Plan ordering methods for your website

Everyone is not an experienced web surfer. Provide your customer with simple instructions on how to order products. Provide step by stem instructions on how to use a shopping cart.

Instructions on using a shopping cart

1. Click Brows Catalogue to view the product categories
2. Click on the category you want
3. You will be taken to the Product List page
4. Find the product(s) you want and change the quantity if ordering more than one
5. If you want to order other products, then click “Add to Basket” button
6. Click the “Browse Catalogue” link again
7. When you have finished adding items to your shopping basket, click the “basket contents” to check your order and make any changes.
8. When you are ready to process your order, click the “checkout” and type in your address information
9. Click the “Submit Order” button.
10. Next page will add the shipping charge to your order and will show your total charge.
11. Type in your credit card information on this page
12. Click the “Submit Order” button again to complete your transaction.
13. To clear your order, click the “Clear Order” button.

I have composed a short article and will be back with more options for shopping in my next article. Until then please answer my three questions and I will include a link to your blogs with the answer to my three questions.

Are you going to open the store and wait for the customer to walk in?

Taking a business online does not guarantee success more than opening a store and waiting for your customers to walk right through the door. You must identify your customers. There should be a marketing effort. You have to determine customer needs and then develop methods of producing appropriate services and products.

Ask these questions and find answers to them first.
Who are my possible customers?
What do my customers need?
Where are my customers located?
What motivates my customers to buy?
When do my customers buy?

You need to identify marketing trends. You have to change with the changing environment and be prepared to change accordingly.

Branding your product or service is very important. People trust branded product or service than a product or service without proper branding.

Improve your customer awareness of your business by the appearance of your website and its association with desirable traits such as great prices and neat content.

Offer free stuff like e-books, software and offer something free if the customer purchases an item for a certain value. You can also offer gift certificates, prizes and free samples. For items like software, free trial versions will be very effective. But keep in mind that software must not effect other applications in the customer’s computer. Your customer will not return to you if that happens.

Provide how to information, and easy to use help

Ask customer feedback and suggestions about how to improve your service.

Create products designed to customer specification.

Offer an e-newsletter.

Provide each customer with an individual shopping experience.

Maintain a good and friendly relationship with your customers.

Customers will start to walk in through your door if you make the right effort. I wish you the best with your website.

E-Commerce Challenges

Although most companies are anxious to develop an e-commerce strategy, they also have to be informed about possible pitfalls. There are both advantages and disadvantages in e-commerce.

Challenges faced by most web developers are creating a website that would keep the customers on the site until they make a purchase. If the Website is difficult to navigate, products are not described well, and Forms are not easy to fill out. Links are broken, pictures take too long to load or have disappeared; harder it would be to keep the customer. A website that keeps the potential customer entertained is called a sticky website.

Although starting involves some expenses, a brick and mortar store will benefit from a user friendly website and the website will gain recognition to the business not only locally, but round the world. It will be open 24 hours a day and every day. Online presence is an advantage for any business to be recognised.

Traditionally many businesses operate as middle men between a business and the consumer. Agents, brokers, and sales representatives are all examples of middlemen. Authority of these middlemen are fast being made obsolete because consumers can go directly to a company’s web site and purchase products and services without help from an agent or other intermediary (disintermediation).

Intermediation is not going to finish yet. While traditional intermediaries are made obsolete, a new kind of cyber intermediaries that could not have existed before the internet has immerged. Cyber intermediaries include auction sites, payment – processing sites, and web site store front services.

When a website displays a Buy it! Button and a customer clicks on the button, credit card information is processed by an online processor company and the vendor pays the processing company a transaction fee. This is a Cyber intermediary

For E-Commerce, There is no world wide standard established yet. From a vendor’s point of view, a website is an advantage to advertise worldwide. A website can reach narrow market segments regardless of location. E-transactions can reduce costs related to processing orders. Internet presence can streamline business operations by incorporating business to business transactions and form virtual communities.

High start up cost is a disadvantage. Difficulty of keeping data current and upgraded can be another disadvantage; this becomes more when there are few available trained employees. E-Commerce transactions are sometimes difficult to combine with current systems. Language barriers might cause difficulty in doing transactions. Government tax regulations are different from country to country, and it always is confusing. Identifying a world wide standard is the main solution to these problems.

