Your Guide To Ecommerce

An important 4 factors for your online success...

2008-03-04T06:45:00.000-08:00

4 Important Factors That Can Make You Money Online

Is your online business successful? Are you making as much money as you hoped? If you answered no to either of these questions, maybe you need to make some changes in the way you do business online. Many people think that all they need to have to be successful online is a website. Nothing could be further from the truth. To be successful online you need two things, traffic, and a method to convert that traffic into income. The best way to do this is with your own list.

Having your own list allows you to focus all of your marketing efforts to your opt in page to build your list. A good opt in page will convert about 30% of your visitors into subscribers. A large subscriber list can be your most valuable online asset.

By sending members of your list valuable free information, your emails will get their attention. On a regular basis, you should also inform them about great products that may help their businesses. The products that you recommend will be affiliate products so that you can make money when your subscribers buy. This is the best way to achieve online success.

So if you have not had any success online and you want to build a list, here are some important points that you should consider:

1. Determine your niche (or target) market. All of your web pages, emails, and marketing efforts will focus on this one subject. It should be a subject that you are familiar with and enjoy.

2. Make sure that you can make money in your niche. Do a search to determine if there is ample activity in your niche. If no one is searching for information related to your niche, you will find it difficult to succeed. Make sure your niche is an active one with lots of search activity.

3. Make sure that you can make money in your niche. It is extremely important to find related affiliate products that you can market to your niche. If there are no products available, maybe it is because there is no market for this information. Make sure that you can make money in your niche and there are plenty of affiliate products available.

4. This is the most important point to consider if you want to make money online. Look for problems that exist for individuals within your niche and generate solutions to solve them. You will then focus on these problems and offer products to solve them.

Do you want to learn how I make money? Get all the details and start making money online!

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ecommerce-articles/4-important-factors-that-can-make-you-money-online-341615.html

Author: jomark3@verizon.net

For Your ECommerce Success

2008-02-26T05:50:00.000-08:00

Have you always dream of owning your own Business and working in the comfort of your own home ?

As human we all want to succeed. We all want the best from life. We all want to be wealthy, to have a great house, to travel around the globe. A great wife and beautiful and healthy kids.

To have all of this you don't need to be a genius, have luck or to rob a bank.

All you need is that you use the power of faith wich means confidence. Confidence in yourself.

You also need knowledge. Like the adage: "Knowledge is Power". But you must ACT. Knowledge without action is useless. It's like having a recipe of a cake, without actually making the cake.

So to succeed you need to know what you want and after that act on it.

HOW TO SUCCEED

The first ultimate start to succeed with your home business is to write your goals and have a business plan.

Don't wait for everything to be exactly right to start...THERE WILL NEVER BE A "PERFECT" TIME! Start now, with whatever you have. The things you need will come to you as you work toward your goal.

Let's talk face to face there is no easy way to succeed with your home business. Talk to people who succeed in business like George Walton of wal-mart or other like Donald Trump. They will tell you that it takes lot's of vision and determination. You have to be a man of action to really succeed.

Like i said there is no easy road. But of course you can succeed like me. You have to be persistant.

You have to build your business brick by brick. One step at a time. You start at the base of the ladder first.

Everyone who as succeeded in life have start at the base. Thats a fact of life. Like the man you are today, start as a baby.

Even the most dynamic, highest-earning entrepreneurs in the industry took MONTHS to begin seeing an income of any real significance.

And the real wealth, the $100,000+ income we all strive for, took an average of almost 3 YEARS to achieve!

Do you think ANY of these gentlemen don’t think the ends justified the means?

Do you think for an instant that the months and years invested hasn’t been rewarded a thousand times at least? You don't even have to think about it, do you?

So now you know ! It takes an average of 3 YEARS to build a significant income on the internet.

ONE STEP AT A TIME

Every house is build brick by brick. So is your home business !

Of course we all want to go faster. But we have to start at the base first. It's a basic law. We are subject to time and circumstances.

We have to learn. We have to experiment. With learning and experimenting we get experience. And with experience we become an expert.

We have to set goals. The goals will guide us one step at a time. It will will pave the way to our success.

You cannot go on a road trip without knowing your destination. You need a map. You need time. You need to rest. You need to eat. And sometimes there is roadblock.

When we hit a dead end we turn back and take another road. But we keep going to our destination.

It's the same thing with your home business. There is bumps and jumps and sometimes we crash. But we always keep our eyes to the goal. That is what give us the drive. It's our paradise. The goal become our existence. And it is.

By never, never giving up you will reach your goal one day. One mile at a time. It's impossible that you won't reach it. Unless you die.

That's the only secrets to success. One client at a time. One step at a time. 100 client at a time. Until you reach thousand like me and make your $100,000 a year and +.

To make $100,000 a year, start by making $100 per month. After $200 a month. And after $500 a month. And after $5000. And so on and so on.

Day by day, your on your way to succeed, week by week your on your way to succeed, month after month your on you way to succeed, year after year your on your way to succeed.

Until you reach your goal in 3 YEARS. (Maybe less, Maybe More.)

We reap what we sow, but the harvest is never in the same season as the planting! Today you are planting...and will be at least for the next several months.

Your harvest will come in time. Be persistent. Be patient. Think long term. Take action every day, (no matter how small) to build your business and you cannot fail.

MY 11 SECRETS TO SUCCEED WITH YOUR HOME BUSINESS

1. Your first ultimate start must include written goals and plans. Formulate a plan of weekly activity and be persistent in following it—if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Sticking to your plan is essential for success.

2.Don't wait for everything to be exactly right to start...THERE WILL NEVER BE A "PERFECT" TIME! Start now, with whatever you have.

The things you need will come to you as you work toward your goal. You cannot become successful in anything when you're trying to do too many things at once.

3. Treat your business as a serious, full-time business, and it will become one. Think of your first six months primarily as a training period. Don't expect large earnings until after you've educated yourself.

4. Be patient. You'll work the hardest your first six months or so and get compensated the least. Big incomes never happen overnight.

They only come after you've properly shown your affiliates how to duplicate your efforts. Always be ENTHUSIASTIC!! Don't give yourself unrealistic expectations.

5. Don't complain to your upline leaders. Realize that what you accomplish is mainly in your hands, no one else's.

Also realize that, when you see a problem, 95% of the time there are factors you are unaware of. Don't jump to conclusions. When you have a problem, present it in a concise letter as positive, constructive criticism. Offer solutions if possible, too.

Not only will this approach get you better results, but you'll be building your relationship with your upline instead of tearing it down.

6. Be organized, but don't allow the act of organizing keep you from the most important element of a successful business: MARKETING.

Market and promote your business EVERY DAY! Don't let little problems upset you. Concentrate on the many positives...and the "big picture."

7. Always remember that the only thing that will never change is that there will always be changes. Don't let changes upset you.

Know that you will have to deal with changes and other obstacles, both big and small, continually. Be prepared to be flexible.

8. Don't be a negative thinker and don't let the negative attitudes of others (even if they're family members, friends, or peers) influence you.

All the great men and women in history had to overcome the naysayers who said it couldn't be done—and then went out and did it. Think for yourself!

9. Don't be derailed by "perfection paralysis." Realize that you won't be able to do everything perfectly. Do the best job you can, then move on to the next project. Keep learning and keep moving ahead.

10. Read books (such as Napoleon Hill's classic, "Think And Grow Rich") that will convince you how powerful your mind really is. Develop the tremendous potential in you (that we all have) that has never been tapped!

11. Don't quit. The only way to fail is if you give up. Remember always..."You are what you think you are"

Copyright © Michel Richer

PERMISSIONS TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in its entirety free of charge, electronically or in print, provided it appears with the included copyright and author’s resource box with live website link.

