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Ask Mr. D - ECommerce Sales
Dear Mr. D, After spending about a year as an affiliate for other companies, I have come up with my own product. My product is similar to one that I was selling as an affiliate. I made real good money selling this product as an affiliate, but my...
Building Ecommerce Web Sites: Where Do I Start?
Building a web site isn't something that is really cut and dry. There's a huge variety of products and services that can either help you get your web site where you want it or simply confuse you. It's also important that you make the right choices...
The Ecommerce Business Plan
Simply put, business plans can make or break your business. Starting a Drop Ship business online is no different from starting a traditional non-online business. With the strong emphasis individuals place on writing business plans for starting up...
Using eBay to market your ecommerce website
eBay is now the world’s largest marketplace, so why not use this to the advantage of you and your website? By creating an easy-to-use eBay Store and listing some of your more popular items at a small discount from the price on your website, you can...
VictoryVisions >> Your one stop to build a successfull ecommerce website
Are you looking for a online presence for your shop? Are you looking for improving your present ecommerce site? Are you bored with your existing site design and layout? Victoryvisions is your one stop place where you can find professionals...
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eCommerce Web Design Solutions
eCommerce web design is a lot more than just putting your company brochure on the net or adding an internet shopping cart to your existing product catalog. There are some fundamental differences between doing business online and doing business the traditional way. Before you design your business web site, you must know what specific goals you desire to achieve with your business web site, determine how best to meet your goals based on your budget, and then determine what software and services you will use to design your e-commerce web site.
Web Site Business Objectives
A small business web site can do many things. This can include:
- Generate Leads. Pre-sell your business services and products to generate telephone, e-mail, or online form leads from customers.
- Generate Sales Quotes. Solicit or generate automated quotes that in turn generates a customer sale or lead.
- Generate Advertising Revenue. Display online content and free services with affiliate or ad network advertisements that generates advertising revenue from your merchant partners.
- Provide A StoreFront. Host online catalog that fully automates the customer purchase and communications process.
- Generate Customer Traffic. Generate customer traffic from search engines and business directories to pre-sell your product or service. Traffic is then re-directed to you main web site or product web pages.
Your e-Commerce web site design is greatly influenced by your specific web site objectives for your small business.
eCommerce Web Site Design Fundamentals
A web site is a lot more or even a lot less than a traditional store. There are more considerations with ecommerce web site design versus a traditional store. Web design considerations include:
Customer Friendly: Present a professional image, offer customer convenience, have good sales copy, and just make it easy for the customer to make the desired response (click, lead, sale).
Search Engine Friendly. For most online businesses, most customer traffic comes from search engines like Google, Yahoo!, or MSN. If part of your e-Commerce web site design strategy is to generate search engine traffic, you will need search engine optimization expertise to succeed. Buy it or grow it.
Web Site Automation Tools. There are thousands of web site tools such as shopping carts, content management systems, e-mail auto-responders, payment processors, search engine optimization tools, online bulletin boards, traffic analyzers, and advertising management tools. Some of these tools are cheap and some are expensive. If you do not have the expertise to evaluate these products, it is probably best that you do not make any major investments in expensive web site tools. Wait until you become knowledgeable enough to evaluate web tools and add-ons for your business web site and that you have a
specific need.
Costs. Costs, of course, are a key consideration for any e-Commerce web site design solution. You can usually purchase web site tools and services up-front or by subscription. Subscriptions can help you with your cash flow up-front. Usually you do not need to make any long-term commitments with subscription software or services. Subscriptions are good because as you become more knowledgeable of specific web site solutions you can add and drop web tools and services at will. Buying software up-front is good if you know that you will definitely use the software for a long time (1 to 3 years).
Web Site Design Options
eCommerce web site design options can range from doing it yourself with web design software such as Microsoft FrontPage or outsourcing the entire web site development to a web design company. For a business, a free site with a free web site builder is not the answer. A free solution will not generate the desire response from the customer, is not search engine friendly, and is limited in growth for web site add-ons. A free affiliate site can be OK for making a sale, but have another method to generate traffic to your affiliate site as search engines will rarely give high rankings to cloned affiliate sites. Here are some e-Commerce web site design options:
Do-It-Yourself. Buy web design software and do it yourself. Good option if: technically inclined, marketing skills, part-time web publisher, limited budget.
Do-It-Yourself Using Templates. Buy web site templates, web design software, and do it yourself. Good option if: technically inclined, marketing skills, supplement with low cost web design services.
