1. Enable your customer to browse and select items, and then later decide which ones they want to purchase.
2. Display a summary of items that your customer has selected.
3. Provide links to information for your customer to consider before confirming the purchase, such as the return policy or the description page for each product.
4. Allow your customer to change the quantities ordered or remove items before checking out.
5. Enable your customer to navigate to the checkout process or to return to the store to choose more items.

This shopping cart software allows you to accept orders for multiple products from your website(s). It automatically calculates and totals your customer’s order, including tax and shipping charges. Some shopping carts are even integrated with the fulfillment capabilities of UPS or the U.S. Postal Service to make the order acceptance and shipping process much smoother.

There are several services that offer secure online shopping cart technology. PayPal, for instance, offers a free shopping cart program to its merchant members. At checkout, shoppers indicate that they want to make their purchases through their PayPal accounts, and the process rolls out automatically.

Other application service provider (ASP) companies also keep your shopping cart on a third-party site, where it is secure and regularly updated. Securenetshop.com provides this type of service for a monthly or annual fee. Popular software packages that can be purchased include Miva Merchant and QuickStore.

Originally Posted on: Florida Small Business Consulting - SuncoastGlobal.com

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E-mail newsletters for customers who “opt in” (request or otherwise sign up for them) are a terrific marketing tool for online businesses. Rather than being a hard-hitting price-and-product flyer, an online newsletter ideally provides useful information and/or news relating to your lines of business.

A popular outdoor and camping-gear store, for example, sends its customers a newsletter with information on camping trips and outdoor activities. As an incentive for opting in on the company’s website, the store offers new subscribers a coupon for 10 percent off their next order.

In fact, e-mail newsletters commonly are used to promote special offers or discounts to their subscribers. They are an inexpensive way to place your brand and products in front of a highly receptive customer base that already has demonstrated interest by signing up for your newsletter.

And because it’s in digital form, its free and unlimited. Giving you a huge advantage over your paper pushing competitors.

Originally Posted on: Florida Small Business Consulting - SuncoastGlobal.com

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So, how do you get to the front of search results? There are two approaches to ensuring that links to your company’s website appear high on a search engine page: “natural search” and “paid search.”

To rank highly in natural search, the content on your company’s website should include the keywords a consumer might type to search for what you offer. These keywords should also be included in the links to your website from other websites.

For example, if you own an online jewelry store, you may want your company’s website to show up when a consumer searches for the words “diamond earrings.”

There are various strategies to improving your company’s rank in natural search. Most are legitimate, but there are some vendors that don’t comply with the rules and regulations that the search engines have in place to ensure honest marketing.

If you decide to work with a third-party to implement a natural-search strategy, be sure to check references, look at other companies they’ve worked with, and make sure they are forthright about their policies on working within search engine service agreements.

For paid searches, companies get to the top of search listings the old fashioned way–they buy their way there! Search companies, for example, allows businesses to suggest keywords that relate to their products and services, to create a description and even to choose a geographic area that they want to reach.

The company’s listing appears high in the results of search engines like Yahoo! and MSN, and the merchant is charged a fee each time a visitor clicks on the listing to get more information.

The most popular search engine, Google, has a cost-per-click pricing plan based on keywords called Adwords. Here, business listings (called Sponsored Links) with short descriptions appear next to the list of related search results, attracting attention and clicks.

Business owners should explore a variety of search engines to see which kind of program works best for their products or services.

Originally Posted on: Florida Small Business Consulting - SuncoastGlobal.com

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Usually the address is a name that ends in dot com (.com), which indicates a “commercial” site, or dot org (.org) for an “organization.” If a business is lucky, its address will be the same as its company name or a close reflection of it.

Staking a Claim in Cyberspace

Businesses can register and claim a URL for a small annual fee. The URL, however, is simply the address — the entrepreneur will need a piece of property that the address defines.

That plot of cyberland is the space on a computer where all the electronic files that compose the web site will reside. Numerous commercial “hosting” services, will rent you space on their large computers (called servers) for a nominal monthly or annual fee.

Some mid-size and larger companies host their sites on their own in-house web servers, but they remain responsible for maintenance of the site and the hardware to be sure it’s accessible 24/7. An ISP can also speed the time it takes for online shoppers to download your web pages.

