Ecommerce Web Design Blog

If you're doing business in Australia, an Australian domain name with a .com.au extension (e.g. oscworks.com.au) is an invaluable asset. It tells visitors to you are an Australian business which can give them confidence and trust in buying from you.

That's because:

1. you need an Australian Business Number or Australian Trademark to register one
   
2. your domain name must be relevant to your business.
   
3. Search engines like Google Australia and Yahoo! Australia can often give precedence to Australian sites in search engine results by Australian web surfers. 
4. You can promote the .com.au domain offline too - on your business cards, in brochures and any newspaper/magazine/other advertising you do.

If you are buying a .com.au domain we often recommend to customers that you also buy the equivalent .net.au domain name to make it as easy as possible for customers to find you, and prevent competitors or others from registering it before you get the chance. If your business name is generic there may be many businesses in Australia who meet the criteria to register a name and in those situations the domain name registry allocates domains on a first-come-first-served basis.

Osc Works provides Australian domain names (e.g. .com.au or .net.au) at highly competitive prices: $37.95 incluing gst for 2 years.

You can still be successful with a .com in Australia

If your website has a .com domain name however, your store can still rank well in Australian search engines as well as the rest of the world. International .com domains often rank well worldwide compared to Australian domains which can be very useful if you are hoping to sell your products online internationally. You can also tell search engines like Google you are an Australian website through the 'Regional Settings' in tools like Google's Webmaster Tools to ensure your website is picked up appropriately by Australian search engines.

Osc Works also provides International domain names (e.g. .com) at highly competitive prices: $16.95 including gst per annum. .co.nz domains are priced at $34.95 including gst per annum.

Note the prices quoted in this article are correct at time of writing (29 Jan 2009) and are subject to change. Please check our domain name checker for current prices.

One of the biggest factors that people don't take into account when buying shopping cart software is the cost of support . There are many 'free' ecommerce solutions in the marketplace, but when something goes wrong with them, what do you do? You could post in the forums relevant to the free shopping cart you are using, but if you don't get a reply or the solution posted doesn't work, where do you turn?What if you are getting a unique error message?

Unless the problem you are having is to do with the server's configuration, in many cases they will also be unable to help. You will then be left on your own and with the expensive problem of trying to hire paid support from the original  developers of the cart or a third-party developer. Depending on your problem, either option could be very expensive.

Some shopping cart software products charge hundreds or even thousands of dollars per month in addition to the cost of their hosting environment just to give you the right to submit a very limited number of problems to them per year. 

If you are choosing a shopping cart for your business, support matters. Our advice is that you should choose carefully.

If you are choosing a hosted ecommerce solution like ozCart (where you are renting the shopping cart software but own your domain name and products), then support is often included in your monthly payment. It's good to check however what support you get for your monthly payments. For example, ask your shopping cart provider:

• Can you get support after 5pm? If you're working a full time job, you will often be working on your store between 5-8pm so look for a provider who has support during these hours.
  
• Can you get support at weekends?
• What support options do you get? Is there an extensive knowledgebase covering the key problems you may face? Is there an email ticket system to ask questions if you can't get what you want from the knowledgebase? Is there phone support or support live chat?
  
• How many support enquiries do you get for your monthly payment?
• Is proactive website performance management support provided behind-the-scenes?
• Is there a willingness of your provider to maintain a secure environment for your store?

Although ozCart from Osc Works does not offer phone or online chat support, our customers are not disadvantaged by this at all. We are proud to offer oustanding ecommerce support 7 days a week, 365 day email support via our ticket system (with unlimited tickets on all our ecommerce packages), plus a members knowledgebase with answers to questions based on past customer enquiries.  Our support team also provides proactive support where critical bug fixes and security patches can be implemented on stores without a ticket submission even being required if we become aware of them.

Choose an ecommerce software provider who includes support as part of their monthly fee and either provides a generous or unlimited number of ticket support enquiries and reasonable rates for extra work if required.

Shopping carts help you reach out to new customers when economic times are tougher and the business expenses of running a physical shop put a squeeze on your margins.  A shopping cart website that is well promoted can lower your cost of product distribution and widen your reach of customers.

