1,200 to produce

and add to the online shop.

Shop design should always be effective and enable your

visitors to find what they need on the shop.

Clear menus and categories are important to allow your

visitors to browse your store.

Easy to find search bar – 80% of online sales come from a search.

Mini-basket always available

Login box for registered members

Promotional and special products clearly show

Informational links such as Terms and Conditions, About Us, Contact Information, Privacy

Policy, Sitemap, Resources simple to access.

Shop designs should be as clean and as simple as possible while portraying a professional

image to your potential customers. Trust decisions for a website are made in the first few

seconds after the visitor hits the site.

Custom Functionality

If you are starting a new eCommerce business we would recommend that you use as much

of the out-of-the-box or standard functionality as possible and our stores have it all. Your

online business will start to make money for you then you can look at expanding and adding

new functionality. The most ecommerce solutions have many features that help you succeed

online and custom development is not generally required..

Custom development has two levels of impact on overall costs. Firstly the cost of the initial

scoping and development and secondly the cost of maintaining that custom work ongoing.

Australia developers are in general very well regarded for their capabilities. You can expect

to pay from $900.00 a day up to $1,800.00 a day depending on the company that does the

development work for you. You should always agree on a scope of work and sign an

agreement or work order that details what the development outcome will be.


Custom development should be done based on a set of agreed requirements.

Developing the design (look and feel) of your store and creating graphics for your use is not

custom development. Web designers and web developers are two very different sets of

skills. You should understand what each group will deliver.

If using a web designer then ask for examples of their work and try to provide clear guidance

on what you require. The designer will be able to recommend the best use of colours and

layout. Expect to get at least 2 variations of design.


Where do you fit in?

Today eCommerce is standard practice for companies wanting to enhance their sales efficiency, make more revenue and improve their customer services. This practical guide was written for small to medium-sized companies who want long-term success in online sales. The practical tips are oriented primarily towards the following target groups: Companies already running an offline business and wanting to use eCommerce as an

additional sales channel, primarily in order to better serve their existing customers. The primary concern of these companies is the optimisation and automation of sales and ordering processes to improve customer relations and increase revenues for each existing customer and not so much the acquisition of new customers.

The second group are start-ups that see a business opportunity on the internet and want to set up purely online sales. The goal of these companies is to open up new markets, attain a certain degree of recognition in the target groups and to acquire new customers and retain them for the long-term using the online store in combination with effective marketing campaigns.

The third group includes companies that are reaching their limits with their traditional business and classic distribution models and see new areas of growth and opportunities in eCommerce. These companies mainly want to use eCommerce to reach new target groups that they were previously unable to approach, e.g. internationally, other regions or cities or new age groups. Here too the acquisition of clearly defined new customer groups and the most efficient possible, often international online commerce takes centre stage.

No matter which group you are in this practical guide will give you answers to your questions about eCommerce. What does success in eCommerce actually mean or what measurable indicators of

success are there? How are successful online stores different from less successful eCommerce sites? What are the most important factors for successful online sales?

In the end, the customer decides whether you are successful or not. What is decisive is that the power of customers has increased considerably in the age of eCommerce. One click of the mouse and your customer is in the online store of your competitor. There he may get better service or find the right product more quickly. In answering the questions above, the central focus is consistently placed in this guide on the online customer with his special needs and requirements when shopping online. If you want to exploit the opportunities and chances of online sales or sustainably improve your existing eCommerce activities in future, this guide is just the thing you will want to read. On the following pages you will find a comprehensive and practical analysis of the factors for success in eCommerce sales.


Online Success is Measurable

What are the most important indicators and key numbers that can be used to measure the success or failure of internet-based sales?

These are important questions that you will be faced with if you want lasting success with an online sales model. In the end you will want to know if your company is successful or not in selling online. Unfortunately, many business people are still judging the efficiency of their online store on the basis of subjective estimates. In doing so, the success of eCommerce sites is often overestimated – or incorrectly underestimated. Simply being online is no guarantee of success when there are millions of other stores. And the sheer numbers of visitors to your site says just as little about the success of your store. For this reason, an internet-based sales system always includes efficient and transparent measurements which make it possible to objectively judge success based on reliable information.

The following rule of thumb applies: The higher the net margin, ratio of regular customers, the turnover per customer and the conversion rate is and the lower the acquisition costs for new customers are, the more efficient your online business is.

We recommend a web analytics system be used to track results. This could be Google Analytics as an example or any tool which allows you to keep an eye on the most important key figures and can measure and judge the performance of your store at any time – all relevant data is generated and clearly displayed at the click of a button. The following overview shows the key indicators of success that you should regularly retrieve and continually evaluate for your online sales activities:

Good performance Poor performance

Ratio of regular customers High Low

Turnover per customer High Low

Conversion rate High Low

Costs for new customer acquisition Low High

Net margin High Low

Uncompleted orders Few Many

Customer satisfaction High Low

These “hard”, distinctly measurable indicators of success can be used to clearly differentiate successful online stores from less successful ones. You should always keep an eye on these key figures if you want long-term and lasting success. Many potential customers use the internet to help themselves make a purchasing decision and then don’t buy “online”, but “offline” in a bricks and mortar store instead. This “offline” turnover induced by the eCommerce site is often not assessed by companies with both a virtual and physical presence. The “offline purchases” generated by the eCommerce store should always be taken into account when assessing online operations because in the end it really does not matter where your customer made the purchase.


Another key indicator of success is the increase in customer satisfaction through improved service and special offers for regular customers. In the long-term, this increase in customer satisfaction will also be noticeable by improved customer relations and ultimately by rising turnover per customer. The regular assessment of customer satisfaction, e.g. through surveys or customer feedback forms is thus a must for every online merchant.


Online Customers Expectations Online shoppers are demanding! Nowhere are so many sellers pushing themselves onto one spot as on the World Wide Web.

You should, therefore, ask:

What do my online customers actually expect?

Your online customers primarily expect – beside top prices and service – transparency, convenience, security and reliability when shopping online.

Recent studies have shown that a very high proportion of initiated order transactions are broken off before being completed. Very often the reason for abandoned orders is a lack of transparency and clarity in the ordering process. If while buying online doubt arises as to the reliability, security and seriousness of the online operator, e.g. because product prices, claims for warranty or delivery times are not correctly communicated or the ordering process is unclear, the big danger exists that the customer loses trust in your online store and aborts his order. In addition, it is highly likely that this customer will never visit your store again and is lost to your company.

However, if you manage to put across a “good feeling” in using your eCommerce site, you have made a significant step towards success in online commerce. Prospective customers who you do not disappoint in the entire handling process, from product selection to ordering, payment, delivery and after-sales services will become loyal patrons who trust you for a long time.

The following overview summarises the most important demands, needs and wishes of online customers. Companies should consistently orient their eCommerce offerings to these customer demands, to build on online sales success and to secure it for the long term. Fast and easy product search

Clear navigation and fast loading times

Comprehensive, detailed product information in text and images

Inexpensive product prices

Information about current availability

Simple, easy and secure ordering and payment

Choice of different payment methods

Fast order processing with automatic order confirmation

Fast and punctual delivery with logistics tracking

Return option (money-back guarantee)

Security through encrypted data transfer

Option for contacting merchant (e-mail, chat)

Multi-channel and Omni-channel

Multi-channel


To gain and retain customers online you have to think about many different aspects and

ways that a customer can find your business and your products. You also need to think

about their expectations of your business.