Courtesy of: http://hombyz.com

About the Author

Michel Richer is the Business Manager and Webmaster of http://Hombyz.com

With over 10 years experience in home based internet business and a SOLID REPUTATION in the industry.

He is dedicated to helping you SUCCEED on the Internet.

You can take a look at his website at: http://hombyz.com for Your HOME BUSINESS SUCCESS !!!

My Top 7 Favorite Ecommerce Tools

2008-02-26T05:48:00.000-08:00

Copyright 2005 Jim Edwards

When you make your living on the Internet, you sometimes forget that the resources you use every day (and take for granted) might rate an incredible discovery to anyone who doesn't already know they exist.

Whether they help you make money, save time, save money, or avoid frustration, these ecommerce tools and services rate my highest recommendation for anyone who conducts any form of ecommerce online.

ClickBank.com -

If you sell a downloadable product such as an ebook, report, or software, you can't beat ClickBank for processing credit card payments. Not only do they take the payments and send you a check twice a month, they also plug your product into an existing network with tens-of-thousands of affiliates who can sell it for you. Also, unlike a traditional merchant credit card processing account, ClickBank assumes all the fraud risk and prevents many of the "horror" stories you hear in connection with online credit card processing.

MySiteSales.com -

Since ClickBank only allows the sale of downloadable products, MySiteSales.com comes to the rescue for anyone selling a physical product or service. Offering a suite of integrated product catalogs, follow up autoresponders, advertising tracking, a secure server, and even limited-time coupon offers, this tool rates a "must have" for setting up and integrating a professional ecommerce solution on virtually any size website.

Aweber.com -

If you need an unlimited number of follow up autoresponders and the ability to send an email "broadcast" to all your contacts at one time, Aweber offers an excellent managed solution. Specializing in helping small to medium-sized Web businesses implement an effective email follow-up strategy without complicated software, Aweber gets our highest marks for service and dependability.

GoDaddy.com -

Cheap, reliable, easy-to-use domain name registrar that only charges $8.95 per year for each domain name you register. Godaddy rates cheaper and just as, if not more, reliable than any other domain registrar. They also offer a "private registration" option that allows you to keep your identity as the domain owner a secret from unscrupulous people who exploit domain name records to compile mailing lists, spam databases or worse.

FrontierPowerHosting.com -

Any successful ecommerce endeavor begins with a solid website hosting service. Nothing shuts you down faster than an unreliable web host because, the second they go offline, your business goes offline. I host one of my servers at FrontierPowerHosting.com because of great customer service and guaranteed up-time.

ClipArt.com -

Ever pulled your hair out searching for that perfect image, photo, or piece of clipart for your website? Once you exhaust the Microsoft collection on your computer, the next stop (if you want to find something fast) is Clipart.com. With thousands of images searchable by keyword, you can always find the perfect image in less time and without the worries of copyright infringement if you just pull something off the Web.

Google.com/Adsense/ -

Website got traffic but no making much money? Open a free account with Google AdSense and earn a commission any time someone clicks on any of the targeted ads. An excellent way to earn extra cash on virtually any website.

Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the creator of an amazing course that will teach you step-by-step and click-by-click how to finally create your own money-making mini-sites... Get a FREE Copy of The "Mini-Site Secrets" Audio Right Now Click Here => http://www.MiniSiteCreator.com

Using eBay to market your ecommerce website

2008-02-26T05:47:00.000-08:00

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 drive traffic from eBay back to your website as well as creating sales and revenue for your company through eBay. eBay’s Store fees are nominal and can usually be paid off from the profit of just a few small sales a month. eBay's Stores are set up to where your item can be relisted automatically saving you your valuable time and making the maintenace of your eBay Store effortless.

eBay does have rules about advertising for a site outside of eBay within an Item Description, but with some creative writing and your imagination you should be able to work around these while still providing an outbound link from your Item Description to your own website. One way of doing this is to use a link to your website saying that eBay users can click on it for more product information about the item that is for sale on eBay.

You can be found by more eBay users by being as descriptive as possible in the Item Description and by using as many keywords as possible that describe your item and industry within the Item Title.

Not all eBay users search through eBay Stores for products, so I use a combination of eBay auctions in a bidding format and my Buy It Now eBay Store inventory so that my products are easy to find no matter how someone is searching on eBay. I also include my email address and toll free number in all of my Item Descriptions and on my eBay Store Front so that eBay users can contact us directly.

About the Author

Scott Touchton is an employee of www.SpecialtyHardwareOutlet.com which is a Birmingham, Alabama based decorative hardware outlet.

Increasing Your Conversion Rates: 50 Tips For Ecommerce Sites

2008-02-26T05:45:00.000-08:00

You can convert More of Your Traffic into sales without having to spend a lot of money. There are hundreds of ways to improve your conversion rate and the persuasiveness/stickiness of your website, many of which can be done very quickly and most will cost you close to nothing to implement.

1. Use real customer testimonials with authentic customer photos... no stock photography. Shoppers can quickly tell the difference.

2. Make sure your marketing effort attracts qualified traffic. Example, if you sell Digital cameras, don’t advertise that you sell macro lens just to get more traffic to your site. This may drive more visitors, but they are visitors with no intent to purchase, thus decreasing your conversion rate.

3. Get a toll-free number and make sure the placement of that number on your site is prominent and consistent.

4. Include “points of reassurance” at every “point of action”. Example – if you are requesting that a viewer provide you with

their e-mail address, clearly state that privacy is very important to you and that you will not share that information with any other party.

5. Use SSL (secure server certificates from a well known SSL authority) and make sure that the user knows you are using it. Display a prominent "Secure server" note at the top of the page.

6. Build trust, subscribe to a service like VeriSign, Thawte or ScanAlert and Prominently place these logos to reassure your customer that you care about the security of their information.

7. Have a clearly defined privacy policy and link to it from all pages.

8. Include a physical address on your site.

9. Don’t always concentrate on just making the “buy now” buttons the most prominent on every page, but rather concentrate on styling the “primary action” buttons the most prominently on every page. Example – you sell books, and you provide the customers with the ability to select a few related books and compare them before they can buy now. Make that “compare button/link the same style as you would the “buy now” button/link on a page in which the “buy now” button exists. This will help herd customers through your sales funnel.

10. Clearly Define your return policy.

11. Make sure to include an “About Us” section on your site. The majority of my customers will visit or look for that section before making a purchase.

12. Make your site load fast, easy to navigate and user friendly. No need for horizontal scrolling, excessive vertical scrolling, large animation files or intrusive pop-up windows.

13. Keep your “buy now” button consistently and prominently placed on all product pages. The closer to the top of the page...the better. ”Above the fold if you want it sold” & 2. “Eye level is buy level”.

14. Provide clear good quality images of your products with an "enlarge image" option.

15. Make your checkout process as usable, intuitive, reassuring and simple as possible. Losing a shopper during your checkout process is a CRITICAL loss.

16. Don’t make people type their e-mail address twice. Get the site to remember and do it automatically.

17. Don’t force people to install crazy plug-ins just to make a purchase from your site. Stick with JavaScript, Flash and the other breads & butters.

18. Read your copy, make sure its compelling, yet not exaggerated and too loud.

19. Identify your unique selling proposition and exploit it. If you are the only seller of medium-sized green widgets in the UK, clearly state that and be proud of it.

20. Implement a “site search” box and make sure it is accurate. Not only it will allow users to find what they want quick, it will give you an insight as to what they are shopping for and what terminology(keywords/key phrases) they are using so you can tailor your copy (and ad campaigns) accordingly.

21. Don’t just focus on the many features of your product, but rather on the benefits those features will provide you customers with. Don’t just say “folding ladders”, say “Our folding ladders will save you valuable garage space”.