If you want to get a shopping cart up and running quickly to complement your physical shop, here are five tips to get you started:

1. Promote your website, heavily. One of the biggest mistakes made by customers new to ecommerce is that they expect instant traffic. But selling online in your own store is not like selling on an auction site. A standalone online store has the benefits of not having to pay listing and success fees, but you have to build your own traffic through a combination of advertising, offline promotion and optimising your website to be more relevant to certain (popular) search terms (this is called sarch engine optimisation).
2. Use your physical store to promote your website. Run a referral program to encourage visitors to your physical store to refer others to your site or come back and shop out of hours with you again. Have a 'Have you seen our website?' poster, giveaway card or promotion in-store. Don't forget to promote your physical store in your online store too - if customers know you have a physical presence this can help them feel more comfortable buying from you.
3. Focus on product photography. In a physical store a customer can look, smell, touch or try the product you are selling. Online your product descriptions and photography have to work hard to ensure that they give the customer the experience they desire. Great photography and well written descriptions (not just the manufacturer's provided description) will help ensure your site is unique, inviting and delivers you the best possible value for money for your online store.
4. Guide customers through your site. In your physical store you may have signs to tell customers where to find the things they are looking for and any promotional items such as specials. Use carefully placed banners to achieve this same effect online. Highlight specials and provide useful additional information. For example, if you are a jewellery store, tell your customers how they can work out their ring size.
5. Use consistent branding.  Your store will be more familiar to your existing customers if they feel like they are shopping in your physical store. And for new customers, they will be able to make the linkages between your physical and online store.
   

What are the best fonts to use for content pages on the Internet? This is an important question for web design as well as writing content pages for ecommerce websites.

Fonts do not download with HTML pages. This means that when a web browser goes to display an HTML page, the fonts used to draw that page come only from the visitor's own computer. If you use a font that your visitors don't have installed, then your pages will not appear as you intended them to look.

It is important to choose a font that is easy to read and commonly available if you want your pages to display correctly on the Internet. 

There are five main types of fonts (font families):

• Serif fonts - these have decorative pieces on their ends (called serifs). Times New Roman is one of the most commonly occuring versions of this font on modern PCs
• Sans Serif fonts - do not have those descriptive pieces and are often used in headings. Arial is a commonly occuring example of a sans serif font.
  
  
  
• Cursive: These are fonts that look like human handwriting.
• Monospace: These are fixed width fonts and behave like typewriter spacing. Courier New is an example of a monospace font.
• Fantasy fonts are those that do not fall into any of the above category. Wingdings symbols is an example of a font in this category.

So what fonts are the best to use?

Here is a quick guide to fonts that are commonly occuring on Windows and Macintosh computers (without installing extra software) that you could use in your content pages.  There are similar versions available on Windows and Macintosh PCs so your content will be displayed in a similar way across different types of computers.  

If you have a font you really want to use and it is not available in this table, then you can always insert it as a graphic into your content. Design companies often do this with special headings. Don't overdo it though as search engines can't read the text inside images.

Our best advice is to use an HTML editor like Expressions that applies the font family names to your content instead of a specific font.

As a rule of thumb for printed material, graphic design handbooks often suggest a Serif font like Times for body text and a Sans-Serif font for headings.  Because people read differently on the Internet we generally suggest that our customers use sans-serif fonts like Arial for body text and product descriptions too. In our view, simplicity sells.

As shopping cart software providers we see a large number of online businesses start up. If you're thinking of starting an online business and want something you can get started quickly, here are some great ideas to get you started.

We haven't written anything about these and they are in no particular order, so you will have to go on to Google to decide how competitive they are, how hard they would be for you to start, and if they are right for you. These are just ideas we have seen or have had. Judge these ecommerce ideas for yourself.

1. Computer Parts
   
2. Kitchen equipment
   
3. Children's clothing
   
4. Health food supplements
   
5. Maternity products
   
6. Baby products e.g. nappies
   
7. Personalised wine bottles
   
8. Downloadable fonts
   
9. Downloadable ebooks
   
10. Downloadable mobile phone ringtones
    
11. Women's clothing
12. Aromatherapy products
    
13. Auto parts
    
14. Art supplies
    
15. Mobile Phone Accessories
    
16. Batteries for Digital Cameras/Phones
    
17. Hand made jewellery
    
18. Children's toys
    
19. Building supplies
    
20. Manchester and homeware products
21. Fast food local deliveries
    
22. Gift Hampers
    
23. DVDs
    
24. Furniture
25. Scrapbooking Supplies
    

How you can find out other ideas

One of the best ways to think about what is selling online is to take a look at what people are buying online. Go to auction websites like eBay to see what is selling and what is not, look in the portfolios of shopping cart software sites (although cart sellers rarely post more than a small selection of the sites they have on their books) and into their ecommerce demos.