Just having a nice online store will not make your business success. You have to compete

with the 1000’s of other nice online stores. That is where you can use multiple channels to

your advantage.

Engage through as many channels as possible ensuring that you give the best opportunity for

your customers to find you. This might mean a store on eBay or listing products on Google

Shopping or Getprice.

Allow people to get to you from any device be it mobile, PC or Tablet.

If you have a physical retail store then you can use the store front as an additional channel

to get customers online and in to the store.

Omni-channel

Omni-Channel follows on from multi-channel but is concentrated more on a seamless

approach to the consumer experience through all available shopping channels, i.e. mobile

internet devices, computers, bricks-and-mortar, television, catalogue and so on.

A move to omni-channel results in a more engaged consumer the in-store and online

experience should be the same with a high level of care and attention. Omni-channel is a hot

topic and has driven innovations like “Click and Collect” allowing customers to buy online

and pickup in store. But competition and consumer awareness (a smarter consumer) is

driving this change. As a result, retailers and brands have to reformulate their supply chain

strategies to match this shift in consumer demand.

The underlying software and systems need to be flexible to adapt to the changes in the

consumers expectation and competitive landscape.

Products Suitable To Sell Online

Any product or service is suitable for selling on the internet but some may be better or easier to sell online than others. In general, specific and special products that are not offered in hundreds of other stores or on the “major” eCommerce sites, can be easily described in text and images, and have an attractive price-performance ratio can be sold particularly well on the internet. These are often referred to as “long-tail” products. If the product quality is also assured and the product can be delivered problem-free and inexpensively, almost nothing stands in the way of success. The perennial items in online commerce are books, CDs, clothing and electronics and computer goods. Even in these product areas you can sell successfully online by specialising, informing your target group about your product offerings through efficient marketing and by using a clever online marketing strategy to place your products in exactly those locations where either your customers go shopping or want to go for information (see the section on


Marketing).

Another tip for the product portfolio: In the long term, you should offer your entire range of products and not just a part of your product portfolio. Your customer expects this as a rule and in doing so you ensure that your store is and remains attractive to shoppers.


Key Factor for Success

The Difference That Counts

What are successful online merchants doing right?

Where are the largest potentials for optimisation?

What are the key factors for success in eCommerce?

In concrete terms:

What do I have to do to be successful in online

commerce?

Online merchants who recognise the special needs and requirements of online buyers in online shopping and who consistently adapt both their business activities and online stores towards them have excellent chances for long-term and lasting success in online commerce.

The key factors for success can be summarised in the following areas:

1. User friendliness, user interaction and design

2. Trust and security

3. Marketing and sales

4. Customer service

User experience, user interaction and design

Or: Making it as easy as possible for your customers! Many online merchants believe that the price in eCommerce is the most important thing for a purchasing decision. Studies show that the price is indeed important, but user-friendliness and ease of use of the store is really the decisive factor. Due to these two factors, customers primarily decide for or against certain stores – before they have even seen the price of a product. You should thus make it as simple and pleasant as possible for your customers to get information in your store, to find and order products – one of the basic rules for successful online marketing. You have made the right choice with your decision for an ePages store, because your new store comes with all the vital features and elements for shopping conveniently and easily on the ‘net laying the foundations for successful online marketing in the long term.

Attractive and sales-promoting design

Basically, the same rules that apply to a conventional store apply to the design of a virtual store: The goods offered should be attractive and induce shoppers to buy. But this product presentation and the store design should not distract from the actual purpose, selling. Via


design and layout it is important to impart a pleasant and secure shopping feeling and induce the visitor to buy. It is essential during implementation to take into account some internet-specific peculiarities: Unlike selling in a brick and mortar store, your customer can’t test or try out the

product or check the material. For this reason, you should make his buying decision easier with meaningful, but not overly long, product descriptions and high-quality and free-form product images. Detailed images of the product or individual product attributes facilitate the choice and buying decision of the potential customer.

The customer should be guided from the product presentation/information quickly and

with as few detours as possible to the actual purchase. Don’t distract the customer from shopping with meaningless design elements or information not related to buying. Give him the opportunity of placing the selected product directly into his basket and then getting to the basket without having to take a roundabout route.

Broadband is indeed on the advance, but speed still hampers many people trying to browse the web. Unnecessary gimmicks and large-size images lead to longer page loading times and test the patience of your customers. The graphical elements should not result in an extreme slowdown for images being displayed. Because prolonged waiting increases the readiness of the user to leave the web site.

Your online software should provide a set of powerful design features that you can use to quickly, easily and flexibly customise your store according to your own personal ideas or your corporate design. In doing so, no knowledge of HTML or assistance from external service providers is needed. Support is provided to you by a powerful design editor and a tool for creating images that automatically creates different sizes and views of product images.


Content is king! Up to date and useful content

Apart from an appealing range of products with competitive prices and an outstanding store design, the other content in your store plays a substantial role in the lasting success of your site. Unfortunately, many merchants don’t take this into account, although the actual content of a web site is one of the most important reasons why potential buyers visit a web site and is often the decisive factor whether they stay on the site and shop or leave it quickly. The length of time a visitor spends on your site increases dramatically if you offer him interesting and up to date content that is useful to him. The longer a visitor spends on your site, the more likely it is that he will go shopping here – and not at the competition. This applies to web sites and also of course to online stores. Some simple, basic rules to consider:

Being up to date is the be-all and end-all, particularly on the internet. Always make sure that the content on your site is up to date and is regularly updated – your customers expect it.

Provide extra information about your products that is useful to potential buyers. You’re selling fishing supplies and tackle in your online store? You then offer extra, useful, sales-promoting information such as test reports on fishing gear, care and repair tips or equipment tips for certain types of fishing. Almost no limits are placed on your creativity – but always make sure that the extra content gives your customers a high level of usefulness and can positively influence their buying decisions.

Note: An integrated WYSIWYG editor can make it child’s play to create and place new content in your online store.

Quick product search and clear navigation

Product search is of primary significance for the success of your online store. If the user cannot find the product and related information he is looking for within a short period of time, he’ll be gone again quickly. If he finds what he’s looking for in the better-organised store of a competitor, he may be lost as a prospective customer. What do I do now? This is a question that online buyers often ask when landing on pretty, colourful and very creative store pages which lack a clear and concise system of navigation. Build your store and your product catalogue as simply and logically as possible, making them appealing and modern at the same time. A good navigation system and customer-friendly store design are characterised by your customers being able to find their way around your store intuitively and get to the desired product offers and to the basket quickly and unerringly.


Clear ordering process and basket

Uncompleted orders still represent a serious problem in online marketing. Because of this, companies across the world are missing out on sales in the range of several billion dollars a year. One of the most frequent reasons for abruptly abandoned orders is a complicated, complex and overly long ordering process. Because of this, design the ordering process in your online store to be as short, transparent and clear as possible.

At each stage in the ordering process show your customer where he is in the overall process and how to continue, e.g. by a basket that is always visible and a clear indication of progress. Your customer must have the feeling of absolute control in the actual ordering process – until he finally consciously orders the products in the basket, ideally after you have provided him a summary of his order stating all information pertinent to the order and the costs incurred and this is explicitly confirmed by the customer. Afterwards, the customer should automatically receive an order confirmation via e-mail that clearly summarises all data and information about the order.