Tips to enhance your sales on eBay

There are certain criteria that will increase your popularity as a good seller. To get there it takes time and dedication. There are certain tips and tricks in the web to enhance your sales. If you follow these tips you will be able to win your customer loyalty. Customer loyalty is your key to success. These tips and tricks are as follows.

Take a good picture
A good quality picture can enhance your sales. Better the quality, better chance for a sale. Before uploading the image, take a look at it and ask yourself if I see this picture listed, will I be tempted to investigate? A good picture is one thing that will start earning the trust of your customers.

Clearly list the item
Describe the item in short sentences. Use bullet points. Do not make your bullet points into paragraphs. This will confuse the customer and draw attention away. Use bold and underlining only when necessary.

Be truthful and state the condition of the item clearly
Your customer will always trust you once satisfied. If you are selling an item that includes additional accessories, be sure to mention that. If you are selling software or related product, make sure you describe in what type of programmes it is compatible with. Always keep your tone positive and buyers will trust that their business with you will be positive.

Clearly state your terms and conditions
Always state your return policy. If your policy is no returns, put that in your return policy. Always win your customer by stating the truth. Do not hide anything. State the payment method. If your price includes the shipping cost, say no shipping cost. If you have not included the shipping cost, state that shipping cost will be added. And include a shipping cost calculator of some kind so that your customer will not get a shock when they see the final cost.

Include a currency calculator
A currency calculator is very helpful to calculate the actual amount a customer will be spending on his or her currency. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes and sure you will be really happy and confident to do a purchase.

Include shipping details
As described above; include the shipping cost, include the carrier that you are willing to use and describe whether you wish to insure the item or not.

Be flexible on payments
Always make sure that you provide multiple options of payments like PayPal, Cheque, Money order, Credit card and any other methods at your disposal so your customers will be at ease.

Careful packaging and shipping after payment
After making a sale, you have to maintain the customer’s faith. Developed customer faith will bring you sales many times and they will introduce others to your website also. Carefully pack the item and ship it as quickly as possible to reach the customer within the days promised. If your item is broken when it reaches your customer or you fail to deliver in time. This will be a disaster. Higher a good carrier and always take care in delivering the item.

Maintain a friendly relationship with your customer
When dealing with customers, you must always make sure that you send polite e-mails and your communication with the customer is maintained in a friendly manner. Buyers that have good buying experience will leave a positive feedback. Buyers who have had poor buying experience with you will leave a negative feedback and they will never buy from you. So be careful and always maintain a friendly relationship with your customers.

Instant Messaging

MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Messenger, Skype and many other types of instant messenger tools have now become a powerful productivity enhancing tools for many enterprises. In a few years time these instant messaging tools will be used by employees and enterprises more than e-mails as a base of communication via Internet. Of course most of these messengers are free of charge.

Benefit of using messengers over e-mails is that your e-mail can be ignored by the recipient while instant messages take place in real time. They offer real time monitoring and participants can see who is online and who is away from the desk whether you are communicating internally or internationally.

There is no effective way of preventing spam e-mails, instant messaging tools allow users to customise their preferences and accept messages only from contacts. Sending and receiving messages take place in real time and also only after the recipient at the other end has agreed to receive the file. You can send files in a similar way to e-mail attachments here.

You can hold conferences over the web no matter where ever your contacts are. Instant messengers allow you to communicate using voice and video. You can invite your business contacts to participate in discussions at a set time and you will experience the real value of it. Conferencing this way is cheaper and very effective. This will save your telephone and travel costs.

These instant messages can be a wonderful tool for employees in a workplace. They can swap messages; ask questions in a collaborative team environment which is more effective than e-mail messaging.

The disadvantage is; one instant messenger is not compatible with the other. A better way of performing is downloading all of this software and using them with your contacts preference. You will find almost all of your contacts do the same. But in an office environment it is different. In an office environment one such software is used. These are ideal for small enterprises than a corporate environment. With the use of instant messaging, there is a possibility of transmitting viruses. It is advisable to ensure your virus protection software is up to date and overall security measures are taken and improved to work with your messenger tool. Yahoo! Messenger has advanced features such as encryption of messages, control of user access and advanced logging and archiving features.

