Things to consider before e-tailing

E-commerce transactions mainly involve the use of credit cards, smart cards and other methods such as digital cash or coupons.

If you are selling low value items in large quantities online, it is better to use one of the large commercial gateways such as provided by the big banks to minimise your risk and maximise your security.

If you are selling high volume items, think twice before you start doing online transactions. Online presence and online transactions are not the same. Use your website to show the customers what you have to offer, and use it to get more customers and business contacts.

Many people waste their money trying to sell goods and services online simply because they have not done their preliminary preparation and research well enough.

Before planning to sell online, as I have stated in many articles just answer these questions and you will then see whether it is worth selling online.

• Do you sell a product or service that people will want to buy online?
• What is the benefit to your customer by purchasing that item or service online?
• Who are most likely to buy your products and where are thy located?
• How are you going to pack and ship the items?
• What will be your return policy?
• Can you manage refunds?
• Is your product a common one that is available always on retail stores?
• If so why do you think your customer will want to buy them online?
• How are you going to minimise errors happening. E.g.: a customer orders a blue one and you dispatch a pink one?
• What are the costs likely to occur for all above and are you able to price the item covering all the above costs and still make it cheaper than the same item in the brick and mortar store? (especially if you are selling a common item like clothing)
• If you have a shop, there might be customers who come to your shop in search of one item and get interested in other items that are in the store and this might bring you a big profit. Are you likely to get this type of sales online?
• If you supply your products to retail stores run by other companies, what percentage of your products get sold simply because they were in this main stores?

After finding answers to these questions you will be able to decide doing sales online is for you or not. You should still not back away. Your online presence is very likely to promote your business or brand and generate lot more sales offline.

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.

Storefront services

Storefront services provide you with a number of services including software to build an online store instantly in your browser using onscreen instructions, Website building software, e-mail, transaction processing and Web hosting. Some of these services are so simple that you do not need special technical knowledge. Storefront services provide you with online tools such as selecting a suitable template for your website and also you can enter information about your products and services and select the products you want to sell. You can select payment and shipping options as well. These services may charge you with a set up fee and a monthly fee for hosting your storefront. Notice the storefront services provided by smallbusiness.miva.com. and merchandizer.com

To host and create a store using a storefront hosting service, you will have to complete a series of forms. You can create a serviceable online store in few hours if you have products to sell and can supply all the information about your company that the storefront service requires.

Once you have set up the store, you can do website maintenance such as editing and adding new content and pictures to your store using your browser. Your activities may depend on the plan you purchase. You can select plans which will suite you the most.

As payment options, you might not need to obtain a merchant account depending on the service you select. Some services provide you payment options as well as their services. These storefront services are ideal for small business people. You do not have to be a computer geek to perform changes in your store front.

The main disadvantage of using some storefront hosting services is the lack of design flexibility. In addition, not all services can be easily customized to meet the specific needs of every business.

MIVA Merchant, with Store Morph Technology™, provides you with Powerful Store Design Tools, Catalogue Management, Inventory Tracking and Product Merchandising, Order Processing and Customer Management, Shipping Calculation and Payment Processing, Data Access and Storage, Affiliate Programs and Marketing Services, Easy-to-Use Administration Tools, Modular Architecture and also Documentation and Support. This again depends on the plan you purchase.

Merchandizer.com also provides you with rang of services for a monthly fee that varies on the plan you select. They provide you with Setup Features, Customer Support Functionality, Store Room & Inventory Controls, Store Interface Features, Promotions, Order Management, Customer Management and Product Management. They provide you with different shopping cart solutions, and their Digital goods support enables merchants to sell non-physical items such as software, documents, graphics, or any product or service that does not require shipping.

These are two services I have noticed as good service providers. But you can select the service provider according to your requirements.

Preparing to go online

Always we talk about marketing and planning sticky websites. But before you set up an online store of any kind, you need to access internet and obtain a web host. If you are doing serious business you cannot depend on public computers. You have to have your own computer system. There are Internet Service Providers, (ISP) to connect your computer via a cable or telephone line to Internet. Secondly, you need to find a web hosting provider to store the pages of your website for users to access. Your website services depend on the web hosting provider you select. It is very important to do primary research before you choose one.

An Internet Service Provider (ISP) connects your computer to the Internet. ISP provides you with an e-mail address and limited or full features of the Internet depending on the plan you purchase. Some plans are for limited downloads and limited services. Other plans include unlimited access. If you are doing serious business, unlimited access is the best plan you should choose.

Web hosting company that hosts a web site is a ‘web hosting provider’. You can select your ISP to host your website or select a different company to be your web host. Most Internet Service Providers give you limited amount of storage for your files that make up a website. But they do not provide you with necessary e-commerce facilities. You can set up a free website with a free web hosting service such as Free Server. But again you will not be allowed to conduct business on these free websites. They are limited in space and you might be allowed to have only two pages. It is advisable to select a web host carefully. It may depend upon what you really want to do with your website and the facilities your web host allows you according to their different plans. For example, Network Solutions describes the different plans that are available with them. You can select the plan according to your need.