Make it possible to make changes to the basket

Often customers want to change the quantity ordered before placing an order. You should make it possible for your customer to make these changes to the basket. In addition, a direct link from the basket back to the product description makes it possible for your customer to get missing product information or to make sure that he has selected the right product before finalising the order, without a long and cumbersome search.

Provide information about total costs

Many orders are abandoned the moment your customer finds out about completely unexpected high costs for shipping at too late a point in time. You can avoid this by indicating as early as possible in the ordering process the costs for shipping and the total for all additional charges for the items ordered. Doing so creates an atmosphere of transparency and security for the customer and prevents unpleasant surprises from the outset. The customer should always be able to choose between different shipping methods. Low prices are unquestioningly important for success online. At the same time remember: high shipping costs tend to scare off more experienced customers. You should therefore stay within the normal range for shipping costs and not attempt to “compensate” for low product prices with shipping charges that are too high.

Note: The general rule: keep shipping charges to a minimum and at the same time always try to maximise the value of the basket. To increase the order value you can, for example, offer free shipping above a certain total order amount or use cross-selling tools in your store.

Shipping and Logistics

There are a wide variety of shipping methods that can be built in which you can setup on

your website. These handle just about any possibility. Most common is integration to

Australia Post for calculating shipping cost in the shopping basket. The actual shipping cost

to send your packages is not part of the eCommerce package and you need to make sure

that you calculate and add shipping cost correctly.

Calculating the shipping cost can be more complex if you have heavy or large items or if you

are shipping perishable goods like food or wine.

Some products cannot be shipped in a normal fashion if they are dangerous goods that

might be flammable or explosive.

Free shipping is a great incentive for buyers so we would recommend that your pricing

absorb the shipping cost when possible and you offer free shipping. You can tie that to the

value in the shopping basket which is always a good idea.

There are many shipping providers in Australia

and recently shipping aggregators like Temando


have become popular. Temando is a fulfilment engine that has been built from the ground

up as an enterprise level solution to overcome the hassle of sending freight in eCommerce

environments. It introduces the concept of “cloud based logistics” to the industry, as it

allows real time connectivity between “above the line” elements such as content

management systems (CMS), shopping carts, enterprise resource planning (ERP) and “below

the line” elements such as warehouse management and dispatch systems. You can find out

more at the Temando website – www.temando.com.

Show availability and delivery time

Many customers give up when they find out too late that the item they want to buy is not available. It’s best for you to already indicate availability on the product page. This precludes unpleasant surprises related to product availability from the outset. Lengthy delivery times are also a common cause for abandoned orders. You should always try to guarantee the shortest delivery times possible. However, you should only give delivery times that you can actually meet in order to avoid disappointments and trouble with your customers.

Customer personal information

Require no more than necessary – customers or visitors to you online store can become

sceptical and leave the store if you ask for too much personal information.

http://www.temando.com/


One last tip concerning the ordering process: Don’t demand too much information from your customer. After all, you want to sell things and not create the most extensive customer database possible. To avoid disturbing your customers more than necessary, restrict the information collected to only the data that is absolutely essential. If you require sensitive information to be entered, always state how the data collected will be used. Make sure that only sales-related data is collected. If you require information to be submitted from an online form, use a simple indication of progress so that your customer is better able to assess how long it will take to finish. You should make it as easy as possible for your regular customers to go shopping in your store after registration. After the second registered visit at the latest nothing should stand in

the way of orders after name and password have been entered.


Trust and security

Or: As always, the foundation for good business

Trust continues to be the most important basis for successful business relationships – this applies to a special degree to doing business on the internet, because personal, human contact is missing. If you observe a couple of simple, basic rules you can create trust on the part of prospective customers and thus build up long-term and stabile customer relations – because in online business it also holds true that it is considerably easier and cheaper to sell to regular customers than it is to acquire new ones. For more than half of regular online buyers the security perceived when shopping on the internet is the decisive factor for regular repeat purchases. Many potential customers do not know what awaits them when they go shopping online. The consequences are often unfounded fears that in the end keep them from buying. How can you impart this so important feeling of security and reliability? Explain clearly to your customers that security is the top priority in your online store, e.g. by handling order processing, the entry of sensitive data and the payment process using secure SSL encryption, which is practically unbreakable. By the way, your customers can recognise that the connection is encrypted by the closed padlock icon displayed in their browsers.

You should dispel any potential fears related to security by providing transparent information in your store. Make it clear to your customers when they enter the store how “critical” steps for buying work, from ordering, payment and shipping to any possible warranty claims, returns and exchanges. Explain each individual step as precisely and completely as possible to your customers. The privacy policy for handling customer data strengthens the feeling of security, seriousness and reliability it brings about. The clearer you communicate before making a sale, the lower potential customers will assess the risk of buying online in your store.

Trust logos and certification

You can tell your customers a lot about security and trust when shopping in your store – but it is still more convincing to have your store tested and certified with respect to security and compliance with established standards and legal aspects by a specialist independent organisation.

http://www.eway.com.au/


Guarantee and warranty in plain text

You have nothing to hide! Describe your fair and comprehensive guarantee and warranty terms clearly and plainly and link to your data privacy policy and terms of warranty from every page in the ordering process. A “money-back guarantee” and customer-friendly exchange and return policies increase the feeling of security and trust on the part of your online customers.

Note: You can increase trust even further by offering more than the usual or more than

your competition for returns, guarantee and warranty. By assuring your customer before a purchase that returns are acceptable and with money back without having to provide a reason. This can greatly reduce the “perceived risk” on the part of your customers.

Offer a wide range of secure payment methods

Studies have clearly shown that online buyers always expect multiple payment options. You should therefore always offer as wide a range of popular and secure payment methods as possible that are easy for as many customer as possible to use. The most important and frequently used payment methods in eCommerce are invoice, cash on delivery, debit transfer, direct debit and credit card. Each method of payment has advantages and disadvantages from a store operator’s perspective. Payment by invoice is one of the most common methods that in the merchant’s view is

easy to handle and doesn’t incur additional costs.

Payment by C.O.D. involves higher fees and the availability of the customer is not always ensured, which in turn can incur additional costs. But payment by C.O.D. is one of the safest payment methods from a merchant perspective.

Payment by debit transfer or direct debit is a very customer-oriented and easy method of payment which is why it is preferred by many online customers. Reverse posting of the payment amount by the customer is possible within a certain period of time.

Higher costs arise for the merchant for credit card payments, but payment processing is easy, transparent and safe for both buyer and seller. Payment losses are insured up to a certain amount and can thus be greatly minimised.


Note: In your store you should offer at least three of the methods of payment described above including payment by credit card in order to give the customer a wide range of options to choose from. The choice of a digital payment option or “online payment” is of great significance for your store – especially if you want to sell your products internationally. Payment online by credit card depends primarily on smooth, simple and secure handling of the payment transaction, which is transparent and understandable to the customer.

Payment Gateways

If you want to accept credit cards online we recommend that you use a Payment Service

Provider and process the credit cards via a Payment Gateway. There are strict regulations

around the use and storage of credit card information which are regulated by the Payment

Card Industry via their Data Security Standards; you can find more information at their

website www.pcisecuritystandards.org or through your bank.

Look for solutions that are PCI DSS compliant. Payment Gateways have to be integrated into

your website. Some Payment Gateways in Australia include:

You will need to set up an account with the Payment Service Provider, and also an online

merchant account with your bank, to take online payments. Setup costs vary dramatically

from nothing at PayPal up to $500 for some providers. Some Payment Providers will also

charge an annual fee varies from $200 to $500.