When you use these tools you have to be careful that you do not provide your important information to anybody via instant messengers. Never include you credit card information, bank details and any passwords in your messages. Do not give any of your personal information that you do not wish the public to know. Choose a user name to identify yourself. Always customise your settings to accept messages only from your contacts. Keep your messages pleasant, short and to the point. Never use messengers for big decisions and agreements. If you are in business, always start your instant messaging software when you start your computer and set it as “busy” or “away” when you are not able to respond to messages.

Software like Yahoo! Messenger can be used by outsourcing businesses and freelancing. If you are a freelancer; you can talk with your client and set your working hours. If you are charging for the hours worked, Yahoo! Messenger can indicate the hours and your client can monitor you working on his or her project at a given time. If you tell your client, “I will be working on your project at this time of the day”. They know your hours worked is correct and you can develop their trust.

It is advisable send big decisions, important agreements and sensitive information via Fax, e-mails and letters than instant messaging.

Testing new methods

Success with an eCommerce website needs lot of thinking and hard work. No doubt advertising is expensive, and you can minimize this cost by link building, Writing articles and submitting them to websites with a link to your website. Affiliate programs and free services can generate huge amount of traffic to your website. Succeeding in this competitive environment is very difficult if your website is not well organized and intentional business creation. Your site should be organized exactly what you want it to be, what kind of visitors you want and what you want them to do. Every thing should be tested to attain maximum efficiency.

Consider how you can provide personal attention to each visitor. Let the visitor develop a unique experience in your website. You can provide free interactive forums in your eCommerce website, free e-books, questions and answers sections which will make the website more interesting to your visitors. Offer these services in return for registering. For e.g. name and confirmation email. This way you provide a service that can impress your visitors. The more value service you offer, the more willing people are to provide their information. Careful structuring can collect information about your registered users which would allow well targeted marketing campaigns. This is a reportedly good way of making friendly relationships with your visitors. Remember, more the visitor stays in your website, more chance of you being able to do a sale.

Always maintain a database of your customers with the purchases they make. This way you can know their personal interests and you can allow personalized purchase suggestions and special offers. It is always better to keep good contact with your existing customers than forcing new customers. Trust and faith of the existing customer is one of your very powerful assets.

It is very important to make it easy for your customers to find the product they desire. Provide a good search facility. Make sure that you have chosen good keys and descriptions. Check that the links from search results to pages work properly and easily.

Always test new methods to improve your chance of doing sales. With careful planning and attention to detail you will be able to make changes that will vastly improve the productivity of your website.

How to attract clients by speech

I have been writing about networking and link building a lot. This time I am writing a different kind of business article about how to attract a client by art of speech.

When you go to a business meeting, the first time you enter there you might feel a bit nervous. This might be a big opportunity to build a relationship and a secure future. You might be meeting business contacts everyday. and through telephone, you might be doing this every day, but can you do it better? What are the tricks to preparing for them, starting them and keeping them going?

Smile first
It is important how long you hold it. When you meet someone have a smile on your face and make sure the other person understands that it is for him or her. Do not let the smile disappear as soon as you start speaking with the person. Let it linger for a while and with the topic, leave the smile where it is.

Eye contact
Eye contact is very important. First thing is look in the eyes. There are two main options in eye contact.

Wandering eyes: If your eyes around the room when you are engaged in conversation, it will appear rude. It is appropriate only if you are being harassed by the other party and you want to disengage from the discussion.
Sticky eyes: This is where you maintain constant eye contact with the person and resist the urge to look away. If you do have to book away, then break the contact reluctantly and deliberately. This will give a sense of importance to the other party.

Stop fidgeting
When you are meeting someone for the first time, do not start rubbing and scratching. Keep your hands together and interlock your fingers so they don’t start to play with jewelry or anything else. The less you fidget the more confident you look and you generate more respect and authority.

Be well presented
You have to be decently dressed and well presented according to the place or person you are meeting. Do not wear things that will draw unnecessary attention to your self and scare off everyone in the room.

Likely questions to be asked

“Where are you from?” this is a very likely to be asked question. Prepare an answer. You can either state a one word response that accurately describe your locale and hope the conversation moves on, or you can add an interesting comment that might sustain the conversation. Always try to sustain conversation.