22. Display your prices, shipping charges and tax clearly BEFORE the checkout process is completed.

23. Don’t use a drop-down for the "country" or “state” list over your order form. Many people are using scrolling mice these days, many are sure to accidentally scroll off of their correct state.

24. Let customers copy their shipping info to their billing info if they are identical, with one click.

25. Remove distractions as much as possible from the final checkout process such as the main navigation that existed during the shopping portion of your site.

26. Clearly provide a checkout process indicator. If your checkout process has 3 steps, clearly indicate at the top of the page what step they are on and how many steps there are to complete the order.

27. Clearly identify what info you really require during your checkout process. Eliminate unnecessary text fields/questions.

28. Use easy to understand, friendly error messages. No “INCORRECT USER INPUT IN STATE FIELD!” messages.

29. If your checkout error messages occur on a page other than the page with the errors, preserve the information that the user has already input and get the site to input it automatically.

30. Double check the spelling on your site. And the spelling on your error messages. "Ers in input filed" would look very unprofessional.

31. Try and get good reviews from shopping authority sites (shopping.com, epinions.com, bizrate.com, etc) and from previous shoppers.

32. Don’t use complex formulas for shipping price calculations, Example - 'if you buy 13.5 kilograms worth of x", then multiply that weight by y shipping rate. Get the site to do the calculations and show the shopper the price.

33. Consider shipping the product free. This is often a very good selling point with online shoppers.

34. Display the stock status of the selected item and do so BEFORE the user puts the item in their cart.

35. If you don’t sell or run out/discontinued an item, remove it from the site.

36. If you are offering a lot of products, users should be able to sort them by important criteria...price, size, color, etc.

37. Provide an easy way for shoppers to compare details of similar products.

38. Use a custom 404 not found page to link people back to the important areas of your site

39. Give a clear estimate of the delivery time.

40. Accept a wide variety of payment options and clearly display those options.

41. Important information should not look like ad banners. There really is such a thing as “ad blindness” and people will automatically skip over this important information.

42. Make sure you have a “first-time visitor” page. This is where you are going to explain why and how you are different from your competitors.

43. Update your copyright statements on page footers. Make sure that the current year is displayed....fix that 2003 copyright statement.

44. Let customer make a purchase without having to register with your site.

45. Consider making every link the last part of the statement “I want to...”. Don’t just have a link that says “the privacy policy”, but rather “read the privacy policy”. Do you get it... the shopper wants to “Read the Privacy Policy”.

46. Don’t use too clever names for your shopping cart like “widget basket” or “widget box”. Call it "My shopping cart" or "My shopping basket".

47. Don’t make the shopper specify select an option when there is only 1 “option”. If the product only comes in red, don’t make the shopper select the “red” radio button or choose “red” from the drop down. Get the site to do it automatically.

48. Provide clear shopping instructions in an empty shopping cart. Don’t just say “your shopping cart is empty”.

49. Provide a "special sale” or "special clearance” section. This will attract the budget-conscious shoppers.

50. The most important golden rule...you must portray a lot of trust and credibility to instil shopper confidence and get them to make a purchase. Make sure you do.
About the Author: (c)2005 Gail Bellaiche. Gail Bellaiche is an Internet Marketing professional and webmaster at http://www.intelliwebtools.com as well as a number of e-commerce sites. Visit her website for articles and tutorials on Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization and other great webmaster tools.

Source: www.isnare.com

Advertising Your eCommerce Web Site

2008-02-26T05:43:00.000-08:00

8 Tips for Increasing Your Online Sales

Once you’ve launched your eCommerce web site, you’ll need to show it off to the online world. Whether you’re paying someone to submit your site to all the major and minor search engines and directories, it’s still up to you to continually advertise your eCommerce site in order to keep attracting business.

Many online business owners will tell you that within six to nine months of your launch date you’ll start seeing increased orders for your products. However here are 8 things you can do to lure people to your site now!

1.Advertise on http://www.Craigslist.org . This entry will only last for 10 days and you must submit to one city and category at a time. You can include photos and/or advanced HTML in your ad.

2.Write a press release and send out for free to the following sites: http://www.prweb.com [this one has been around for several years]; http://www.prfree.com and http://www.openpress.com Paid submissions will get you more views, quicker listings in the search engines, and the ability to post photos and keep track of your statistics.

3.Submit your site[s] to http://www.isedb.com/html/Web_Directories [You’ll discover loads of directories here, from the highly specialized to the mainstream. Many of the sites have ratings; indicate whether they’re accepting new submissions, and if there’s a fee for submitting].

4.Search engine positioning. When advertising your eCommerce site, always have the following information on hand: A. Your Web site title. This should be approximately 7-12 words. B. Description. Have 3 different descriptions of varying lengths. 15 words, 25 words, 100 words. Have them summarize the essence of your site. C. Keywords. 10 – 50 of your most important keywords arranged in order of importance. Again, some online directories will allow you to contribute more keywords than others.

5.Write articles about your products/service. Be an online expert. What makes your site so unique from the thousands of others in your chosen category? Is it your customized service? Your low prices? Your high quality? Don’t over promote your product, but concentrate on what will help others. It’s highly recommended you include at least two or three testimonials.

6.Exchange links with other sites that have quality information and are related to your field in some way. For example, I sell a lot of soap so I link with mostly gift basket, crafting and candle sites.

7.Free classifieds. These can sometimes get you listed in the search engines, but don’t expect too much response from them.

8.Offer a freebie. For example, if you have an eBook for sale, you won’t give the entire book away, but having a chapter or two online will increase interest – and sales. If you make or sell a product, offer a free sample with a paid order. Or free shipping on sales over a certain amount.

Follow one or more of these helpful tips and watch your online business bloom!

About the Author

Lisa Maliga, writer & owner of Everything Shea Aromatic Creations [http://www.everythingshea.com] offers a fragrant selection of designer shea butter glycerin soaps, exclusive Whipped Shea Butter, & unique SoapCakes to personalize for gifts or promotions.

Why VPS is Perfect for eCommerce Hosting

2008-02-26T05:35:00.000-08:00

I want to preface this little article with this fact: The optimal environment for an ecommerce website is a dedicated server. Nothing else offers you the level of control, security, and customizability as a dedicated web appliance for the simple fact that the entire server is yours. Unfortunately, dedicated servers are expensive. You either need to lease them, Co-locate your own server in someone's datacenter, or pay for a huge internet connection to your location where you host your own. I understand that $250-$8000 a month is not in the startup budget of most new ecommerce sites, so here is the next best thing:

Virtual Private Servers.

Virtual Private Servers, or VPS, are an intermediate service between shared hosting (where you get one domain account) and dedicated hosting (where you get the whole server). With VPS, the actual server hardware and resources are partitioned up into several isolated environments which each act as their own "mini" dedicated server. Each VPS maintains its own control over server software, mail servers, and independent software resources, parsers, and programs such as PHP and BIND. VPS minimize the drawbacks that shared hosting has and gives you guaranteed resources, a secure operating environment, and distinct advantages in performance and security.

The advantages of VPS are clear:

Control. While you can not usually change system-wide configurations such as the base operating system, you are free to update your PHP version, Apache configuration, MySQL version, or whatever application related change you want to make. Unlike a dedicated server where you can really, really screw something up if you don't know what you are doing, VPS don't really allow you to break something really important that keeps the server running. This makes it a great intermediate step in learning web server administration before graduating to a full, dedicated server appliance when your business needs to.

You can have more than one website. You can have multiple domains, subdomains, IP addresses, whatever. Some web admin panels have restrictions (like 25 or 100 domain licenses) but others like my personal favorite, cPanel, allow you to run hundreds of sites if you want off of one account.

