Kirkwood eCommerce Class03.22.2011

What is eCommerce?

• Selling online • Maximizing profits• Minimizing costs• Customer Service• SEO/SEM.

Things to consider…

1. What products am I selling?2. Who are the buyers of my product?3. What platform should I use?4. Where should I host the site?5. How will people buy the product?6. What payment gateway should I use?7. How am I going to ship my products?8. How can I leverage SEO/SEM?9. How will I handle customer service?.

Products

• What products am I selling?• Are there any special considerations, what

makes my product unique?• How many products will the site have?• How often do the products change?• How many pictures will I need to display?• How much does the average product cast?.

Customer

• Who is the primary customer?• How do they get this product now?• What makes them want our product?• What is the average $$ spent by a customer

over the life cycle of the relationship?.

Platform

• What languages do I know?• How much is in the budget?• What kind of support do I need?• Is the customer involved in the update? (I

hope so…).

Hosting

• How important is uptime?• How long can I afford to be ‘down’?• Is there a budget?.

Shopping Cart

• Poor man’s shopping cart.– PayPal

• WordPress– WP e-Commerce (http://www.instinct.co.nz/e-commerce/)

– QuickShop (http://www.zackdesign.biz/wp-plugins/34)

– eShop (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/eshop/)

– WordPress Shopping Cart(http://tribulant.com/plugins/view/10/wordpress-shopping-cart-plugin)

• Shopify (http://www.shopify.com).

Payment Gateway

• PayPal.

Shipping

• Shipping is tricky, be careful• Bump up shipping charges• Declare a clear cut-off time

Ship anything that is ordered by 3pm

• Be careful.

SEO/SEM

• Assuming proper product selection and customer service – the most important concept in eCommerce

• Learn as much about SEO/SEM as you can• Learn what canonical URL’s are.

SEO/SEM

• Resources– Danny Sullivan (http://twitter.com/dannysullivan)

• Search Engine Land (http://searchengineland.com/)

– Matt Cutts (http://twitter.com/mattcutts)

• Matt’s SEO Blog (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/type/googleseo/)

– SEO 101 (http://www2.webmasterradio.fm/seo-101/)

– Joost de Valk (http://yoast.com).

Customer Service

• The customer holds the keys• Make sure the customer is happy• Call the customer after the sale to ask

questions– Ask why they bought what they bought?– Why did they choose you’re store?– Were they looking for something you didn’t offer?

• User testing.

Other questions:• 10 things that make e-commerce work

1. Product2. Customer Service3. SEO/SEM4. Social Media5. Price6. Simplicity7. Hard work8. Testing9. Feedback10. Find your passion

• What is the best way to set up pages that will be accessible correctly in the majority of browsers? If adjustments are needed, do you do that in the CSS or in the HTML of the actual page?.

Other questions:• How to use tools to make shopping carts more e-

commerce friendly?• Best use (most cost effective use) of shopping cart for

a small (very small) business?• Do you only use Pay Pal for transactions?• Tips for the developers in class on what to do and

what not to do?• What make people want to purchase products and

vise versa - what factors, styles, positioning, etc throw people off and disrupt the flow of purchase.

• How to make a online ___________ business the most successful?

• What do you think we should expect out in the work field?.

Questions/About Me:• Tom Altman

tom@tomaltman.com319-430-0407

Blog: http://tomaltman.comTwitter: http://twitter.com/tomaltman