Using web hosting services, you can create you web pages and upload them to your website using your computer. Your website is stored on the server, (web hosts computer) and connected to the internet. FTP is the commonly used protocol for exchanging files over internet. There must be two computers involved, your server (Web host), and your computer (Client). Once connected, you can do a number of operations such as uploading files to the server and downloading from the server including renaming and deleting files using your secure code. A full web hosting service will allow you to use CGI scripts. CGI script is a custom written common gateway Interface used in connection with other computers such as ordering information. Many web hosting services also provide multiple e-mail accounts, Shopping carts and a secure server to handle credit card processing. They also provide you with web page templates so that you can quickly create your own site. Other advantage of having a web hosting service is that you can have access to technical support when you need it.

Some companies with technical and financial resources, host their own website because they need high volume transactions. They also have sufficient staff to maintain their entire system.

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.

Here we go for an ISP

A web site offers more advantages over other modes of marketing. You can change contents very easily and quickly without spending much money. Printing catalogues are more expensive. You can easily provide your customer with more information of your product or service through a website. You will be targeting your market all over the world and at the same time tracking your competitors. Through a website you can easily track results of your marketing efforts and decide what method is appropriate for your business the most. Your business can be open 24hours a day and 7 days a week. You can build and enhance your customer loyalty through a website more than you do otherwise.

Before setting up a web site think about your business and consider the types of customers you get. Do you really need a website? Do not go for a website because everybody tends to. Just think and sometimes you will be well off as a simple villager than a townsman. Some businesses do not really need a website.

There are number of ways to do business online as I have stated in my previous articles. You can use low cost methods of advertising such as e-mails, forums, free article submissions, setting up an auto responding service and so on. You can use an affiliate marketing program and register as a vendor. This is a very effective method of marketing your business via an army of affiliates and you are not given the facility to track your visitors. Best thing is you can use this free web space as yet another way of advertising your business.

Best way to successfully sell online, is to sign up with a web hosting service that provides site storage, shopping cart and various other services you can benefit from. You can find such web hosts from $9 and onwards according to services and space they provide.

Search for web hosting services to find the most suitable service for you. Investigate and inquire about rates, years in business the different modem rates they support, security features and all other services they perform. If you are going to sell products, see if the service provider offers features like electronic ordering. Do they provide daily reports and also customer feed backs.

This is the preliminary set up for your online selling. Design your website in a way that your visitors can easily navigate. Online selling will start afterwards. Here we go again.

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.

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.

Alternative Online Trading Methods-CCNow

Some merchants do not wish to undergo the trouble of marketing and promotions. If you are one of them, there are services suitable for you. These services will retail the products for you while managing your account transactions.

If you wish to proceed in this direction, you have to do some research on these systems and choose a one that suits your needs. I will take CCNow as an example to give you a rough idea how it works. Remember you have to select a method most suitable and trustable for you. Do some research before selecting any method.

These companies will give you an HTML code to paste in your website. The HTML code provides a connection for online shoppers to select products to purchase, and add them to a virtual shopping cart provided by that company. Online shopper enters billing and shipping information to complete the sale. The retailer company CCNow, acts as your retailer by selling the merchandise to the consumer while simultaneously buying the merchandise from you. Their retail margin includes shopping cart system administration, online payment processing, Reporting, merchandising tools, customer service functions, and fraud and risk management. Every thing is already done for you.

After the shopper’s order has been processed, CCNow sends you a pending order notification email. Your business ships the item directly to the online shopper. You should mark the order as shipped in your CCNow account to complete the process.

Usually, CCNow sends one email message to the shopper after an order has been placed. Another email will be sent to the shopper once you mark the order as shipped. To maintain good communication with the online shopper, you can send an email to the shopper with the additional shipping details and a reminder that the charges will be billed by CCNow. For product Inventory tracking, CCNow will provide a basic inventory tracking system by product ID.

Your shoppers can use a variety of credit cards and PayPal with Companies like CCNow.
They charge you a rate for Retail margin, One-time new account set up fee, monthly fee and a Payment fee (per payment). These fees can vary.

CCNow will charge you a retail margin of 4.99% of gross sales plus $0.50per transaction and one time account set up fee $9.95. Monthly fee of $9.95 will be charged from you only if your gross sales are less than $100.00, otherwise this fee will not be charged. Payment fee will be charged for international Wire transfer or mailed check. This is usually $15.00for a wire transfer and $5.00 for a check.

One thing you must remember is each of these companies has their rules and regulations. With CCNow, you cannot place orders on behalf of customers, nor allow anyone to place orders on a customer’s behalf. Customers must place orders themselves through the CCNow Site. Beyond this there are other terms and conditions you must check before registering with any company.

Quality Supply Chains

Instead of writing another important topic on Internet banking, today I thought of writing how to manage a good supply chain and why internet is useful in this process.

There are thousands of e-bay retailers selling variety of things. Each one of them is trying to maintain their business as efficient as possible. To be successful they must be able to satisfy their customers with quality purchases and on time delivery.