You will pay transaction fees for each payment that you accept. Again these vary greatly but

expect from 1.1% + 30 cents up to 4.5% or more depending on the Payment Service

Provider.

So check this out carefully. Your bank will also charge you some fees to set up your Online

Merchant Account. These do not vary greatly from bank to bank but shop around and ask

questions.


Is it really secure?

The security of customer data should be the highest priority for online merchants – from of their own interest. Security concerns still rank at the top of the list in the eyes of internet users and can stand in the way of online shopping. The possible security standard for credit card transactions is undergoing continuous optimisation and today has already attained a very high level. Credit card payment is secure from a purely technical standpoint. As long as customers believe that payment transactions on the internet are not secure, it doesn’t matter if this is not actually the case. The effect is the same: No orders are placed and no customers are gained. If you want to build an online store you should therefore always offer complete information about the encryption methods used and security mechanisms and explain that the security of customer data for you as an online merchant is your number one priority. Once customers have gained confidence and have gone shopping in an eCommerce store and paid online, trust – as the results of several studies show – increases in the current security standards and payment methods. Satisfaction arises from the first successful and smooth transactions.

Note: One more thing: Other personal data not related to credit cards is also very sensitive. The assertion that no data will be transferred to third parties must therefore be stated explicitly. Because just like in conventional commerce this applies: You can only successfully build on trust and do good business.


Marketing and Sales

The best most secure and clearly laid out store with the most appealing product offerings and prices stands virtually no chance if it cannot be found by customers. This is why the effective marketing of your online store is one of the major factors for success. The following section describes how best to promote your store with a relatively limited marketing budget and how you’ll be able to integrate it seamlessly into the World Wide Web – so that prospective customers can find your site quickly and then go shopping at your store. The general question is: How do I acquire new customers and generate long-term customer loyalty to my store? In addition, this section also includes detailed answers to the following questions:

How do customers find my store and web site? How can I offer my products to customers? How can I increase customer loyalty? How can I make my store known to my target groups? How can I increase the “conversion rate”?

Do you know your prospective customers?

At the beginning of your activities comes the target group analysis. If you are not familiar with your target group there is a big danger that your message in the marketing activities you plan is not communicated to “your” target group or your range of products isn’t appropriate for the target group. An expensive market analysis is not always needed to find out more about new prospective customers. Collect some ideas about your potential target groups together with your team. Which groups of people could be interested in the products we want to sell online? What problems and demands do these people have with respect to the products we sell? What is the age distribution? If you already have a retail store business and would like to establish the store as an extra sales channel, talk to your regular customers. What needs and demands do these people have and what do they expect from buying on the internet?

Note: There are often free studies on specific target groups or age groups available on the internet. You should be able to find something with a simple search.

Create a target group profile from the information collected and adapt you’re your store, content and product range and, in particular, marketing activities to best target your buyer profile. This is how you will be able to avoid the high costs associated with not reaching your target group, make the best use of your budget and precisely target your message to the intended audience – one of the basic requirements of successful marketing!


The domain and store name

Are you familiar with this? You found a good store on the internet and forgot to bookmark it? A week later you want to visit the store and can’t remember its name – this is terrible for store merchants. This name of your store is somewhat like a company sign on the internet and should always be short, catchy, succinct and thus easy to remember. None of your customers is ever going to remember www.gvw-mpl-and-associates.com! In addition, a good, memorable domain name is aimed at the target groups you want to sell to. If you want to address an older target group, you should choose a serious, easily understood name, whereas a term from a foreign language or one that is flashier may be the right one for younger people in a specific target group.

Note: If the name you want with the ending “.com.au” is already taken, the ending “.biz” is very appropriate for stores on the internet.

In principle, you can choose any domain name you wish – as long as you do not infringe upon the rights of others with the name of your. Making use of brand research services is a good idea for avoiding this. This is the only way to preclude the legal consequences that can result in your having to change your domain name – with a deadly impact on your marketing.

Search Engine Marketing

Most prospective customers find out about web sites and stores by using search engines. Almost three quarters of all transactions in online commerce originate from search engine queries. So, the first thing you’ll have to do in marketing your online store is to ensure that all popular search engines are able to find and index your site. Only then will you have a chance of new customers finding your store after entering relevant search terms. You’re selling fishing supplies and tackle? Will users be able to find your fishing store when entering search terms such as “dip net”, “net float” or “pilk rod” into a search engine? Search engine marketing is the most effective way to market your store on the internet, because this brings prospective customers interested in products directly into contact with product suppliers. The advantages of search engine marketing are obvious: You can reach your target group quickly and generate high-quality contacts with people interested in buying directly. With a query the person using a search engine indicates a clear interest in or need for a specific product and has decided on your products when he visits your shop. Better leads than this are hard to come by. With continual search engine marketing you will not only increase your store revenues, but will also increase your name recognition. In addition, unlike classic forms of advertising, successful search engine marketing can be implemented quickly, easily and at very low cost. Another major advantage is that you always have full control and transparency over the costs and an overview of the effectiveness of your marketing campaign. Basically, a difference is made between free search engine optimisation services and paid advertising in search engines.


In search engine optimisation optimising the source text and design of your store guarantees that your store or web site is found higher in “real” search results, called the “natural listing”. There are only a few things you have to do to your store for the search bots of the search engines to be able to index your site correctly – the prerequisite for a high ranking for your site within the first three pages of search results. It’s important to continually improve your store and regularly check your ranking, because search engine indexing methods and algorithms are being continuously modified and reworked to prevent misuse.

Registration

You first have to register your store at the major search engines. Registration at Google, currently the largest and most significant search engine, can be done directly from the back office of any good on-line store. Registration at other search engines such as Yahoo! should be very quick and easy. You should only have to fill out an online form and enter a few bits of information about your site. Please note that Google and Yahoo! provide the search results for several other search engines. By registering at Google and Yahoo! you will cover a very large area, so this is a must.

Optimal use of META tags

META tags are variables written in the head section of an HTML document. These are indexed and analysed by most search engines. The META keywords and description tags are stored by the search engines and made available as results to search queries. For this reason, make sure that these META tags contain the “right” keywords for your store and a meaningful description of it that is as precise as possible. This completes the first and most important step towards getting the best ranking for your store. You should be aware that search engines have an “allergic reaction” to keywords used repeatedly in META tags and give them a lower ranking. Important note: Put yourself in the position of your target group(s) when editing META tags. Make sure that you use only relevant keywords that are directly related to your site and page content.

Optimising design and content

Static web pages written in HTML are a basic requirement for your store to be indexed by search bots. These pages must contain enough of the right kinds of words and phrases that can be read by machine. Your on-line store should fulfil this requirement through an easy to set up page caching method.

You should always make sure that you include the relevant keywords in the content, labels and other texts used on your pages, because the search bot will then assign a higher weighting to these words.

Photos and images with text look great and are an important part of appealing to your customers and should always be present. But you should be aware that search machines are unable to index this content. This makes it that much more important for the keywords relevant to your store to appear in sufficient number in the text on the pages.


Active linking

The more web sites there are on the internet that link to your store, the higher it will be listed in search engine results. Search engines place primary emphasis on the quality and not the quantity of these links. Apart from the number of visits, the relevance of the site plays a very important role. So, it’s best if large sites with a lot of traffic directly related to your product offerings link to your shop. One option of achieving this is through partner programs in which web sites within the partner network link to your shop.

