While Rapidtrading: Dnn,ProjectManagement & more..

Help! my e-commerce system is such a pain.

2009-08-28T11:48:00.011+10:00

Here are the common e-business pains (with solutions), best practices and things to look out for what maintaining and choosing your E-commerce system. This post deals with the the operator / business side. The next post will address the pains and solutions from your customer's view point.

"Keeping my products consistently up-to-date is draining my resources and time."

Solution: Integrate your accounting package and online store together. Thereby, maintaining one centralised hub for your product information. Integration done properly, will mean when you update or add a product in your accounting package or ERP, it will immediately show in your online store. Best Practice Tip: Always ensure your site has great product content i.e. descriptions, multiple images and related product information. (again, ask your integration specialist to link your products with their related products from inside your accounting package or ERP.)

My ordering process is a mess! Managing the order process, getting orders processed and shipped out is an area that needs serious consideration. Pushing the orders through the pipeline and then maintaining proper order status is another pinch for operators.

Solution: 360 degree integration plays a massive role here. Integrate your products, payment gateways, shipping providers properly and the order flow will become tight, clear and, the goal of goals, error free. Again, when you are integrating your payment gateway from your store to your ERP, then make sure each order's status is sent back to the website for when the client logs in.

Best Practice Tip: Sit down and map out your order flow. e.g.

Customer support. My office is inundated with follow-up and website related calls. I just want to do business.

Solution: The solution here begins at the beginning. Choosing your storefront. Your store should make it simple to edit product/site content, provide accurate order status (see best practice tip above), and customer account information. Seeing to these areas from the beginning is your best defense and will cut down of call volumes and support required by your office staff.

Im swamped selling in so many different places!

2009-08-24T16:04:00.003+10:00

I'm looking for an e-commerce solution that can tie all my storefronts together. I sell collectibles on ebay, books and games on Amazon and Alibris, I'd love to have a flexible shopping cart that can handle all the inventory in one place? -Swamped

The Rapidtrade Solution:

Dear Swamped,

In your case, because of the multiple stores, there are a few things to consider. Firstly, how do you handle your online orders as they come in?
Taking a step back from your multiple entry points, your order volume is the first thing to address. Do you have a process in place to take care of the volumes you want? Do you have an accounting package that this information will eventually have to end up in? Selling from multiple entry points, even once they are tied in, can still create piles backend work, getting products into your store and orders out and re-entered into your accounts. Iintegrated your store into your accounting package.
Once you take care of your end processing situation, then as you say the second step is to find a cart that will pull all of those frontend stores together for you.
My recommendation is a cart like Zoovy.

To reiterate, take care of order processing, consider integrating the shopping cart with your ERP or accounting package. This way the ERP remains the central product hub: all discounts, stock information & pricing structures setup here need to immediately translate to the webstore. Then, from the online store side, all orders will pass through a clean checkout, payment gateway and into your ERP. Planning for the growth pays off.

Email me and I would be happy to discuss your the integration side and help with your exact requirements.
Email: rachael at rapidtrade . com . au.

Kind Regards,
Rachael Shaw
Rapidtrade Software

Your hosted B2B supplier catalog solution

2009-08-17T16:32:00.007+10:00

Are there any hosted B2B supplier catalog products on the market?
I am looking for a solution, where a company can quickly, add/maintain there product catalog. I am looking for a solution that can be hosted, and that a regular Inventory/Marketing Administrator can setup and configure. - IndustryCustomer

The Rapidtrade Solution:

Dear IndustryCustomer,
Thank you for your email.

To improve operational efficiencies from either the staff or the sales side, the Rapidtrade sales management & ordering system is your solution. It integrates your sales team and suppliers into your backend accounting system/ERP. They are presented with your catalog, complete with specific customer pricing structures and discounts, on their PDAs and desktops, allowing them to place orders on-the-run into your ERP. The application runs on PDAs, laptops & online.

This means for you, the ERP remains the central product hub: all discounts, stock information & pricing structures setup here will remain in place across all orders. Simply change and update products in your ERP.

Email me and I would be happy to discuss your the integration side and help with your exact requirements. Email: rachael at rapidtrade . com . au.

Kind Regards,
Rachael Shaw
Rapidtrade Software

Doing business online: 'Restaurant Industry'

2009-08-17T15:55:00.008+10:00

I deliver meals to families and am looking to setup online ordering for my customers. I need to be able to customize the "store" to match my menu/website and I need to be able to add and change menu items weekly w/o knowing html. I also need for the customers to be able to pay with paypal or cash or check. I need to be able to set up different delivery zone prices and I need to run reports on items sold to make my production report. I have been researching for weeks and am overwhelmed by all the choices. I appreciate any advice.