One of my friends who had an e-bay retailing business told me the insecurity of e-bay. Several times when she inquired the wholesaler about the stock they told her there is more than she needed. She always placed half of it as available in her website. When a customer orders the item, what does the wholesaler say? “We do not have that much stock we are sorry”. Finally the retailer gets the bad name as not being able to meet the requirements. This does not only affect the retailer, this affects the whole supply chain. Retailer is only part of it. Wholesaler will get the bad name of not being able to provide accurate data. This is why business owners should have a good relation ship with each other in there supply chain.

The supply chain needs an accurate information flow for the transformation of goods from the origin of the raw material to the final consumer level. This involves distribution of product from supplier to the manufacture, wholesaler, and retailer and to the final consumer. These are points of the supply chain. This process includes activities of production planning, purchasing, materials management, distribution, customer service and forecasting. Ultimate success depends on the efficient functioning of the entire chain.

A wholesaler’s inability to maintain inventory control or respond to sudden changes in demand for stock may mean that a retailer not being able to meet the final consumer demand. And also if the retailer cannot maintain sales data properly may result in inadequate forecasting of manufacturing requirements. The dispatch and distribution functions need to be effective as well. Movement of product from one point to another has to be timely. The key to better communication is electronic transfer of information.

Using the internet in this process has a number of benefits.
It saves money and time by removing paper transactions. Reduce errors in the information passed along the supply chain by avoiding re-keying data from hand written or faxed documents. It improves satisfaction of the customers with the delivery of information in real time. Integration of dispatch and distribution data with product development data at each end results in real cost savings.

For information exchange associated with the movement of product along the supply chain to work effectively, the adoption of agreed data standards and conventions is required. The standards should be consistent with globally agreed standards. And technology should be proven. The standards should provide unique identifying numbering for products and business. Standards should include supporting information such as date and address. Allow the information to be read in a machine-readable format such as barcode. Message formats for the transactions and business documents you normally use.

Internet empowers the global supply chains (GSC) to function as one. You are not limited to your local niche. To maintain the (GSC) properly, you should communicate and find trustable businesses for your supply chain. For this you might even want to find out your wholesaler’s buying links. This is essential to maintain a good supply chain and prevent your business from getting a bad name.

Internet for Small Business (Stage of the world)

Real power of internet lies in the inter-connection of people and ideas. Directly sharing their opinion through the web and putting it into use. Web is turning the market into conversation. Businesses to business market places are blooming and they bring entire industries together making these supply chains faster than anybody can think. You cannot imagine that you are sitting in front of a computer and sharing ideas with people around the world.

Companies using new technologies and new selling techniques are improving faster than traditionalists. Their secret of success is sharing your products freely. Open Source software is probably the most profitable business. New companies have become market leaders because they do not sell most of the software, they rent them. Their main income is based upon specific set of applications. This is a brilliant customer service idea. Customers are attracted to your site because they can download free software. Regular visitors to these sites tend to buy what you have in the market for selling. Distributed technology thrives. If I am a frequent visitor to a certain web page and I get free products, I will visit the site again and again, if I need a major software package I would definitely buy from them.

Sharing your professional ideas is very important and fun. There are a large number of professionals like writers, musicians, artists, managers and so on who put their ideas in the internet for the common public to view and share.

Benefits of doing business over the internet is that you save your valuable time that you can spend with your family and friends, may be give some time to yourself. Cheap and easy communication methods used will spare you from printing letters and sending faxes.

You will have your local niche and also you will be trading globally extending your potential market place. You will have to trace frequent visitors to your website and send them special offers every three or six months. You will be saving the cost of premises and staff and also advertising.

If you do not have a business and would like to start one
You do not have sufficient capital to start a business
You want to be your own boss

Internet is the ultimate solution. First you must keep searching on what kind of business would be suitable for you. Just go through search engines typing your various search topics. Visit some websites. You can find lot of business ideas which may suite you. If you are a professional with lot of experience you can go to an independent contractor’s website and submit your profile. Prospective customers will be contacting you in no time if your profile presentation is really good.
Even if you do not have sufficient experience, but have the ability to publish and create adverts and cards, your creativity will work. You might be able to write articles if you are a good writer. You can be a freelancer. Only you have to show your customers that you have the ability. You can join an affiliate program like http://clickbank.com , http://www.shareasale.com and http://www.websponsors.com become an affiliate and choose many options of multiple streams of income. Before joining a program, inquire and search for highest commission paying programs.

I would suggest as your first step towards getting familiar with websites and publishing, just go and join an internet community blogs and have a blog for yourself. Blogs are like a website but do not have many tools as a website do. Chat with other bloggers and write articles and publish them in your blog. Believe me it is fun. If you are a good writer, you can join as an independent contractor in a website and add your bloging experience to your profile. This is one method of attracting customers. Read books about web hosting and blogs. You can search for them in Google search or any search engine and also reed books on the subject in your local library. You do not have to know lot of programming stuff to learn these things. It is not that scary. Believe me it is not that easy as it sounds either, if you want to succeed you have to work hard and dedicate more time to your business do not expect to be sitting on your pajamas and let money flow.