Paid advertising

As an example Google AdWords, placed at search engines make it possible to show search term-specific, paid ads along with the normal search results. Payment is based on cost per click. The prices for keywords vary and are determined dynamically in a bidding process.

Pay attention to the following things for paid ads at search engines:

Optimal ranking:

From the price-per-click you are willing to pay make certain that your ad appears on the first page of search engine results and is included within the first ten ads. Doing so can greatly increase the click rate. Be aware that you don’t always have to be at the top – it’s normally enough just being listed on the first page and this is much less expensive.

Plain text in the ad

Design your ads for the search engines to be clearly laid out with easily understood text that includes the search term the user entered or words that are clearly related to the search term. Ideally, you should place these words in the header of the ad.

Concrete offers

Be as concrete as possible and use the defined entry point to take the visitor to a part of your store that is directly related to the offer in the ad – normally the product category you are advertising or directly to the product information pages of the advertised products.

Extra incentives to buy

Such as price discounts, bundles or access to interesting information greatly increase the conversion rate and should thus ideally be offered in combination with AdWords. You should always try to get the consent from visitors, who have browsed in your store, but didn’t buy anything, for you to send them your newsletter. Most search engine operators offer extensive information on all aspects of paid advertising and often practical tips as well as extremely powerful campaign and analysis tools, so you can set up your campaign by yourself and analyse it transparently from the start. So get started as soon as possible with search engine marketing and experience it for yourself.


Refine your campaign, vary the keywords and the amounts bid for individual keywords, optimise ad copy text and the entry page. Always monitor the effects of these measures on the success of the campaign.

Note: You should always keep an eye on click rates, cost-per-click and conversion rates.

You will very quickly notice which keywords are the most effective and which ad formats and text copy have the greatest impact and generate the most orders in your store. You can also, of course, use the services of a professional who is specialised in implementing and optimising search engine campaigns. Apart from search engine marketing and AdWords at search engines, there are still other forms of search engine marketing: Yellow Pages or regional and interregional mercantile directories in which prospective customers with a definite interest in buying are looking for products, as well as auction platforms and product search engines.

Product Portals

eBay, Getprice, Shopping.com, Google Shopping – sell where the customer goes first.

Why not present your products in exactly those places where customers with an interest in buying are looking for just such product and price information? Try to choose a store where it’s child’s play to transfer all or part of your products to Getprice and Shopping.com and to thus present them to a wider public looking for exactly what you have to offer. When a prospective customer finds your product at a search engine a deep link takes him directly to the product in your store where he can order it.

Many customers regularly find refuge at the eBay auction site. Almost half of all online customers first compare the price there before buying. Choose a solution that will use a standard interface to integrate your store into the eBay marketplace. By doing so, you present your products at eBay with no extra effort and orders are forwarded directly to your store. All other order management tasks are then easily handled in your back office where it is also

possible to handle large numbers of orders in an extremely efficient manner.


Cross-Selling and Up-Selling

The fitting carrying case to match that fishing rod you’re buying? The right line for your fishing reel? While buying online offers your customers sensible accessory products – you will be surprised how easy it is to increase turnover.

Have your customers decide which products complement each other: with recommendations following the “Customers who bought this product also bought…” or “We recommend..” - your store should support both cross-selling and up-selling. In manual cross-selling you determine in the back office of your store which accessory products to offer. In automatic cross-selling the system takes over continuous analysis of customer buying behaviour for this task.


Newsletter, coupons and e-mail marketing

Stay in regular contact and constant communication with your customers. Personalised newsletters offer a variety of options for informing your customers about new products, special offers or news about your store and giving new incentives to buy. With integrated coupons you give your customers a solid strong reason to stop by your online store again. With a newsletter feature in your online store custom-designed newsletters based on your store data can be personalised and sent, e.g. to customer groups you have flexibly defined. In addition to addressing your regular customers, you can also reach new customer groups that have not yet purchased anything in your store via targeted “permission-based e-mail marketing”. The prerequisite for this is that the addressee has given his express consent to receiving information from you. You can significantly increase the willingness of interested parties to buy if you regularly provide them with information about special offers, bargains, clearance sales or new products. If you do it right, the loyalty of prospective customers towards your store will be stronger. Finally, the customer will perceive your e-mail newsletter as useful and valuable information which he or she is happy to get. You should therefore always offer in your store the option for interested parties to sign up for your newsletter, irrespective if they buy anything or not. One more tip: Incentives significantly increase the willingness to sign up. So, why not also offer a new customer discount or a coupon? Ideally, newsletter registration can also be combined with search engine marketing campaigns.

Note: If a customer does not want to buy, always offer the option of registering for your store newsletter.


Be sociable and show yourself

Behind every online store there is a team of people operating the store. To your imprint (containing all necessary information about your store and a standard store) add photos of the people in charge who stand “behind” the online store. This will surely increase trust more than mile-long, complexly formulated general terms and conditions, and an impersonal e-mail address or a blank form.

Show your Facebook and Twitter feeds on your site and let people see who you are and what you are doing socially.

Contact options

Make sure that you offer a wide range of contact options in your store. Your customers expect it and should thus have the option of being able to contact you via different channels – even by telephone. Of course, you’ll want to answer e-mail queries fully and in a friendly manner within 24 hours and won’t ever let your customers wait any longer than this for a reply. To answer questions that come up repeatedly you’ll want to create an extensive list of questions and answers (FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions) that clearly and fully explains the most important aspects about online shopping – from the ordering process and terms of guarantee to delivery.


Long term customer relations

Long-term customer loyalty to your store is one of your main goals. In addition to user-friendliness, a clear design, up to date and useful content, top prices and excellent service before, during and after sales can primarily be achieved by treating your customers as individually as possible and giving specific customer groups the feeling of being special. Here are some tips for you to accomplish this:

Personally address registered customers in your store by name.

Grant access to non-public information, e.g. to the newsletter archive, manuals, operating instructions or to old orders.

Allow registered customers to manage and modify their customer account, log in and address information by themselves.

Combine specific customers into customer groups and offer them special prices or

discounts.

Offer your customers shopping lists that they can manage and maintain on their own and can be simply turned into a basket when necessary.


Discounts and Special Offers

Online buyers are also only people and pay attention to the price when shopping especially on the internet! Special offers and discounts are standard marketing activities that you should continually employ. Choose an on-line store where you can boost your turnover by placing alternating special offers with extra images on the home page of your store any thus draw greater attention.

You can also provide additional incentive to buy with a large assortment of discounts. Loyalty discounts for premium customers? Volume discounts for resellers? 3% discount for new customers paying in advance? 2% discount for delivery by Australia Post? With a well-designed on-line store solution there are virtually no limits placed on you and with a user-friendly back office you will never lose track of things when managing customer groups, price lists and more complex discount systems.

Free Shipping is always a great incentive and can be connected to customer groups or the value of products in the basket.

Acquire new customers

Banner advertising and subject gateways

You can entice new customers to your store with targeted banner advertising on the web pages and portals your customers get information from. However, the costs for this are higher than for ads at search engines, for example, and the message more frequently does not reach the intended target group. With a correspondingly larger budget, banner advertising can certainly make sense as a complementing activity in the marketing mix. But the prerequisite for this is that you place banners at portals and sites that are as close as possible to your target groups. In our


example of a fishing supply store internet-based forums occupied with the topic of fishing would be prime places for targeted banner advertising placement. Subject gateways can indeed have several thousand members brought together by a common interest in a specific topic or hobby. The perfect audience if you have the right range of products in your store. In some circumstances you may also be able to reach your target group in the news groups – for free.