Security. Each VPS acts like its own isolated environment, and as such your system and data files can not be seen by any other VPS account on the server. This is not always the case with some insecure shared hosting setups, where insecure permissions or scripts on another shared site can open the whole shared box up to attack. Also, if another VPS user leaves an SQL loop open and locks up the database server on their account, your account and resources continue to operate without interruption because your resource allocation is completely separate from theirs.

Cost. While VPS solutions cost more than shared hosting (most are in the $29.99-$99.99 price range), they are much more affordable than leasing a dedicated server appliance. The fact is, even the most mediocre dedicated server is oversized for a startup ecommerce site, and VPS represent a great value for the new internet entrepreneur.

VPS are not without disadvantages though, abet small ones. Here are the main ones:

It does take a higher level of technical savvy to maintain a VPS solution than a standard shared hosting account. I don't really buy into this one though, because when I ran my first dedicated server when I was 15 years old (yeah, it's so easy a 15 year old can do it) I only had one learning resource: The Internet. Everything you ever need to know and more about running a web server can be found for free on the internet. Add to that fact that most VPS plans come with an easy to use web administration interface that is fully supported and documented and you got it made.

Your VPS host has a lot to do with the quality of your VPS account. Mismanagement of VPS appliances by your hosting company may land you with too many accounts on one server and as a result you may experience performance hits. Choose your VPS provider wisely.

Depending on your plan, it may be a lot of work to setup. Once again, this is all related to finding the right VPS provider. A comprehensive VPS plan will include a ready to go, setup environment with a name-brand web management console like cPanel or Plesk. These easy turn-key solutions will have you serving pages in an hour or two.

I was thinking about writing a big section on "How to decide if VPS is right for you" but I couldn't really make any arguments for not going VPS. Virtual Private Servers are superior to shared hosting in every way, and frankly if you are running an ecommerce site where your livelihood depends on your site being available and making sales you would be a moron not to investigate VPS hosting. The price point is there, the features are there, and the security and availability are there.

In my experience, this is what I think a VPS account should have for an ecommerce setup (let's use a heavily modified osCommerce setup for example):

It should be based on the Virtuozzo VPS system. These guys invented VPS, and they do it the best.

It should have at a minimum 256MB guaranteed ram for MySQL database driven sites, and at a minimum it should be burstable to 512MB for the occasional memory intensive query. The size of your database and traffic should dictate this number.

Disk space is trivial- I have not seen many ecommerce sites go over 3-5GB with thousands of products- make sure you get at least 5-10GB so you have plenty of room for expansion.

Bandwidth is kinda trivial too- you have to have a lot of traffic to exceed the 100-250GB bandwidth packages included with most VPS plans, and lets face it- if you have that much traffic you are going to be making money hand over fist and move up to a managed dedicated appliance anyway.

Get some sort of automated backup. If your host does not include it, it's usually a $10-$15 option that is completely worth it. That way, if you are learning how to administer your VPS and you break something, your site can be restored and running again in an hour or two.

Make sure you are getting it from a reputable company that has 24/7 support. There are lots of places to save $5 when you are setting up your business but the hosting that runs your lifeblood is not one of them. Get your hosting from a big company- they have the experience, the staff, and the systems in place to keep you running.

Make sure you get a VPS account with a name-brand web administration panel as this will smooth out your learning curve. I personally recommend cPanel as it allows unlimited domains, has its own name servers built in, and has two levels of admin- appliance control through the Web Host Manager, and individual domain control panels for each site. I can't say enough nice things about cPanel.

Whatever company you choose, I hope you will take a look at VPS hosting. This is your business, and you owe it to yourself and your customers to have a hosting account that is quick, responsive, and powerful.

About the author:

Jason Chance is a full time Online Product Manager and contract developer for the SMB market. He maintain's a site at http://www.jccommerce.com where he shares what works when trying to sell and promote online.

Ecommerce Web Hosting: All you need to know

2008-02-26T05:32:00.000-08:00

Gone are the days when the Internet was only for the geek labs and university libraries. With the emergence of accessible connectivity and affordable technology, ecommerce and online business are not futuristic concepts. Websites like Amazon and Ebay are the prime examples of successful online business ventures.

If you are planning to start your online business or an ecommerce website, you need to be careful about where you host your website. There are two things that are very important to run an ecommerce website: a well-designed, content-rich website and a host that supports seamless hosting. Remember that your ecommerce host is the backbone of your business. Imagine what would happen if there are hundreds of customers eager to pay you and your website is down or certain sections are inaccessible. Or for that matter, some mischievous hackers steals your important customer and sales database and wrecks havoc with your business. Choosing an ecommerce or an online business web host is not as simple as choosing a web host for a normal website.

As it happens with any brick and mortar business, you need to take many things into account before choosing your ecommerce web host. How many other online business websites are they already hosting? What has been their track record till now? What do the other ecommerce entrepreneurs think of them? What all tools do they provide when you purchase their ecommerce web hosting package? Along with these, let us discuss in points what makes a host good for your ecommerce or online business website.

THE HOSTING PLATFORM FOR YOUR ECOMMERCE WEBSTIE

If you yourself are not developing/coding your website then your developer should be able to advise you what business hosting platform you require for your website. You may need Windows environment or Unix/Linux combination according to your website's development environment and tools implementation. For example, if your developer is an experienced ASP (active server pages) programmer, he/she would prefer a Windows web hosting environment, but if he/she prefers PHP, then you'll have to go for Linux/Unix business web hosting. Although different people have different issues with both the web hosting types, it all depends on personal preferences.

THE UPTIME OF YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS WEBSITE

This is the bane of countless webmasters. Millions in revenues are lost because when customers arrive at the websites, the ecommerce websites are down or some of the critical pages are not available. The customers arrive with the intention of making a purchase but there is no facility available...this is the worst nightmare for an ecommerce entrepreneur or a business person.

Make sure your ecommerce web host manages parallel servers so that if one server goes down, the others can take over. Your business web host should give you the guaranteed security of your critical data.

THE BANDWIDTH OF YOUR ECOMMERCE WEB HOST

An ecommerce website requires lots of traffic in order to generate business because, as it happens with every business in this world, not every visitor is a buyer or a customer. 10 or 20 people do business if 1000s of visitors come to your website. You have to make provision for lots of traffic, and that too, targeted traffic.

THE STORAGE SPACE OF YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS WEB HOSTING PACKAGE

Ecommerce websites take up more space compared to normal, non-commercial or semi-commercial websites. First of all, you need an online database to maintain comprehensive inventory details. Then, you may have tens of flash files or hundreds of image files if your buyers would like to view the images or if they want to go through some sort of an online catalog. Keep your future server space requirements in mind while negotiating for an ecommerce hosting package.

THE NUMBER OF EMAIL ACCOUNTS YOUR ECOMMERCE WEB HOST OFFERS

Some business web hosts offer a limited number of POP3 email accounts that you can manage through software like Outlook and Firefox and some offer an unlimited number. Some don't provide a POP3 email account at all and you need to manage all your emails through a web-based interface. Make sure what your email requirements are going to be and go for an ecommerce web hosting package accordingly.

OTHER TOOLS WITH YOUR ECOMMERCE WEB HOSTING PACKAGE

* Some other tools you may want to check out are: Autoresponders: most ecommerce hosts these days provide free autoresponders. * Multiple FTP accounts: You may need multiple FTP accounts if you have a big team of programmers. * FrontPage extensions: FrontPage is shipped with lots tools for an easy and fast assemblage of a basic ecommerce website but these tools need some extensions installed on the server. If you are getting your business website developed using FrontPage, you'll need the extensions available on the server of the web host. * Secure Socket Layer (SSL): SSL can be used to collect sensitive data from your site visitors, to ensure that your emails are not intercepted online, and to provide a sense of security for your customers. * Shopping cart software: Some business web hosting packages are shift with a shopping cart.