“What do I do?” we know that some one will ask this question, and we are also bound to ask the same question from the other person. Be prepared for this. Give your answer some thought. Do not overdo the description. Remember that you are not trying to make your job more than it is; we are trying to find something interesting about it.

“What do you do?” now it is your time to ask the question. This sometimes will cause a difficulty for the other person, especially if they feel their job is not interesting or if they are between jobs. You should always ask a question, “How do you spend most of your time?” This will take a lot of risk out of the answer and allow the other person more flexibility with their response.

Keeps the conversation going

People are always interested in themselves, so if you want to be good at conversation, you need to know how to get them talk about themselves.

When the other person is talking or answering another question, be on the alert for their words of interest. This is a great clue as to what they are really interested in. for example if you were to state, “We had awful weather over the weekend” and the other person replied “ Yes, it was so bad I had to cancel my regular bicycle ride”, you should now start asking questions about their bicycle ride. Always be listening for ‘word pick’.

If you are struggling in a conversation, repeat the last words that the other person has spoken. If someone says to you “Last weak end I went to see a game of cricket”, then you should say “Cricket?” then the words will come to your mind to say some thing about cricket. This way you can keep people engrossed in their own topics. But do not parrot everything.

The best method to maintain a conversation is the use of questions. It is important to ask the right questions. There are two types of questions.
Open questions, where there is a space for a sentence to begin.
Closed questions, where you end with a short yes, or no answer.
Use open questions to keep the conversation going. And use closed question to verify facts and major points.
You will often find situations that where it is up to you to continue the conversation and these are golden opportunities for you and your business. Try these and s

Save your business in troubled waters

Today’s business environment is much more competitive than past business environments, no will it be easier in future either, with lot of new business coming in to operation. More competition, shrinking profit margins, increases in fixed and operating costs are just a few of the issues people face every day. To survive in the troubled waters, you have to be up to date and well organized.

Successful business people know why they are in business. They have one or two areas of specialty and they stick to what they are good at. They do not try to become everything to everybody. Research has proved that specialists tent to do better than generalists. Concentrate only on one or two specific areas of business. First ask these questions from yourself. Have I created a niche market? Am I the best in my trading area? Do I stick to what I am doing? Or do I stray away on other directions when revenue is small?

Increasing monthly bills and slow going months will tempt you to go in new directions where you do not have experience, but you might not be able to understand that your revenue is spreading thin and can cause you to loose focus in the specific area you are good at. The result will be the quality of work not being good and customer dissatisfaction. You need your customer loyalty to keep up the business going during hard times. If you stray away you will keep picking up more and more work than focusing on your customer needs.

Customer loyalty is very important in today’s competitive environment. Some people think that customers are concerned of only getting the lowest price. The most likely thing to happen if you use this method is you might loose your profit margins. Price is not the factor that is important always. Maintaining good relations with your customers is the most important thing to do.

Keep an up to date data base of your clients. Keep regular contacts with them. Know your customer’s names. Give them reason to continue business with you. Get to know what your customers want and expect. These are the basics of keeping good customer relations.

Developed customer loyalty results in high profit margins and reduced advertising costs. Thinking about this once in a while will not do. This should be maintained regularly every day and every sale or transaction you do. To provide high quality service, get personally involved. Put yourself in the customer’s position and think what great customer service will mean to you. Plan your good customer service.

You have to improve your sales skills constantly. Refer books and articles. Train your employees how to deal with customers. Never use aggressive and hard selling tactics. If you use these methods, no one will want to be bombarded with spasms and forcing. Develop your skills on understanding your customer. This does not need psychology training classes. You can learn it yourself. Some people have great understanding of customer needs, they make quick sales. This comes with constantly dealing with customers, having a passion for sales and also being able to focus on other people.

Running a small business is not easy. With time, the business grows, and more responsibilities come your way. You have to plan and prepare for this. Give people reason to buy, such as quality products and services and also maintaining friendly relations with your customers. Employ and train right people. Get involved in your community. Word of mouth is a very cheep way of marketing your product or service locally, and also internationally.

These facts will help you remain competitive now and in future. Straying away is not the solution. Plan a good investment before starting your business and insure your business. This will take a huge burden off your shoulders. Even if there are slow times, you can focus on one area and think on how to improve it than searching other directions.