Thanks,
CustomerABC

Solution:

Dear CustomerABC,
Thank you for your email.

There are a few things to consider.
Firstly, how do you plan to handle your online orders once they start coming in? Too many (e)retailers are starting an online store without a plan in place to handle the orders. Putting the cart before the horse, so to speak. Do you have a process in place to take care of the volumes you want? Do you have an accounting package that this information will eventually have to end up in?

Once you take care of your processing situation, and then consider which type of cart suits your business the best. No use investing in a cart and then trying to squeeze your business into a model, that may work for electronics, but does not work for you. Think of your workflow first and then get the shopping cart that fits you.

My recommendations are carts especially designed for your industry:

To take care of order processing, consider integrating the shopping cart with your ERP or accounting package. This way the ERP remains the central product hub: all discounts, stock information & pricing structures setup here need to immediately translate to the webstore. Then, from the online store side, all orders will pass through a clean checkout, payment gateway and into your ERP. Planning for the growth pays off.

Email me and I would be happy to discuss your the integration side and help with your exact requirements. Email: rachael at rapidtrade . com . au.

Kind Regards,

Rachael Shaw
Rapidtrade Software
www.rapidtrade.biz

Saasu Online Accounting : Just what I need.

2009-06-29T12:12:00.004+10:00

Online accounting is here!

Saasu is the way forward for small, tech-savvy, cost-efficient businesses. http://tinyurl.com/saasu

www.rapidtrade.com.au/ContactUs.aspx

Thinking of changing a page name?

2009-06-01T18:00:00.001+10:00

You make an executive decision to change your "contact us" page to
"contact[company]". Sounds easy enough? Simple?

Ah don't rush...
Keep in mind, this will break all links to the contact us page and could erase all your hard-earned search engine rankings.

Your answer is called a "301"
Firstly, edit all your site's internal links to point to their new locations.
(remember your all-important sitemap)
This will keep all your internals talking to each other.

Now lets think your homepage and other landing pages.
What about your visiting search engine robots?

Keep the welcome mat out by...
Setting up a permanent 301 redirect for your website. This tells search engines:

"I have permanently moved the pages you are looking for.
Relax, I'll show you where they are now.
Take note, so you remember for next time, follow me..."

For a step-by-step approach click on the first link at the end of this post.

There are many configuration options available to you with a 301 redirect. These depend how you choose to apply the redirect. See the link below for server options and different techniques. Click on the second link to find out more.

1. 301 redirect the simple way (with pictures)

2. Advanced Redirect Options

Maybe it was simple after all..

Are your keywords a mess? Overwelmed by metrics?

2009-02-25T16:39:00.007+11:00

Your neighbours have not seen you for days.. ?

...Oh... buried under your keywords ...

I see ...
Truth be told your keywords are sprouting like old potatoes and completely out-of-control.

Never fear, look .. its Rand Fishkin here to save the day with his
"Buckets & Buckets of Keywords" movie

SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday - Buckets & Buckets of Keywords from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.

Is your Dnn really SLOW?

2009-01-19T16:13:00.007+11:00

Check your pagestate settings. Ensure the pagestate persistance remains set to "page" to reduce the memory load on your server.

E-marketing series: Chapter 1 The differences between E-commerce, E-business and E-marketing

2008-12-08T17:32:00.001+11:00

The three terms (or catch phrases) E-commerce, E-business and E-marketing are mistakenly used as synonyms.
I was surprised to find how different they are.

E-commerce - transactions online. That is it.

E-marketing - Marketing, maintaining a dynamic dialogue with your customers, online. Dynamic is a two-way communication: a discussion.

Say goodbye to static web pages and feature touting.
The goal here is adding value to your products + boosting sales by identifying & satisfying customer's needs profitably.

E-business - Automating all business processes: creating the ability to run your business online. Ideally encompassing everything in the business cycle. Purchasing, Reporting, lead generation and customer satisfaction.
Simply put, E-business encompasses e-marketing, while the nature of e-marketing includes e-commerce. E-business is the goal. E-commerce and E-marketing: a means to this end.

Customers and their companies - Part 2 : A Practical Guide

2008-12-08T16:36:00.005+11:00

You have decided to put Jill, your customer, in the driver's seat.
You realise the solution you provide is supplemental to Jill's need and satisfying her need translates into closed deals.

"What does that look like practically?
What is the first step?"