About the Author

Rodel Garcia is a freelance programmer and web developer. Owner and webmaster of http://web-hosting-service-directory.com/ecommerce-web-hosting.html

How to Create a Money Magnet Ecommerce Web Site

2008-02-26T05:31:00.000-08:00

If you've been online for more than a day you've probably heard some "guru" somewhere recommend that you create a Money Magnet Web Site - a site that is highly automated and helps you make money 24 hours a day. While that might *sound* great, what they often forget to tell you is HOW to do that. Well, I'm going to tell you right now, in this article!

First, what IS a Money Magnet Web Site? A Money Magnet Web Site can be defined as one that is equipped with an integrated suite of both e-commerce and internet marketing tools in a fashion that will allow you to be the most profitable with the least amount of effort.

Most e-commerce systems are equipped with the following essentials:

- A shopping cart. - Acceptance and processing of credit cards. - A maintenance system that allows you to add/change products. - An order-retrieval system that enables you to fulfill orders.

However, what most of them are lacking are marketing tools. There are several marketing strategies that are essential in the creation of a successful e-commerce web site:

- Email marketing (broadcasting) of prospects/customers - Effective use of autoresponders (generate automatic email messages) - Online Newsletter - Online Form / Survey to capture your prospect's email address - Electronic Product Delivery (if you sold a digital product) - Advertisement (Ad) Tracking - Back End Sales - Affiliate program

Now, if you had a system that would support the integration of ALL of these marketing tools in addition to the necessary e-commerce essentials, then you would have a Money Magnet Web Site. After all, it has been shown that it often takes 7 or more ad exposures before prospective customers actually make a purchase. Consider the following scenario:

A prospect clicks on an advertisement in an online magazine. This action increments a counter for this particular ad to help you determine how well it's working. They don't decide to buy as of yet but join your newsletter. They are now considered a prospect. You begin to send them a monthly email newsletter. Additionally, an autoresponder kicks in to thank them for joining the newsletter as well as scheduling them to get email twice a month for the next 90 days reiterating your product benefits and inviting them to purchase. Upon sending them one of your "juicy" offers that they couldn't refuse, they finally purchase. They will automatically be removed from your prospect list and added to your customer list. Based on the particular product or service they've purchased, they will receive a series of emails every two weeks for the next 6 months offering complementary products. This will be the engine that will drive your back end sales and keep your customers coming back to your web site.

Being able to play out a scenario such as this using one integrated system would be pretty impressive don't you think? The internet big boys do this with expensive e-commerce platform suites produced by vendors such as IBM, Microsoft and Oracle. Having your system automatically perform these follow up tasks frees you up to spend more time on your business, your health or your family! =====> What can you do to obtain a money magnet web site?

Fortunately, there are ways that you can automate your website in much the same way that the big boys do. The best and most cost-effective way would be to sign up with one of the handful of Application Service Providers available on the internet which provide a shopping cart integrated with a full suite of marketing tools. Normally, the shopping cart and tools are very flexible and can be incorporated into any website.

=====> Are there any other ways to automate your business besides working with a total solution provider?

You can accomplish some level of automation without an integrated shopping cart system, however, it will require manual intervention and of course it would be incomplete. I believe that the most important asset of your e-commerce business is your email lists. Therefore, concentrate on the implementation of a good autoresponder/list server system to "enhance" your present e-commerce website. There are several good ones on the market. Look for providers that allow you to:

- Create multiple lists. - Add prospects via a web form, email, or manually through a management console. - Send out an unlimited number of autoresponder messages. - Send out an unlimited number of email broadcasts. - Set up and distribute a newsletter.

When setting up your autoresponder system, create one list for your "prospects" and another one for your "customers". Now, here's where you come in: when a person orders your product, you will have to perform the extra task of logging into your autoresponder system and manually remove them from the prospect list and add them to the customer list. This action will then trigger your customer autoresponder series of messages to be sent.

Remember, the key to building a successful e-commerce web site is to automate your marketing engine as much as possible and drive your prospects and customers back to your web site. This will certainly create a money magnet e-commerce web site for you!

**************** To learn more about website automation, visit Izzy Camacho at http://www.internet-marketing-made-easy.com.

About the Author

Izzy Camacho is an accomplished software developer with approximately 20 years of experience. He has a degree in computer science from a distinguished university. For the last several years he has been involved in the creation of web site applications for corporate America.

Building eCommerce Websites that work - Part 3

2008-02-26T05:30:00.000-08:00

Copyright 2005 Richard Keir

An interesting eCommerce success factor that isn't precisely overlooked, but which is often thought about more in terms of being a way of feeding the search engine spiders has to do with providing content. In a very real sense the customer's job is to consume. That's why you're in business.

Think in terms of providing the information your customers need to do their job of consuming. What does that mean? Consider what you sell. The content on your site needs to focus on your products - whatever they happen to be. Reviews and comparative information on the items available through your web site can help focus and direct your customer to what they need, want and can afford.

Too often eCommerce sites use only marginally relevant information as content - or content that may match the general theme of the site but has nothing to do with what's being sold, promoted, etc. That could be more or less adequate as spider food, but it isn't going to help your customers do their job of consuming your products.

The better you combine these two goals - informing your customers and feeding the spiders - the better you'll do at both. Irrelevant search listings are pretty much a waste of your bandwidth. What you want is highly targeted customers interested in what you're offering and since the search engines love focused content and integrated sites, make that work for you.

And I'm not suggesting blatant repetitive hyped up sales copy. You want to inform, compare, offer added information that will help focus your customers. Use your content to develop desire and provide comparative information on similar products at varying price levels. Remember: desire not need.

While we all need things - and while you may be convinced everyone absolutely needs your product - we mostly buy based on desire - because we want it. The better you do at turning that need into immediate desire, the better your site will perform.

Again, not a fevered sales pitch. That's likely to turn off a large number of customers. Examples, stories and carefully chosen (and real) testimonials can support the process, too. Using video and/or audio can have a dramatic impact. Let your customers draw the obvious conclusions.

Along with providing plenty of comparison and review data, good search facilities are essential for a large eCommerce site. This also means that if you use a searchable product database that your keys and descriptions must be well-chosen and the links from search results to pages work smoothly and easily.

While we've talked earlier in this series about the importance of providing various ways to enhance the social aspect of your site, it's also important that customers be capable of using it without assistance. Never over complicate your site or your processes to the point that it's no longer obvious what to do to buy something (or complete whatever desired action you are focusing on).

A typical customer should be able to go from front page to product page to order page to thank you page easily and without hesitation or confusion. The simpler and cleaner the process, the better for you.

If you can manage it, test with 4 or 5 basically internet illiterate people. Watch carefully what they do, where they hesitate, what seems to cause confusion - but don't talk or help during the process. Then go over everything with them in detail working with your observations and their thoughts and feelings. Your site may be obvious to you, but is it obvious to anyone else?

And when you think you've covered anything, a few pairs of new eyes (or checking out your competitors' sites) can give you a whole new to-do list.

Your eCommerce site is an intentional business creation. Every aspect should be organized around what you want the site to do, what kind of visitors you want and what you want them to do. Everything on your site should be there for a specific reason that contributes to your goals for the site. And everything should be tested to be certain that it actually does contribute.

It's your site and your business so never take anything for granted, never assume something works if it can be tested. And never stop testing. With careful attention to detail and on-going testing you'll be able to make incremental improvements over time that will vastly improve the productivity of your eCommerce web site.

About the Author

Richard writes, teaches and consults on business presentations, eCommerce, site building and programming. Visit http://www.Building-eCommerce-Websites for eCommerce resources and links and check http://www.Building-eCommerce-Websites/blog for opinion and ideas.