Originally Posted on: Florida Small Business Consulting - SuncoastGlobal.com

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Here are 10 simple tips to consider when deciding on how the site will look and how customers will navigate through it:

1. Immediately tell visitors on the site what the company does.
2. Get users to the information they want in two clicks or less.
3. Consider including headers and links that give the store’s name, and include a “breadcrumb” showing visitors where they are in relation to the “Home” page at all times. Visitors should know where they are within the website at all times.
4. Allow visitors to find answers to questions easily.
5. Incorporate sufficiently large fonts and images, as well as audio descriptions where appropriate, so that content is accessible to users with disabilities.
6. Pay special attention to the quality of information, and ensure that the text is written well and spelled correctly.
7. Use buzz words sparingly.
8. Include a link to the homepage on every page so that in one click, users can be led there.
9. Develop visuals that are useful, not flashy and distracting. Useful visuals include illustrations or photos of products, graphics that separate categories of products, or maps with directions.
10. Determine which technologies are appropriate and which are overkill. For example, developing a landing page in Macromedia’s Flash technology may be a nice design feature, but it is annoying to your visitors and completely ignored by the search engines. Don’t use it.

Originally Posted on: Florida Small Business Consulting - SuncoastGlobal.com

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Some online companies absorb shipping charges; others include them in the listed price and offer “free” shipping. All the major postal carriers have websites that allow merchants to calculate the shipping charge for any item, based on weight and location.

Shipping efficiency and pricing can be major competitive advantages or hand grenades in an online store’s shopping cart. Try to make a profit on shipping charges — your store is more likely to lose the sale than gain the margin.

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Not only is customer service a great way to build loyalty, but it’s also a valuable feedback mechanism–customers are all too ready to sing your praises or call out improvements that need to be made to your product, service or image.

An important aspect of customer service is deciding how quickly the business will respond to customer inquiries and complaints (phone or e-mail). This response time should be realistic and consistent. If the policy says all phone calls will be answered within two minutes or returned the same day, that time line becomes a pledge to the customer.

Nothing frustrates an online shopper more than sending an e-mail to an address listed on a shopping site and waiting hours, days or interminably for a response. To keep customers on the site, businesses must keep them in the loop.

Be honest and follow through with your customers – your competitors are only a click away!

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Merchants should use photos showing their items from a variety of angles and, in some cases, position them next to something else to show the relative size (a cell phone the size of a lipstick, a bench that’s knee-high).

When formulating a product marketing strategy, consider the following:

• Avoid over-describing or over-selling offerings on the site. Information should be useful to the shopper, bringing out all the positive benefits of the product or service in a conversational tone.
• Offer complementary products or partnerships to bolster a store’s offerings. Businesses that don’t carry a wide variety of products often partner with other merchants to offer complementary items.

Originally Posted on: Florida Small Business Consulting - SuncoastGlobal.com

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The doors of an online business never close. By not running a 24/7 operation, online business owners may fail to fulfill orders in the manner promised–a surefire way to lose customers and miss the chance to build loyalty. Internet businesses need to operate full time, so entrepreneurs must be realistic about how much help they will need.

Typically, online business owners find that their hands quickly fill up with the chores and challenges involved in simply running their businesses. They’ll often turn to web experts, or professionals who coordinate online business tasks every day. With the numbers of well-trained web professionals out there today, consider these possibilities when looking to hire:

• Hire someone who will be dedicated solely to web management, if the nature and size of the business supports it.
• Hire temporary employees to help set up the business and bring them back periodically to make changes to the site, expand online capabilities or launch new ventures.
• Outsource the development, design and hosting of the website and rely on an outside organization to keep it up to date and to manage growth.
• Use an “e-commerce in a box” product to set up an e-commerce site. These products typically charge a monthly fee (around $25) and provide an online store with virtual shopping carts (locations where shoppers electronically place the items they want to buy).

Choose wisely, your business depends on it.

Originally Posted on: Florida Small Business Consulting - SuncoastGlobal.com

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Other products or services, like snow blowers or swimming pool supplies, could target a specific set of geographic areas. Every audience is unique, so merchants should tailor their marketing and communications in a way that connects consumers to their businesses.

How far will the business cast its net? In a global economy it’s entirely possible that a small business owner could start the morning with an e-mail from Milan, asking if he’ll accept payment in Euros. Online entrepreneurs must understand that, from day one, they are international businesses with display windows and checkout stations in every corner of the globe.

A business could tell its customers that it ships only to North American locations or accepts only U.S. dollars. But it may turn out that the overseas market is the company’s very best sales opportunity. Therefore it’s important for the online business to determine how it will work with customers in foreign nations.

How will shipping be handled? Is the company prepared to convert currencies? How will the business communicate with customers who speak different languages? Online businesses should consider not excluding an eager marketplace just because it seems difficult to serve.

There are several services that make it easier for international visitors to order from a U.S. store. PayPal, for instance, accepts payment on behalf of merchants in U.S. dollars, Canadian dollars, Euros, Pounds Sterling, Japanese Yen, and Australian dollars. The major U.S. credit cards accept purchases from foreign countries and make the necessary monetary conversions for the buyer.

Originally Posted on: Florida Small Business Consulting - SuncoastGlobal.com

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