Well, we know the basic concepts of marketing apply off + on(line). Executing these models from a centric standing are paramount to running your business:

- Acquaint yourself with your customers (potential and current); Listen
- Engage, interest & ask
- support and fulfil
- Benefit add value
- scope up the best customers
includes the mavens and, more practically, the ones that pay on-time!
- nurture and replicate
- Test, test again, measure + improve

So now comes the nuts n blots of application.
The outplay of the methodology -
"identify, anticipate and satisfy customer needs effectively".

Customers and their companies

2008-06-16T12:15:00.000+10:00

Companies and their clients are becoming increasingly intertwined as evidenced by the way the business serves, listens, and innovates.

Service as set by the customers
Customer service should be re-written as Customer's Service. (service as owned by the customers)
As serving the customer is a major component of e-marketing, this opens the door to customer-driven companies and campaigns. If a business realises that their customer responds to a certain experience or service, fulfilling this need tightens the positive brand associations and increases sales.

Personas
"This is our customer Jill. Jill is a 28yr old female with two children.."
Analytics provide marketers direct access to important customer information: likes, dislikes, attitudes & buying paths. When a business conforms and optimises to this end they recognise the best selling practices are the ones dictated by their own customers. Essentially putting the horse and cart in the right order.

Unusual discoveries - conscientious clients
Your customers help you save money. yes, as customers gravitate towards e-systems such as Internet banking, email and help-desk forums they are unknowingly promoting thrifty business structures. Make full use of this behaviour to reduce your overheads.

Clearly my boss is no longer the CEO;
My boss is Jill the customer.

E-marketing series: Chapter 1 "Who is your company online?"

2008-06-13T17:53:00.000+10:00

The forecasting tells us that B2B is set to reap 10 times more than B2C.
This gets my attention. If you are in B2B, like me, you will want to see this as a reality in your company.

Enter E-Marketing.

Firstly, every company is different and it is important to understand who you are, how you sell and how to best represent your business objectives seamlessly online.
To misrepresent your company online is damaging(akin to false advertising). Many business are unaware of their own "false advertising" online.

Discover thyself.

Types of online presence:

1. Transactional e-commerce site:

For: Your company sells goods online (or is able and willing to sell online in future)

Online Sales? Yes.
Focus: Online Product sales.
How: Point visitors to buying right there, right then onsite. Have a bit of product info to help offline sales.
example: www.amazon.com

2. Service-orientated relationship building website.

For: Your company provides a service offline.

Online Sales? Not typically.
Focus: Providing information and adding value for customers
How: Provide info to stimulate purchase and build relationship. Value added for existing customers offering interesting information through mediums like newsletters.
example: www.accenture.com

3. Brand building site.

For: Your company sells low-value, high-volume fast-moving goods offline

Online Sales? Not typically.
Focus: Focus on online experience
How: Facilitate strong customer ties by providing a memorial online experience. Provide tools that promote user interaction.
Example: www.guiness.com

4. Portal/Media site

For: Company does not sell goods. Your company links customers to services provided by third parties.

Online Sales? Not directly.
Focus: Intermediates between user and other sites. Providing info on a range of services using info and links. These sites generate revenue through onsite ads, commission based sales and selling customer information.
Example: www.yahoo.com

Once the type of company is defined above we can move into the realms of e-commerce, e-business and e-marketing..

The SEO, SEM push

2008-06-06T17:38:00.002+10:00

Today marks a new phase of job satisfaction.
My role here has undergone a refocus to concentrate mainly on the search engine marketing for the company.
So, It is time to bunker down: learn-up, skill-up and shut-.. you get the idea.

In that vein, I will post an E-marketing series noting any important information on this subject. Hopefully, this will become a bit of a manual for my successor when my role is refocused again.

Text Editor Tip

2008-05-27T12:03:00.001+10:00

Using a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) text editor can save time.
Yes, unless you count the time it takes to clean up the code it spews out.

Have you noticed that when you press the enter key in some of these time saving text editors it produces unnecessary lines of empty paragraphs? < p > < /p > which translates to time wasted on there removal?

Tip: Pressing Shift and Enter Keys together produces a nice < br > tag. lovely.
This means you can control the bounds of your paragraphs better by choosing to press the Enter key alone or adding Shift.

Coding Tip: Using the AND '&' Symbol

2008-05-13T18:51:00.000+10:00

I wasn't aware this symbol could cause so much havoc.

Simple rule: Don't use the '&' symbol when writing plain text inside XML or html code.

For example, if referring to the product description
"cheese & crackers",
write "cheese and crackers" instead.

I learnt this the hard way. I stopped an entire code document running with the incorrect use of this one tiny symbol.

CSS lists "No Indent"

2008-05-07T18:32:00.000+10:00

I have a list.
I like lists.
Search engines like lists.