Building eCommerce Websites that Work - Part 2

2008-02-26T05:29:00.000-08:00

Copyright 2005 Richard Keir

Succeeding with an eCommerce website is a dream for many these days. It may seem nearly impossible at times, but it can be done. This series covers some of the basic success factors - things you must consider in creating, implementing, managing and developing a quality eCommerce web site. There are many ways to do business on the internet - and, not surprisingly, a lot of ways to both make and lose money. Mainly, I'm focusing on eCommerce sites intended to sell products of various kinds. Not every factor is going to apply to every site, but since a major failing of many internet entrepreneurs is the lack of multiple income streams, you'd do well to carefully consider all factors and apply them as needed in developing alternate revenue streams.

On examining your eCommerce web site, put some serious thought into how you can provide personal attention to each visitor. The idea here is a process of personalization through which each visitor, if they wish, can develop a unique experience of your site.

Provide options through which the user can alter layout, colors, etc. Give customers the capability to create their own personal pages on your site. Perhaps offer a simple and easy to provide service to registered customers, such as free email accounts.

As well as building loyalty and stickiness, such features also build your customer database. Scripts are also available which will allow on-the-spot personalization based on responses to a series of questions. You can also use this kind of script to focus your sales message more tightly to the user's expressed interests. This technique has been reported to substantially increase conversion rates.

Free services which can be provided on autopilot can be a virtually endless source of targeted customers. Everything from free email to blog hosting, opt-in list building to free advertising forums, all operate on the same principle as building a list through a newszine, white papers, free ebooks or whatever. In return for registration, e.g. name and confirmed email, you provide a service that your visitors desire. The exchange of value is critical. The more valuable the service that you offer, the more willing people are to provide their information. Careful structuring can allow you to collect significant marketing information on your registered users which would allow well-targeted marketing campaigns.

Never lose track of a customer. Maintaining a database of customers with any of their prior purchases, interests, and so on, allows you to provide personalized purchase suggestions and special offers. The life-long value of a happy customer may be difficult to estimate accurately, but it's far easier to sell to existing customers than to be continuously forced to acquire new ones.

Even if you only have a single product now, you will eventually have expand your product line(s). Don't throw a buyer away. Stay in touch, offer information, occasionally recommend a high quality product you use and value. Build trust through value and quality. It's nearly impossible to over-emphasize this point. Look to the long term and plan ahead. Every serious marketer needs to do this.

To further expand the human dimension, you can add forums and chat rooms. Provide a variety of means to acquire visitor input. On site surveys and questionnaires, email surveys and opinion polls can not only increase your customers' sense of being in contact with real people who value their opinions and ideas, but also provide exceptionally useful information for refining your marketing and sales tactics. Loyalty programs and affinity networks can also help.

This is a lot like beating a real dead horse, but... Reliability and security are crucial. If your eCommerce site is big enough and busy enough, multiple parallel servers, redundant hardware, use of fail-safe technology, fast technical support service, high quality encryption, valid certificates, high quality payment processors and excellent firewalls will all allow you to ensure your customers that their data is safe, their orders are handled properly and nobody's getting their credit information that shouldn't. Many people still are extremely hesitant to purchase on-line because of fears of identity and/or credit card theft. You can't ignore this issue and hope to succeed.

Right now you may not need (or want to pay for) parallel servers, redundant hardware and fail-over technology, but don't ignore the rest. You depend on your eCommerce hosting provider to keep your business running. So think carefully and do some serious research. Overloaded servers, lack of redundant network connections, slow technical support, poor backup procedures can create a nightmare situation for both you and your customers

As a final consideration for this part, smooth out your customer contact and support procedures. If multiple staff might come into contact with your customers (chat, phone or email) , providing all of them with the same (and useful) information about the customer, prior orders, any previous or current problems and so forth, can avoid a lot of potential frustration - and lost orders or, worse, a customer lost forever.

It can be incredibly irritating to have to tell the same story over and over, getting bounced from one person to another when no information ever seems to have been recorded. While it may cut down on repeat complaints, that's usually because the customer is gone forever. Construct your systems so that no information is lost and so that the data needed to be responsive and helpful is instantly available. In doing this consider that some information which customers may not feel comfortable about everyone knowing should be restricted to those who would actually need it.

Doing these things right can add significant credibility and usability to your online business, as well as build a loyal customer base which actually enjoys dealing with your eCommerce business. When you reach that stage, you're there - the true win-win situation that's makes an outstanding eCommerce web site.

About the Author

Richard teaches, trains and consults, on and off-line, on business and professional presentations, eCommerce, site building and programming. And writes a lot. Visit http://www.Building-eCommerce-Websites.com for articles, information, resources and links and check our blog at http://www.Building-eCommerce-Websites/blog for opinion and ideas.

Building eCommerce Websites That Work - Part 1

2008-02-26T05:26:00.000-08:00

Copyright 2005 Richard Keir

You want to succeed at eCommerce? Welcome to a very big family. Right off, let’s be clear - there are lots of ways to do business on the internet. And lots of ways to both make and lose money. Successful eCommerce websites come in all shapes, kinds and colors and while I can't cover every type of site in this series, I will present the basics you need to consider and apply for an eCommerce web site to be successful.

Let's begin by assuming you have some of the fundamentals, that you understand the language and that you are serious. I’m not going to tell you how to set up a web site or get a decent hosting account. We’re beyond those basics. The basics here are the factors which will influence the success (or failure) and the degree of success your eCommerce web site experiences.

First and foremost, you need to provide value for your customers. Absurd as it seems to have to repeat that, a lot of so-called eCommerce sites provide no or very little value for their visitors. Pretending to offer value is not the same thing as providing value. Promoting miserably written, hackneyed, cloned ebooks filled with questionably useful and/or outdated content doesn’t make a high value web site. Sure you might make some money. Once. And you’ll end up with a high refund rate - and an unhappy credit card processor. That path means you're taking advantage of inexperienced customers and abusing their willingness to trust you. This isn't the way to a long-term business with steady repeat customers.

Value on the net is not very different from any kind of off-line retail sales -- a quality product line that will attract potential customers and a competitive price that will lead to purchases. An honest, quality product that will meet the expectations you’ve created in your buyers. Hyped junk just doesn't cut it.

Next, you’ve got to have a smooth, user-friendly, easy to follow process all the way to your thank you page. The simpler, cleaner and clearer you can make the process, the better. Where it makes sense you can augment this user-responsive site profile by adding live-response chat.

If you do decide to use call-in or live chat, it’s imperative that your operators be well-trained, understand your products and your system and be customer friendly. This can be a problem if you outsource. The less expensive out-source call centers can turn out to be very expensive in terms of lost sales and customers who never come back.

You’ll need to check very carefully and be 100 per cent certain the operators actually speak and understand the primary language(s) of your targeted customer group. You’ll need to provide extensive background information and highly flexible, well-written scripts.

You should collect your own customer evaluations - separately. Don't rely exclusively on any monitoring or customer satisfaction surveys provided by the call center. Track your ROI to be sure it's money well-spent. Don't stop monitoring just because the results looked good for the first two or three months. Things change. Make sure you're tracking desired actions linked to the call center separately from those NOT related to call-in or live chat. Mixing outcomes leaves you in the dark about what's really happening.

You probably should have an attractive website. An ugly site can work, but to do that you need to absolutely know exactly what you're doing and why it should work. And you'll have to test like crazy to optimize (of course, you should be doing that anyway). The ugly site tactic is not for the inexperienced. Very few individuals really have the grasp of marketing, market and customer psychology that makes for a successful "ugly" site.