Note: You should, however, be aware that commercial posts are not desired or are even forbidden in most news groups. Articles contributed by experts may of course include a URL!

Cross promotion and public relations

Cross promotion – simple, yet effective: The name of your store should appear on all materials and in all communication channels – this includes e-mails, business cards, letterheads, invoices and press releases. A word about press releases: You can achieve extra attention for your store at low cost with regular and targeted public relations work. The regular sending of press information via internet services should therefore definitely show up in your marketing plan. The chances that journalists will report on your store will increase dramatically if you have an exceptional target group and/or you stand above the crowd with your product range or service.

Don’t forget: constant control over your activities

In addition to a target group analysis and the selection of the “right” marketing activities, continuous reporting and a permanent review of success is a part of every sound marketing scheme – after all, you’ll want to know if your marketing activities are accomplishing the desired aims. You can use the web analytic systems like Wagtail Analytics from eCorner or Google Analytics to analyse whether your special offers are being accepted, how many visitors made purchases in the month of May or the areas of your product presentation that can still be improved. Your on-line store from eCorner comes with a standard interface for a these analytics tools, allowing real-time analysis of visitor behaviour and store performance.

Mobile commerce

More and more people are using their iPhones or Smart phones to search

and buy online. With 50% of iPhone users having had some form of

online transaction. We will deliver templates that are specific to iPhones

and Smart Phones that are automatically delivered to consumers

browsing from their phone to make the shopping experience simple.

Product search and buy are simplified with easy to use icons and resized

and proportioned content.


Customer service

Or: After-sales means future sales A customer decides on a product in your store and buys it. This is an important step towards success in eCommerce – the next steps that decide whether a one-time customer becomes a loyal patron are still pending. Unfortunately, many online merchants overlook customer care and the provision of after-sales services - and lose many customers because of this. At the same time, it is very easy to keep customers satisfied after a purchase and keep them coming back to your store.

Prompt order confirmation

After the actual buying process the customer should automatically receive a confirmation e-mail including all order-related information. In a well-constructed on-line store the order confirmation e-mail is generated automatically and sent to the customer. Make it clear to your customers that you are available to lend assistance even after sales, e.g. by offering them several options for getting in touch with you at any time.

Fast and complete delivery

Fast delivery of ordered products is extremely important for the long-term success of your store. You must ensure that customers receive their orders within the promised delivery period. Nothing angers customers more than delivery that is late, incomplete or faulty.

Note: A small give-away included with delivery costs you almost nothing and makes the customer happy. And the customer will always fondly remember your delivery.

Guarantee and complaints management

A claim for warranty or an exchange is a situation that can occur time and again. This supposedly critical situation offers the online merchant a substantial opportunity that is often not taken. You can now put your customer-orientation and friendly service to the test. Be accommodating, proactive in your communication, friendly and open – your customers will be grateful and shop again at your store. The same holds true for customers who complain to you. Take these customers very seriously and actively manage complaints from customers. Opportunity also lies in the complaint – the chance of solving a previously unknown problem.

Note: For this reason, regularly evaluate incoming complaints.

Periodic customer surveys


Carry out customer satisfaction surveys at regular intervals. This is the only way you can continuously improve your store and service and serve your customers even better and satisfy them. You can carry out the survey online or send a written questionnaire to the addresses in your customer database. You can increase the number of completed and returned survey forms by offering an attractive incentive, e.g. a drawing for a prize among all returned forms or a special discount in combination with a time-limited coupon for a specific product.

Note: By the way, you will get a regular, continuous flow of information from your customers if you include a short feedback form in your deliveries.

Additional after-sales services

The customer buys a product in your store. If you stay on the ball now you have a big chance of making a regular customer out of this one-time customer. How? Surprise him with extra services. You sell technically-demanding products? Give your customer access after the sale to additional, useful information such as FAQs, documentation, spare parts lists, explosion drawings, downloads, etc. related to the product that he bought from you. In combination with other customer relationship activities such as periodic newsletters, loyalty discounts, customer accounts and addressing the customer personally, you will be able to sustain increased customer satisfaction, long-term loyalty to your store and thereby the amount of turnover per customer.


Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

The aim of this section is to provide you with some basic steps that you can take to dramatically increase the visibility of your website in natural search engine results and drive more sales.

Many small businesses lack the technical expertise (or marketing budgets) to promote and design their website. Without this knowledge most turn to expensive “Pay-per-click” campaigns or third party agencies and often get very little in return.

Search Engine Optimisation or “SEO” basically means getting your website to rank as high as possible in the search results without having to pay anything to the search engine. There are reputable SEO companies and experts available that can perform the optimisation for you, but that comes at a price. Before you contemplate paying money for SEO we recommend that you take a little time to understand the subject and what you want to achieve. This will help protect you from making the wrong decisions and may provide you some protection from the less scrupulous individuals and companies.

“61% of small businesses with a website spend less than three hours per week marketing their website on and offline”

Google Panda

Google put out this list of 23 questions to ask yourself about the quality of your content:

Would you trust the information presented in this article?

Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it

shallower in nature?

Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or

similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?

Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?

Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?

Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site

generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?

Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original

research, or original analysis?

Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search

results?

How much quality control is done on content?

Does the article describe both sides of a story?

Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?

Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or

spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as

much attention or care?


Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?

For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?

Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?

Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?

Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond

obvious?

Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?

Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with

the main content?

Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?

Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?

Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to

detail?

Would users complain when they see pages from this site?

Google does not say exactly that these are official guidelines, though many of them did

reappear in Google’s recently launched Webmaster Academy.

Google Webmaster Academy

Webmaster Academy provides practical and easy-to-understand lessons for beginner

webmasters to help you improve your site with topics like getting your site in our index,

providing search engines with helpful information about your video and image content, and

understanding Webmaster Tools features.

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/static.py?hl=en&page=checklist.cs&tab=1095542

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/


The Basic Rules

There are a number of key factors that contribute to the success of your website, most notably Quality & Relevance and Popularity.

1. Quality: This covers things such as the folder structure of your site, site content, descriptions and keywords, ease of use and navigation. Relevance: Relevance generally refers to things such as your domain name, amount of content, external links from your site and your keywords and descriptions.

Things to consider

Inbound Links (Who links to you?)

Site Build Quality

Meta-Tags

Folder/URL Structure

Keywords & Description

Search Engine Submission

Quality of Competitors

Site Content 2. Popularity: We don’t mean how many visits you get here (that is a large misconception)

we mean who links to your website from their website e.g. industry sites, business directories etc.

Following our method you should start to see results within days and be able to track your traffic to see your success.

If you follow this properly you can quite easily have your website ranking in the first three pages of results.

“80% of search engine users never look past the first three pages”

Quality & Relevance

Quality refers to the following areas of your website:

Site Structure

Site Content

Navigation

External Links

Site Structure

The first thing to consider is obviously the domain name you choose. It’s important for


corporate identity and protects your brand to buy at least the .com and .com.au or if in New Zealand a .co.nz for your company name but before starting your consumer facing website think about the relevance of your company name vs. your product range. For example if your company name is Joe Bloggs Ltd and you sold building materials, is www.joebloggs.com the right domain name to use or would www.buildingmaterials.com be better?