I like Css.
Thus my relationship with the list continues.

Sometimes my lists chuck a tantrum. Enter my most recent obstacle:

The Indent

In order to remove the indent from a list I tried align tags, applying styles and Divs with varying attributes. Let me save you the time. The above solutions don't work well and are not consist across all browsers.

Charging in on a white horse here comes ..

The CSS

UL {
list-style: none
margin-left: 0;
padding-left: 1em;
text-indent:-1em;
}

Note: Margin-left + padding-left = 0 Don't seem to do anything on their own. It is the minus 1 em as the text-indent that holds the power here.

Thanks again CSS.

My Server is slow

2008-04-07T12:44:00.003+10:00

Server is slow:

Logon
Run> iisreset

Rapidtrade Sydney

MS Project 2007 :: Resource Pool

2008-04-04T12:34:00.004+11:00

Resource Pool
when selecting to share or partake in a resource pool, the resource file must be open

Domain Stay Prevents Login

2008-03-25T14:21:00.010+11:00

Had issues registering a domain pointing to our server

e.g
Getting the webpage on my server http://xxx.xx.xxx.xx/abc/ to point to domain name
(To get the slash / etc I have to pay for premium forwarding.)

Domain Stay

Domain Stay Definition:
Domain stay retains your domain name in the address bar when visitors are looking at your site. In the example above if I pointed my website http://www.rapidtrade.biz/ to the website page on my server http://xxx.xx.xxx.xx/abc/, having domain stay active would ensure that http://www.rapidtrade.biz/ is shown in the address bar instead of the server path.

Issue: Domain Stay seems to prevent login to the site.

Status: Unresolved.
Notes: The probem may be .biz related
Will amend this post when answer is found

Calculating ROI for Google Adsense Campaign

2008-03-19T12:15:00.004+11:00

Calculating Return on Ad spend:

(Revenue - Cost
Investment ) X 100

Translation:

Money made per click in month MINUS cost per month = A
Divide A by cost = B
Multiply B by 100 = ROI%

Steps:

The first thing we need is the amount of "Money made per click in month".
This can be a little ambiguous.

How much is a click worth?

Consider this senerio: A caller called Bob rings into your office enquiring about your product. Now Bob may not buy your product, but that phone call is worth something. If you have sales staff who do sales calls to pick up leads, then Bob's call saves your staff a phone call and a sales pitch as Bob is a "warm" lead.
Bob's call is worth something to your business.

A Click-through on a Google Ad is a call from Bob. Bob is interested enough to phone/click.

Now we must estimate what this is worth to you in monetary terms.

Option 1:
We could estimate what percentage of time your sales guy spends on making calls (including followup calls), apply this percentage to his wage, divide by 12 then divide again by his monthly call volume. Resulting in cost per call.

Option 2:
Estimate how much you would pay for one lead. Think in terms of your ad in the yellow pages. How many responses do you need from that ad to justify the cost? What would that cost you each lead? 0.50 cents? would you pay $1, $2, $20? What about if you are in an industry where you make 8 (large) sales a year. Maybe then this potential customer call could be worth $2000 or more.

Once you have your figure per click (example 0.50 cents) then you can begin the calculation:

First calculate revenue per click for the month:

Revenue per click X amount of clicks for the month.

Secondly, you will notice in the top formula COST and INVESTMENT are listed. Cost is the cost of the campaign per month. Investment is used if you then need to Plus in extra costs on top on this COST figure (such as staff time for example). Most times there are no extra investment costs and these two words represent the same figure.

Then apply your figures to the formula as shown below.

Example
0.50cents X 48 Clicks = $24 Revenue

In my example Google Adwords cost me $29.32 for the month.

Then onto ROI calculation:

(24 - 29.32

29.32 ) X 100 = 18%

Welcome

2008-03-18T18:30:00.005+11:00

Hi there,

Welcome!

Why "While Rapidtrading"?

I work at http://www.rapidtrade.com.au/

I need a place to record my work related research:
*Portal Development
*DNN
*Project Management
:: Dealing with multinational staff
*SEO
&More...

[and since I work at the Sydney office of Rapidtrade Business Software, ::While Rapidtrading:: seemed like an apt title]

If the information here benefits you I am glad. Hopefully, you can walk away with at least one *helpful tip* to help you avoid making the mistakes I made in learning it.

[disclaimer: I write here as if scribbling notes in a notebook. I can write well but I choose not to here. It keeps the content as intended: raw, quick and fuss-free.]

Enjoy,
Rapidtrader

Rapidtrade Sydney