To provide a pleasant experience, you need to be careful in what you use - colors, text-size, graphics, animation and white space can add value to your site or turn it into a user nightmare. Test your site with people who will tell you the truth. Just because you love it doesn't mean anyone else will. In general, aiming for a professional appearing site is your best option. Look for the highest ranked, busiest sites in your business area and study the layouts they use. Extract the common features that you see on those sites. While other factors heavily influence traffic and ranking, appearance has a strong effect on visitors and sites that do testing evolve toward optimizing visitor behavior.

Keep in mind that a site's desired actions affect the design and layout. You'll want to study sites where those actions are most similar to the desired actions you target on your web site. If your goal is direct product sales, there's not much point in emulating a site that's optimized for newsletter sign-ups or AdSense.

If your main goal is direct sales (and if it is, then you need backend products too), provide incentives for customers to buy AND to return. The return factor is critical to a long-term strategy for success. Anyone who buys is your best possible future customer. Keep them, track them, make them special offers. Use coupons, discounts, special deals, customer-only offers and back end sales. Your customer base is your gold mine. Since they've shown enough faith in you to buy, do your utmost to never damage that faith. Treat them like the priceless resource they are. Think long-term: successful eCommerce websites are all about value and customer service.

About the Author

Richard teaches, trains and consults, on and off-line, on business and professional presentations, eCommerce, site building and programming. And writes a lot. Visit http://www.Building-eCommerce-Websites.com for articles, information, resources and links and check our blog at http://www.Building-eCommerce-Websites/blog for opinion and ideas.

eCommerce Web Design Solutions

2008-02-26T05:25:00.001-08:00

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.

How Funds are Collected

2008-02-26T05:21:00.000-08:00

Many people new to websites and/or ecommerce are confused at the in and outs of ecommerce. Even many people who are fairly adept at scripting can set up a store using some popular package such as OSCommerce and then are left stumped by the idea of making it work with a payment gateway to actually collect money and put it into their account. In this article, I will give a brief overview of how the system is set up to collect your money. I will then discuss briefly what to look for in evaluating payment gateways. As usual, I will keep this basic and understandable just as I do with all of my articles. The Basics - How Funds are Collected

Ecommerce simply refers to the practice of shopping online. From the site owner's perspective, it entails collecting funds from sales transactions on their website and depositing that money into the bank. In order to collect funds, you need to have a merchant account and a payment gateway (discussed below). Basically, when a person enters their credit card number on a website, the card number and buyer information is sent to a payment gateway. This is done securely. The payment gateway will interface with a payment processor to check availability of funds as well as any other criteria set for accepting transactions. If the funds are available, the payment processor will then deduct the funds. The payment gateway will then report back a successful transaction to the merchant, at which point the merchant's shopping cart system will respond by displaying a "Thank You" type message to the buyer. Funds will sit until the transaction is settled, which means the funds are collected and deposited to your bank account. Until a transaction is settled, the transaction will not post to your bank account and the corresponding debit will not post to the buyer's credit card account.

Merchant Accounts

A Merchant Account is a special type of account specifically for online retailers. They are designed to allow non-POS (point of sale) transactions using credit cards, or transactions where you don't have the person's credit card in hand. In other words, you don't have a card swiper. A merchant account is not the same as a bank account. It acts as a go-between between your payment gateway and your bank account, accepting funds from credit cards which are then deposited into your bank.

A merchant account is a relationship based on trust between you and the issuing bank. The bank takes funds from the buyer's account and deposits into your account. A payment processor takes care of checking for availability of funds and debiting from the credit card account. The bank issuing the merchant account is trusting that you will fulfill your end of the transaction by providing the product or service that the buyer purchased. In case where this does not occur, the buyer can dispute the transaction. This puts the issuing bank on the line because they are then obligated to return the funds to the buyer's card (a chargeback). Therefore, merchant providers are taking a risk in allowing a merchant to take credit cards under their name.

The organization providing your merchant account will do underwriting on the account when you apply to check your credit. If you have a history of too many chargebacks, you may be denied. In fact, too many chargebacks can result in you, as a merchant, being put on the Terminated Merchant File (also called The Match File). This is a blacklist which will effectively prevent you from ever receiving a merchant account again.

Payment Gateways

A payment gateway serves as the front end to your merchant account, allowing you to manage funds, transactions, and the like. It also serves as a connection between your website and your merchant account. It takes data submitted via your secure order forms and presents it to your processing bank. The processing bank then approves
or declines the transaction and sends its response back to the payment gateway. The payment gateway then turns around and provides this data back to the merchant for appropriate handling of the transaction. A payment gateway, then, does not offer services such as merchant accounts or shopping carts, although some of the larger-known gateways do provide such options as value-added services. Some of the better known payment gateway services are Authorize.Net, Verisign, 2CheckOut.com, Linkpoint, Paysystems.com, Worldpay.com, and MerchantCommerce. Some of the things to look for in a payment gateway are compliance with CISP, SDP and DISC (security initiatives put out by the major credit card companies), virtual terminal (to be able to accept transactions over the phone by typing in their data rather than only relying on your website), fraud prevention, recurring billing, methods of integration, cost and whether they can accept e-checks or not.

Fraud prevention is a big one because, as stated above, too many fraudulent transactions will result in chargebacks which could end up putting you on the Match List and your merchant account closed. Some of the common fraud detection mechanisms are Address Verification (AVS) which compares the customer's address with that on file with the issuing bank, CVV2 which makes use of the 3-digit security code on the credit card (4-digit on American Express cards).

Most gateways will provide instructions on how to interface with their servers from your web store. Most gateways offer two methods of integration.

One method is to have your site POST a form to the gateway's server which is pre-populated with your customer's information. At that point, the customer will provide the customer with the payment form which allows them to type in their credit card number in a secure environment. After processing occurs, the customer is then routed back to your website along with the results of the transaction. Your site again takes over the process. This method is usually easier to set up for site owners and it also means the site owner does not need to purchase their own SSL certificate (allowing secure transactions on the site itself). The tradeoff is that you do need to send your customers off of your website for payment collection. Many gateways offer ways to make the payment form look like your website using customized headers and footers, but the fact remains that the visitors are leaving your website.

The second method is totally invisible to the customer. If the site owner has an SSL certificate, they can set up security on their own site. This means they can host the payment form themselves, totally customizing it to their website. When the customer submits payment, your site will securely and invisibly submit the information to the payment gateway. The payment gateway will do the usual processing and then invisibly send the response back to the merchant's website, allowing it to respond properly. From the customer's perspective, they never left your website. And they never did. This type of setup requires an SSL certificate as well as access to the CURL library.

Many gateway providers can get you set up with a merchant account at the same time as the gateway. So, in most cases, you do not need to sign up for them separately.

Conclusion

Hopefully this has given you a brief introduction to how credit card payments are processed on the internet.

About the Author

David Risley is a web developer and founder of PC Media, Inc. (http://www.pcmedianet.com). Specializes in PHP/MySQL development, consulting and internet business management. He is also the founder of PC Mechanic (http://www.pcmech.com), a large website delivering do-it-yourself computer information to thousands of users every day.

Getting Started In Ecommerce – Part Two

2008-02-26T05:18:00.000-08:00

In Part One we talked a little bit about what Ecommerce is, getting a domain name and setting up a merchant account. Ecommerce is more than that, much more. To have a really good online presence that gets people to stop and shop you need a strategy for success. Your strategy must include your USP or Unique Selling Position in the marketplace. What makes you stand out from all the other online entrepreneurs looking for the same type of customers as you? Can you stand out from the competition based on quality, price or benefits? Once you know your USP, you can begin the monumental task of telling the world about your site. A really unique selling position will give you an advantage over all the competition – well that and a lot of planning and investing of your time and money.