Do-It-Yourself Using Web Site Builder Solution. Buy business web solution service. Good option if: not technically inclined, have marketing skills, and willing to make some investment. Do not waste your time with a site builder that just clones a snazzy web site. You will not get a web site that generates traffic or sales.
eCommerce Web Site Design Company or Consultant. Outsource your web design work. Good option if: not technically inclined, limited marketing skills, medium-to-large budget
As with any business there are risks. In evaluating an ecommerce web design solution it is best to know your objectives, have enough business knowledge to evaluate your web service suppliers as well as your business web tools, and maintain a positive cash flow.
About the Author
Randy McClure is a web site publisher of http://www.EasyAccessClub.com. EasyAccess Club is an eCommerce resource for discount shoppers, small businesses, and churches. We feature discount online store reviews, hundreds of discount stores, e-commerce news, and resources for doing business online. Visit our other sites: Small Business Online - http://biz.easyaccessclub.com and Church Online - http://www.access-jesus.com.
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| E-Commerce Times: Because E-Business Means Business |
| Everything you need to know about doing business on the Internet. Information for C-Level executives and small-to-mid-sized business managers. |
| www.ecommercetimes.com |
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| ECommerce-Guide to News, Reviews and Technology Solutions |
| ECommerce-Guide provides ecommerce business owners with e-commerce news, hardware and software reviews and tutorials, technology solutions and information ... |
| www.ecommerce-guide.com |
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| Electronic commerce - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| Electronic commerce (also referred to as EC, e-commerce or ecommerce) ... Even in product categories suitable for e-commerce, electronic shopping has ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
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| E-Commerce News for IT Managers |
| Daily e-commerce news for managers of business covering marketing, transaction processing, security, retailing and service delivered over the Web. |
| www.internetnews.com |
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| New Zealand Government E-Commerce |
| Resource containing information on electronic commerce, including law, trade, tax, privacy, consumer protection, and help for businesses. |
| www.ecommerce.govt.nz |
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| eCommerce Guidebook for web hosting |
| The eCommerce Guidebook provides many resources, including a directory of online transaction providers, a tutorial, and many other resources. |
| www.online-commerce.com |
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| ClickZ Internet Marketing Solutions for Marketers |
| Includes columns with commentary and analysis on a wide variety of internet marketing subjects ranging from B2B marketing to search engine marketing. |
| www.clickz.com |
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| Shopping cart software for Dreamweaver, Frontpage, CSS ecommerce ... |
| Shopping cart software integrated into Frontpage, Dreamweaver, CSS and Golive ecommerce software templates. |
| www.ecommercetemplates.com |
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| E-Commerce & the Internet |
| Information from the FTC on E-commerce and the Internet. Includes anti-fraud tips. |
| www.ftc.gov |
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| Economy & Work: eBusiness | Europa - Information Society |
| The e-business concept goes well beyond e-commerce (buying and selling ... A pilot study on E-commerce and the Internet in European businesses (2002) was ... |
| ec.europa.eu |
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| Online Business |
| If your e-commerce site currently accepts online payments, and is really, really, ... They are looking for entries from ugly e-commerce sites to win a new ... |
| onlinebusiness.about.com |
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| eCommerce Info Center- ONE-STOP for eCommerce info, services ... |
| eCommerce Info Center, created and maintained by Slim Baltagi, will make it easier and faster for you to find out relevant eCommerce information, ... |
| www.ecominfocenter.com |
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| eCommerce Innovation Centre |
| Practical resources for small business involved in or considering eCommerce implemetations. Expert Advice and Assistance. |
| www.ecommerce.ac.uk |
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| Web Marketing Today -- E-Commerce, E-Mail, Internet Marketing, and ... |
| Articles, tips and advice on e-commerce and effective Internet marketing strategies. |
| www.wilsonweb.com |
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| Web Marketing Today Research Room for E-Commerce |
| The largest collection of annotated links to web marketing and ecommerce articles and resources to be found at any single place on the planet. |
| www.wilsonweb.com |
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| The 2005 E-commerce Awards - Welcome |
| The UK national E-commerce awards organised by the DTI and Interforum. |
| www.ecommerce-awards.co.uk |
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| Mal's e-commerce |
| Mal's e-commerce ... Customize the look and feel of your store; No scripts or applications to install; Build as large an e-commerce site as you want ... |
| www.mals-e.com |
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| Howstuffworks "How E-commerce Works" |
| E-commerce has exploded in the last 10 years. Find out how e-commerce works and how you can harness the potential of e-commerce, from affiliate programs to ... |
| www.howstuffworks.com |
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| Ecommerce Guide - Terms You Need to Know to Do Business on the ... |
| An online computer dictionary and internet search engine for internet terms and techincal support. |
| e-comm.webopedia.com |
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| Shopping Cart Software Ecommerce Solutions |
| Ecommerce solutions by Volusion will take your business to new heights. Volusion offers the best prices in the industry for a complete ecommerce web ... |
| www.volusion.com |
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