A good idea is to have both, the first for a corporate website describing your business and history etc. and a domain name that better describes your actual products for an ecommerce-enabled site.

Another option is use a sub-domain of your corporate website such as http://building-materials.joebloggs.com.

For static websites the structure of your website is vital when it comes to search engines visiting your site. It needs to be setup in a way that the “spiders” can easily find their way around and understand what they are looking at.

Firstly make sure that where possible, your page names reflect their content e.g. a page about lawnmowers should not be called “product12.html” but be called “lawnmowers.html”. This then also applies to your folders on your web server, for the same example this should be something like; http://www.mycompany.com/gardening-products/lawnmowers.html

Notice the separating of the folder/category title in this example being “gardening-products” as opposed to “gardeningproducts” adding the “-“ makes the URL clearer and easier to read. For page titles and images separate words with either “_” or “-“, avoid using spaces as these are replaced by “%20” in the internet browsers.

NOTE: This does NOT apply to dynamically created websites such as most hosted online shops

Sitemap

You should also include a sitemap.xml file on the root of your server. This is essentially a simply formatted text file that provides information about all of the pages in your website in one file. If the software that you used to create your website doesn’t provide a sitemap generation capability, you can generate one at XML Sitemaps for free at http://www.xml-sitemaps.com.

“A picture speaks a thousand words……. or does it??? Not to a search engine!”

Site Content

Think carefully when creating the pages of your website. Inserting lots of images can make the page look clumsy and take a long time to load. You want people to visit your site and be able to easily locate, review and buy the products that you offer. Animations and fancy imagery might add to the visible appeal of your website, but they can often distract from the core reason that you want them there – TO BUY!

Images

If you use any images always make sure that you give them a description using the “ALT” value. ALT means “Alternate Text” and is very important for the search engines to

http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/


understand what the image relates to. “Title” values as described below can also be added to images and will be displayed when you mouse over the image. So for example for your websites logo the source code would look like;

<img src=mycompany_logo.gif” width=100px” height=25px” alt=My Company Logo” title=”My Company Logo”/>

Note also the name of the image mycompany_logo.gif” gives an idea of what it is there to describe.

Links

Any links (internal or external, from text or from an image, should have a description or “title” value. This helps in two ways, firstly by telling the search engine more information about what it will find and also for adding valuable text & keywords into your page.

For example if this were a link to your “About Us” page it might look like:

<a href=”about_us.html” title=Click to find out more information about My Company>About Us</a>

Or for a page about “Products” <a href=”products.html” title=Our products and services including Website Design, Search Engine Optimisation and Hosting>Products</a>

And from your logo to return to your home page

<a href=”index.html” title=Return to our home page><img src=”mycompany_logo.gif” width=100px” height=25px” alt=My Company Logo” title=”My Company Logo”/></a>

Textual Content

Having plenty of relevant content is essential; CONTENT IS KING when it comes to SEO, though “RELEVANT” is the key word here! Pages and pages of text are going to bore your visitors just as lots of images will confuse them. If you aren’t sure about where to start the best thing to do is look at your competition. Do a search in Google on the keywords you want to get high rankings for and look in detail at the first ten results for the following things:

Title – In the top of your browser

1. Use of the keyword(s) within their pages 2. How long their product descriptions are 3. Are they using external content such as linking or embedding Wiki articles or user

reviews This may sound simple but at the end of the day if they are in the Top 10 results their websites are working for them!

Navigation

Would you go on holiday and not take a map (or GPS!)? If not and there were no street signs how would you know where to go?


This is exactly the same for your website. If you have poor navigation, your visitors won’t hang around they will go to your competition. The same is true with the search engine spiders if they can’t “crawl” your website easily they won’t bother. The XML sitemap is a good start but there are some simple things you do with the rest of the navigation for SEO purposes.

ePages provides a range of different menu and navigation options that can be chosen in the design manager.

Manage the user experience better when you have many categories to choose from by using mega-menus where you can see an extended view of categories and content. Drop down menus might contain results from search or filtered navigation and also images.


Similarly results from search and search bars are becoming more sophisticated to enable

your visitor to more easily become your customer. The use of the ePages predictive search

and faceted navigation (or after search navigation) can be powerful tools for your customers

to find the right content.

The Footer

The “Footer” of your web pages is a great place to add links as most visitors don’t look at it. This is generally where you place legal notices such as © and company registration numbers.

This is also a good area to place discreet back links to other relevant websites and websites that require you to link back to them before they place a link to you such as some free business directories and forums.

You should also link to your XML sitemap file and if possible to a HTML (web page) version as well.

External Links & Content

Linking to external websites and specifically to similar or related content is a very useful tool for the search engines perception of the importance of your site. There are masses of freely available content you can use from YouTube videos through to product ratings, Wikipedia content and News Feeds. Used in the right way these can add value for your visitors, as well as additional content and relevant cross reference links for the search engines.

Embedding External Content There are many different ways you can embed external content within your website, for example some packages come with their own RSS Widgets to allow you to easily embed RSS feeds from anywhere. The most common ways to embed external content are:

1. RSS Feeds for news feeds and frequently updated content 2. Widgets – often used for embedding weather information and location maps 3. External Embed – Such as embedding Videos from YouTube where the content is


hosted elsewhere or product reviews.

RSS Feeds

RSS Feeds or “Really Simple Syndication” as it stands for is structured in a very similar way to your XML sitemap. They are essentially the textual content from external web pages that can be “pulled” into your website. There are a number of reasons why it is great to embed them;

1. The content in the Feed changes often which makes your website more “alive” to the search engines, very useful if you don’t change the content regularly as the more frequently your website changes the more frequently the search engines will visit your website.

2. If you have space to fill on your site they can provide free relevant up to date content which looks professional and is informative for your visitors.

Sources for RSS feeds are everywhere from BBC News to Blogger just do a search for RSS & the topic e.g. “RSS Technology” or create your own from a site such as www.moreover.com. There are many free tools available to embed these feeds in your site such as www.feedzilla.com and www.newsfeedmaker.com.

Widgets

Widgets are a great way to add content to your site; you might have noticed local weather or travel information on a local businesses website. ePages provides a range of widgets or apps out-of-the-box that you can add into any content area on the website. But there are millions of widgets available on the web; some good places to start are www.widgetbox.com and www.bravenet.com.

External Links

Any other external links should always be relevant to your website’s content and don’t be scared to change the “title” value in an external link to something more relevant such as “Free Business Directory” you could change to “Builders Directory” or anything else you like. When signing up to Free Business Directories that require a link back to their site always try and link back to the page on their directory that contains your information.

“Just as it is important in business to network and be linkedin, it is just as important for your website”

Popularity

So you’ve now made your website as search engine friendly as possible, we now need to give them a bit of help to find you and start indexing your site. We need to consider the following areas;

1. Inbound Links

http://www.moreover.com/

http://www.feedzilla.com/

http://www.newsfeedmaker.com/

http://www.widgetbox.com/

http://www.bravenet.com/


2. Search Engine Submission 3. Social Networking

Inbound Links

Links from other websites are an important tool for increasing your popularity. Not only will you get more visitors but the search engines will also hold your website in higher regard the more people who are linking to you. There are some really easy and again free ways to do this;

1. Press Releases 2. Business Directories 3. Networking Forums

Press Releases

This is one of the most powerful free tools, a well written press release both promotes your company to potential customers and can create hundreds of back links to your website. They are often picked up by automated RSS readers and can very quickly spread around the web. You can also create as many as you want!