FOCUS

Emphasize the benefits and the results the customer will get from purchasing from you and using your product or service. You can discover the benefits by listing all the features and then converting them to benefits. List everything your product or service offers. For each feature list a relative advantage from the customer’s perspective. You can discover the customer’s perspectives when they buy. Simply ask them, “ Why did you place an order today or use our service?” BE very specific when creating your benefit statements. An example of this is, “You will save $100.00 sells better than “you will save money.” “You will loose 20 pounds in 10 days” sounds better than “you will loose weight.” Rank your benefits in order of importance to the customer. If you have enough of them, use bullet points for emphasis.

Emotion sells. People make most buying decisions with their heart and not their head. Paint a picture of the results the customer will get when they purchase from you. “ You will look 20 years younger.” “You will be $100 richer.”

Make sure you include a call to action. Want them to make a buying decision today? Give them a reason to do so. Offer a bribe (discount, bonus, something for nothing).

Your website must load quickly and function easily. If your site loads slowly people will get impatient and go elsewhere. Do all your links work? Have you tested your order page by running sample orders? Have you tested load time using different connection speeds? You can get a fr*ee analysis by visiting Submitplus.com.

Make your website easy to look at and read. I find dark background tend to be more difficult to read than do pale backgrounds.

The overall look of your site should be clean and professional. When we were first creating the Women’s ECommerce Association, International we did everything in-house. Not being truly adept at HTML coding we thought we could just use a simple program to create a professional site. It was okay, but the one we now have is so much better. Why? Because we hired a professional. You can create a website with a good template program. We are using ECommerce Templates to create our new look for WUN Publications. It is simple to use and relatively inexpensive.

When it comes to graphics, be conservative. Sites that are laden with graphics and flash tend to take longer to load. If your site takes more than 3 seconds to do so, you will loose many visitors and potential buyers. If you must use graphics, make sure the files sizes used have been reduced as much as your image editing/compression software will allow.

View your site using as many different browsers as possible. In addition to Internet Explorer and Netscape, there is Opera, Mozilla, Lynx and those are just the ones that run on Microsoft Windows. WebMonkey has a chart of those supported by Macintosh, Unix/Linux and others. Also, many people will surf with their browser’s graphics switched off. Make sure you know what your site looks like without the graphics and that it is still easy for visitors to surf.

One last thought Make sure all your important information is above the fold. If you know that visitors are looking for something specific and you make them scroll down to find it, chances are they won’t.

Excerpted from The PMS Principles - Powerful Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business - www.pmsprinciples.com - © 2005 - Heidi Richards

About the Author:

Heidi Richards is the author of The PMS Principles, Powerful Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business and 7 other books. She is also the Founder & CEO of the Women’s ECommerce Association, International www.WECAI.org – an Internet organization that “Helps Women Do Business on the WEB.” Basic Membership is FREE. Ms. Richards can be reached at www.HeidiRichards.com or heidi@wecai.org.

Source: www.isnare.com

Getting Started In Ecommerce - Part One

2008-02-26T05:13:00.000-08:00

In 2004, Enquiro.com conducted a study of the search behaviors of men vs. women. They found that women spend more time in their searches and at specific sites. The study also revealed that women tend to be more deliberate in reading search results, linger longer at sites and have a greater satisfaction in the overall shopping experience. Another study conducted by iProspect.com revealed that women are more apt to click the paid search advertising because they find it more relevant to their searches than do men (WebProNews - July 14, 2004).

What does this mean? It means that if we understand the searching and shopping patterns of our target audience we are better able to create marketing strategies to effectively drive traffic to our sites. Don’t yet have a website?

Electronic commerce or ecommerce is used to describe doing business over the Internet. Selling products and services to customers over the Internet can be accomplished a number of ways and various levels of sophistication.

The first thing you need is a professional Web site with its own domain name. You need to design and promote a Web site. You'll need access to expertise that can regularly design and maintain this Web site for you. A good website which gets visitors to return is constantly evolving and therefore, require ongoing attention. There are thousands of resources available for you to take advantage of, many of which are free. You can surf the Internet for what you need or you can simply visit www.WECAI.org to see the many resources we have listed. We have resources for guests and if you are a member we have even more resources to help you get started. In fact, you can search our domain registry and purchase your own unique domain name at www.wecaidomains.com.

Developing a business over the Internet requires many of the same major activities as starting any other business. You need a business plan, something to sell such as a product or service; you need customers and you may even need financial backing to get started. In addition, you need to market products to your customers, exceptional customer service practices and many other resources just as you do with traditional bricks and mortar enterprises. They may include inventory, fulfillment, shipping banking relationships and more.

Your store will need a "merchant" account, or the ability to process your customers' credit card transactions over the Internet. This includes needing a "secure server," (security certificate such as Versign or Geotrust) so that thieves cannot gain access to your customers credit information. Your merchant processing can be as simple as accepting payments through PayPal or as complex as a custom designed shopping cart system you pay for.

Getting a Merchant Account - If you have a good relationship with your bank and they don't require a security deposit this may be your best option for setting up a merchant account. Alternatives to getting a merchant account through your bank are to go through a broker, a fulfillment house, or using third-party billing.

For more information on establishing an ecommerce presence check out the e-book entitled: Show Her the Money – The Woman’s ECommerce Handbook for Online Transactions (www.showherthemoney.com). If you are, or become a member of WECAI – www.wecai.org, this resource is yours with your membership.

Excerpted from The PMS Principles - Powerful Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business - www.pmsprinciples.com - © 2005 - Heidi Richards

About the Author:

Heidi Richards is the author of The PMS Principles, Powerful Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business and 7 other books. She is also the Founder & CEO of the Women’s ECommerce Association, International www.WECAI.org – an Internet organization that “Helps Women Do Business on the WEB.” Basic Membership is FREE. Ms. Richards can be reached at www.HeidiRichards.com or heidi@wecai.org.

Source: www.isnare.com

Internet Basics: eCommerce is Like Playing House

2008-02-26T05:12:00.000-08:00

Ever play house as a kid? You don't even have to be in a house to play it. You just say, "The kitchen's over there, and this is the laundry, and here's the garage," and so on. You make it all up in your mind, but none of it's really there.

You can add stuff whenever you want, and you can decide it's the end of the workday even if it's really ten o'clock in the morning.

That's what eCommerce is like.

With eCommerce, a business doesn't have to be in a traditional business-type setting or building. If they want a store, they just:

·make some webpages (which are really only computer files)

·upload them to a server (which is really only a computer hooked up to the Internet)

·make sure they have a way their customers can pay them (a payment provider)

And suddenly they have a store, even though there's no "actual" store anywhere that anyone can "go into." And it can be open 24 hours a day.

But just as playing house isn't just about the kitchen, eCommerce isn't just about selling things online. With eCommerce, if a business wants a service department, they just:

·create an email address

·then make sure somebody somewhere (anywhere) is going to pick up the emails sent to that email address

Or they might put customer support information on their website - things like Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), or installation instructions, or product registration forms.

Or they might make up tools their customers can use, such as a mortgage calculator, or a currency converter, or even an ovulation calculator.

Or they might provide access to a person they can contact for help through email, or chat, or a phone number (maybe), or even snail mail (regular postal mail).

They just make up what they need to do business online as they go along because it's so easy to make it up.

And that's why eCommerce is like playing house.

Copyright (c) Grant Pasay 2005. All rights reserved. You may forward this article in its entirety to anyone you wish.

About the author:

Grant Pasay is a writer, musician, moviemaker, and author of the new eBook, "The Internet Is Like A Refrigerator: And Other Weird Comparisons That Make it Easy to Understand Everything From AOL to Zip Files."

Check out Grant's free/brandable ebook at: http://grantpasay.com/refrigerator/

Check out Grant at: http://grantpasay.com/