Ecommerce Web Design Blog

Think about the ecommerce websites you have visited and purchased from. Were they the ones that looked beautiful but took forever to load and were hard to check-out with? Chances are that the sites you bought from were not cluttered, had simple but well-thought out features and were easy to use and checkout with.

Keeping it simple is a design principle that comes out time and again in all forms of design and is advice that sits behind the website customisation philosophy that our graphic designers and website builders employ every time they create a new customer website.  Simplicity sells.

Here are some things to think about when you are adding your products and designing the content to go into your ozCart shopping cart:

• Overly complicated navigation will put your customers off. Who wants to buy if they have to go through 4-5 pages to even get to your checkout. Make it easy to use so that when you have them, they go all the way through checkout.
• Make your shipping, returns policy, pricing and delivery times clear to customers before they buy. This reduces disputes over returns and ensures that customers know what they are buying from you.
• Put yourself in your customer's shoes. What questions might they have about your products? Don't just paste in the manufacturer's descriptions, think about whether those descriptions are adequete for your buyers. Answer any other questions they might have in advance and you'll increase the chances of sales.
• Make your customers know they are only a step away from a real person. Even if you don't have phone support, publish as much information about your business online as you are prepared to disclose. If you have a phone, skype and fax number publish them because then people will know you are just a call away.

If you have an ozCart website, your website's data gets backed up automatically every day by the server. But your ozCart website only holds part of your business: what about everything else to do with your business? Copies of your business correspondence, your GST spreadsheets, product images you have downloaded from your camera, product specificications, emails from your suppliers, the list goes on.

The lack of a comprehensive backup of the a firm's electronic data is one of the biggest security and business risks that small businesses face. And few businesses even realise how big and real that risk is until it is too late: their office is broken into or they face a fire. 

Our advice for 2009: if you don't have any backups of your computer data and you are running a business, make it a new year's resolution that you keep.

Also note that if you are accepting credit cards, part of your PCI DSS compliance declaration for your business is that you have an adequete security and information recovery policy, so it's more than just a worthwhile exercise.

To backup your PC, you need the following things: backup software for your  PC,  backup hardware (something to physically back up on to) and a regular backup routine (daily, weekly or monthly depending on how much information you have and how often it changes). If you have the time,daily backups are definitely recommended.

Quality matters when it comes to backup equipment - your business is in the hands of the equipment you choose. We recommend you buy the best you can afford: a quality tape drive backup will be able to store large amounts of data and can be backed up relatively quickly compared to using 20 to 40 dvds to backup a typical computeror laptop.  Read the computer magazines - there are plenty of great reviews about the best backup software to buy.

Backups are not just for large corporates they are a business necessity.  If you arent' already, start backing up today.

Marketing your website takes a lot of hard work on top of all the built-in help that ecommerce features like search-engine-friendly (SEF) URLs can give you. As with most marketing, the results you get out of it depend on your determination and the speed you can gain results often depends on your budget. If you're running a small business you don't need to be too demoralised yet because there are a lot of things you can do to promote your site for free.

Here is a collection of ten top tips for free website marketing.

1. Offer something for free. People just love things for free and there are whole websites devoted to listing free offers and giveaways. Give away some really useful information that costs you nothing that is relevant to your customers (e.g. cake icing recipes, colour co-ordination consultation, photography tips) as an ebook or special download in return for just giving them your email address. Email addresses can be gold if used in well-thought out newsletter or email offer campaigns.
   
2. Write about your products. Your product descriptions will help, but whatever you are selling,  content can really improve your chances of selling your products. Especially if your product is hard to understand, helping people out with what to buy can help you sell those things in your store.
   
3. Create a viral marketing campaign. A viral marketing campaign is some unusual message or statement that people find so interesting, fun or unusual that they spread it to others or encourage others to visit your website to find out more.  The challenge is thinking up something so innovative it really captures the interest of your potential buyers. Get your creative thinking caps on!
4. Link, Link, Link.  The content on your page is one thing, but you need to have relevant websites linking to you if you want the search engines to consider your website important on the search terms your customers search for. Start building links through directory submissions, link exchange programmes, your business contacts, suppliers and whoever.
   
5. Promote your website on everything. Use your wbsite's address on everything you do: letterhead, forum posts, emails, newspaper advertising, t shirts, invoices, business cards etc. 

Remember to combine these starter ideas with doing the important things right: answer questions efficiently and in a friendly way, deliver your orders promptly, keep in contact with your customers (email addresses really can be worth their weight in gold) and keep your ecommerce website up to date.

A few hours ago Australian time, Barack Obama was sworn in as the new US president promising "new energy for America". The world's economy is responding - online even Amazon.com opened an Inaguration store selling items for those who would be attending the historic event. Barack Obama's ambition and focus is what has taken him to be the world's first black US president. What can you learn from him for your ecommerce store? Setting and achieving goals.

Your customers will be buying from you without being to see your products first, so it is very important to make your store inviting, professional looking and easy to use and to give your potential customers confidence that their personal information is secure. Part of this is writing good product descriptions, having great photos of your products, setting your prices right and making it easy for customers to contact you.  Another big part is setting goals.

Here are some tips for goal setting:

• Visualise where you want to be. Imagine yourself having already achieved those goals and ask yourself how did you get there? What did you do? This will help you understand the 'gap' between where you are now and where you want to be.
• Set goals that are going to be hard to achieve but not impossible. That will push you to 'stretch' out and push yourself to success
  
• Set some goals for 2009 and then break your goals down by month. You can then break these down to by week and even by day goals.
• Make your goals real for yourself by writing them on to a calendar. Mark out the key milestones that you must achieve in order to achieve your overall goal for 2009.
• Never give up. If there is a motivational line from a favourite song of yours, repeat it to yourself when you feel like you are losing your motivation.  Write your motivational line or quote on the top of your calendar.  Although its intended context was different, one great line comes from the Nickelback song 'Far Away' - "Give anything but I won't give up"

To stay focussed on your goals, make sure you manage stress levels and reward yourself when you do achieve your goals.

Having a powerful, fully featured shopping cart with a striking web design is just the first part of creating a successful online business. How you present your products to your customers is also absolutely critical. Investing in good product images can make the difference between average and outstanding ecommerce sales. Product images matter.

Remember, your product photos are the closest your buyer will get to seeing your product before they buy it. The better you can make your product photos, the more you will reduce the likelihood of returns or unhappy customers.  Realistic, clear photos that include close-ups where appropriate can help sell your products. In ecommerce, a picture really can be worth a thousand dollars.

The good news is that you don't need a professional photographic studio to get good product images for your shopping cart.  Even with a good point-and-shoot digital camera and the right lighting you can show off your products in a way to help them really stand out.

Here are some things we suggest you do when thinking about taking good photographs of your product images:

• Try to use the same or similar backgrounds, or a consistent theme for all of your product photos.
  
• If you are taking photos of small items like jewellery, make sure you have a digital camera with macro mode. The closer it can get to your products without taking over-exposed or blurred photos, the better. For small products like these, it will usually also be essential to invest in a light box. This is a rectangular box, usually made from fabric, that helps even out the light that shines on your product. Used with special fluroscent lights it mimics the light achieved through natural daylight.
• Check your photos to see if they give an accurate colour representation. If they don't you will probably need to adjust your camera's "white balance" settings. If you are photographing clothing, getting the colour right can be essential.
  
• If you can afford a top-end camera, look for one that is great with macro photography. The number of megapixels and optical zoom is not as important as its macro capabilities when it comes to taking photos of small products.