A few things to bear in mind when you write the release are, make it catchy, always write in the third person, where you can include your logo always do and always put a link back to your website where you can.

There are many free press release sites available a few being:

www.free-press-release.com www.pressrelease.com.au www.sm2.com.au www.freepressrelease.com.au www.i-newswire.com www.prlog.com www.1888pressrelease.com www.freepressreleases.co.uk

Business Directories

Business directories are a great way to get some genuine static links to your site, take the

time to fill out as much content as you can and be careful which categories you place your

business in. A quick web search for “Free Business Directories” brings up hundreds, a few

examples are:

HotFrog - Australian Web Directory

Getprice - Online Shopping Comparison

Shopping.com - price comparison

AusBusiness - Business Networking

http://www.free-press-release.com/

http://www.pressrelease.com.au/

http://www.sm2.com.au/

http://www.freepressrelease.com.au/

http://www.i-newswire.com/

http://www.prlog.com/

http://www.1888pressrelease.com/

http://www.freepressreleases.co.uk/

http://www.hotfrog.com.au/

http://www.getprice.com.au/

http://www.shopping.com/

http://www.ausbusiness.net/


Flying Solo – Business Directory

Networking Forums and news

These are a great place to go and promote your website as well as take advantage of free

back links. Most of these sites let you have a link in your forum post signature (though on

some you have to post X posts first). A few popular ones are:

www.flyingsolo.com.au

www.whirlpool.net.au

www.sitepoint.com

www.practicalcommerce.com

www.powerretail.com.au

Search Engine Submission

Search Engine submission is an important tool that can help speed up the time it takes for

the search engines to find and index your website. It’s not recommended to submit your

website more often than every 6-8 weeks, to get you started below are some links to the

submission pages of a number of search engines, just click the “submission page” text next

to the search engines name to go straight there.

Google URL Submit

MSN Site Submit

Yahoo Australia Site Submit

Search Engine Webmaster Tool

Some of the search engines provide a free tool that can be used to upload information about

your website and also to track how your website is progressing in the search engine. Here

are a few of the more important ones:

Google Webmasters Tools

Bing Webmasters Tools

Yahoo Site Explorer

Social Networking

Social Networking for Business is still not being used as much as it should be though

websites such as Facebook and Twitter are very highly ranked by the search engines and

having a page for your business can prove very useful. You should also encourage your

employees to “become a fan” or join your network as you never know who their friends

might be – they might just be your target market. Some of these networks such as Facebook

also allow you to have a sub-domain such as network.com/mycompany. A few of the biggest

are:

http://www.flyingsolo.com.au/directory

http://www.flyingsolo.com.au/

http://www.whirlpool.net.au/

http://www.sitepoint.com/

http://www.practicalcommerce.com/

http://www.google.com/addurl/

http://beta.search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx

http://au.siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/free/request

http://www.google.com/webmasters/

http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmasters/

http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/


www.facebook.com

www.twitter.com

www.linkedin.com

www.youtube.com

www.pinterest.com

www.instagram.com

Another useful tool for your website is to add a way for your visitors to add a link to your

website on their own Social networking page. People are often using this now to save their

“Favourites/BookMarks” so that they are accessible wherever they might be, tools such as

“www.addthis.com” make it very easy to include these on your site.

Facebook Page for your business

Create a Facebook account and a Facebook page for your business. It really is easy and is just

a step by step process that anyone can follow.

You can start here at Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

“SEO is an ongoing project and should be an integral part of your overall marketing strategy

and done correctly can provide an excellent, cost effective route to market.”

http://www.facebook.com/

http://www.twitter.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/

http://www.youtube.com/

http://www.pinterest.com/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php


Tracking Your Success

So you have now submitted your website to the search engines, sent out your press release

and created your Facebook page, how do you know how successful you’ve been? There are

lots of ways to measure the traffic to your site, (the obvious one being an increase in orders)

t but his doesn’t tell you how many you are missing where customers are visiting your site

but not staying, or are leaving through the checkout process.

eCorner provide a free Wagtail Analytics and Reporting account with every website. Wagtail

Analytics is a powerful business tool that will enable you to better understand what your

visitors and customers do on your website.

There are a number of free statistical tools available such as Google Analytics

(http://www.google.com/analytics) that will provide you with detailed statistics for the

traffic to your website. All that you need to do is insert a piece of code, similar to embedding

a YouTube video, within the code of your website and let it do its job. When signing up you

will be given a username and password so you can login and view the information it has

collected. Other websites that hold statistical data or will analyse your traffic for free are:

www.alexa.com

www.urltrends.com

www.about.com

www.addfreestats.com

www.gostats.com

Visitor and Page Tracking

A good online shop can often fail because the owners don't know what is really happening

on the website. In order to understand the activity on the website you need to collect

information about what visitors there are and what they do. This is collected by a web

http://www.ecorner.com.au/epages/ecorner.sf/en_AU/?ObjectPath=/Shops/ecorner/Categories/reportit

http://www.google.com/analytics

http://www.alexa.com/

http://www.urltrends.com/

http://www.about.com/

http://www.addfreestats.com/

http://www.gostats.com/


analytics program like Google Analytics. There are obviously many areas of analytics but the

key issue is that you must, at a minimum, track activity like:

Visitors

Top content

Geographic location

Page impressions

Entry and exit pages

Order tracking – basket conversion rates

Sales tracking and reporting

Social media

Summary

With the choice of your on-line store you have taken the first step towards success in online commerce. You will have chosen a shop system that is easy to administer, can be quickly and easily customised to your design wishes, fulfils the toughest demands for convenience and security in online shopping and is furnished with all marketing features that enable the efficient acquisition of customers and a lasting improvement in customer relations. The technology is indeed important, but is only one component for success. The second, almost more important factor for success is the ability of the online merchant to put himself in his customers’ position, recognise his needs when shopping online and to take these into account in marketing and operating the online store. Your store is technically able to do this and includes all the prerequisites for success in eCommerce. It’s now up to you as the shopkeeper and online merchant. There is no patented formula for success. But if you place the customer and his wishes and needs at the centre of your planning, actions and decisions, you are on the right path. We hope that this guide with its practical tips helps you on this path and from the outset sets the course for your successful entry into online commerce. In this respect we wish you the best of success!


eCorner Information

Why eCorner?

We provide development and implementation using our own developers based in Australia.

We provide a secure, PCI Compliant and advanced Australian based hosting infrastructure

that has been purposely built to support the needs of online retailers and eCommerce.

Our solutions are Multi-channel, with local customer service and support, using leading

eCommerce technology, ePages, with over 2,500 Australian and New Zealand online store

live, and 120,000 worldwide online stores.

Contact Information

eCorner Pty Ltd

(ABN # 25 107 795 568)

Head Office: Mailing Address:

5/310 Victoria Road PO Box 938

Gladesville NSW 2111 Gladesville NSW 1675

AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIA

Freecall Australia: 1800 033 845

Freecall New Zealand: 0800 501 017

International Phone: +61 2 9494 0200

Fax: +61 2 9817 8975

Enquiries eMail [email protected]

Corporate Website www.ecorner.com

30 Day Free Trial www.ecorner.com.au/30day-free-trial

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.ecorner.com/

http://www.ecorner.com.au/30day-free-trial