Blog Entries tagged 'shopping carts'

Convert your clicks to sales

sales@oscworks.com.au — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0100

You have done all the hard work promoting your website to get traffic. How do you make sure that once you get traffic it turns into sales?

There are two key parts to the answer to this question:

Make sure you are receiving the right trafficEnsure that you maximise your chances to get sales once you have the right people on your site

Getting the right people to your website
It is easy to add content pages to your website about very popular topics or write ads that [...]

Ecommerce Support: Don't pay too much

sales@oscworks.com.au — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

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 proble [...]

Shopping carts can expand your business

sales@oscworks.com.au — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

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:

Promote your website, heavily. One of the biggest mistakes [...]

Fonts for your content pages

sales@oscworks.com.au — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

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 im [...]

25 great business ideas you could start online

sales@oscworks.com.au — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

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 [...]

Avoid temptation: Keep your web designs simple

sales@oscworks.com.au — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

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 graph [...]

Ambition for 2009: Grow your online business

sales@oscworks.com.au — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

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 customer [...]

Give it your best shot: Great product images help you sell

sales@oscworks.com.au — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

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 [...]

Build confidence to boost your ecommerce sales

sales@oscworks.com.au — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Something as simple as ensuring you have your correct contact details on your website could help your ecommerce sales soar.

More customers than ever are buying online, but they are wary and savvy too because online they can't see you or your store or physically look at your merchandise before they buy. So they often look for other indicators of credibility. For example, does the website have a secure checkout? Is there a clearly defined returns policy? Are the site's terms and [...]

How do I report a hacking attempt on my website?

sales@oscworks.com.au — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

If a hacker tries to gain access to your website or claims that they have, what can you do? Who can you report it to? Hacking is a very serious computer crime so there are a number of places you can go from your hosting provider to the FBI to attempt to trace the hackers and have them stopped.

First, report the hacking attempt to your website hosting provider. They will be able to trace the activity of the hacker on your server and will probably be able to block them from returnin [...]

What Ecommerce Features should you choose?

sales@oscworks.com.au — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

If you are looking to buy an ecommerce website to start an online shop, you may have been trying to decide what ecommerce features are best for you. If you looked at some of our previous posts, you may have been visiting your competitor's websites and those of other online shops that you like to shop at.

There's another place you can go to help determine what ecommerce features you can choose. Review sites.

Finding a shopping cart software review website that covers Austr [...]

What is the best shopping cart website to get noticed by search engines?

sales@oscworks.com.au — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Whatever you want to sell online, if you want the best return on your shopping cart investment, you will need to get noticed by the search engines. So how do you go about promoting your ecommerce website?

Firstly, make sure you have chosen a shopping cart provider that allows you to set the title and search engine 'meta tags' for your website's home page. The best title and meta description for you will depend on your industry, what your customers search for and what y [...]

Happy New Year from Osc Works

sales@oscworks.com.au — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

As we move into 2009, one of your new year's resolutions may have been to start the online business you have been planning for some time. One of the key questions you will face as you start an online whop is what shopping cart software to use. Many of the carts available in Australia tout many seemingly powerful and useful features, so how do you decide what ecommerce features will be right for your business?

Our advice to you is to try them out. Get a piece of pap [...]

Ramp up ozCart with add-ons

sales@oscworks.com.au — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Make your site the best it can be with ozCart shopping cart add-ons
ozCart is already an ecommerce shopping cart packed with many powerful features relevant to the Australian market. Many of our customers are not aware that we also have an add-ons shop which allows you to purchase additional ecommerce features for your ozCart website. Some are installable components, others are web design and ecommerce services.

Our ozCart add-ons shop includes features that are requested by user [...]

Stay focussed: Small businesses are successful too

sales@oscworks.com.au — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0100

How to compete against larger competition
When you are in a market competing against much larger competition it can be easy to get demoralised and feel like you are in a David v Goliath battle. Sometimes the larger competitors will be very afraid of smaller competitors entering and taking their margins and resort to 'competition bashing' instead of trying to compete on what they can offer.

Competitive environment: Are your competitors using "FUD" to frighten your [...]

Avoid spam links on your shopping cart website

sales@oscworks.com.au — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0100

It is common practice for your ecommerce website provider to put an acknowledgement of their shopping cart software as a link at the bottom of your website. One link is fair and enough, but what if your web design or ecommerce provider is filling your footer with spam links?

The link at the bottom of hosted ecommerce websites site is a useful search engine benefit for the shopping cart provider and a fair acknowledgement that they have provided the shopping cart product to you tha [...]

How to price your products online

sales@oscworks.com.au — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Whether you are selling online or offline, pricing your products is a key part of doing business. What methods can you use to price your online products? Here are a few tips you may wish to consider.

Some common methods to price products include:

Cost-based pricing (also called cost-plus pricing. this is the price that you paid for an item plus a mark-up) Market-based pricing (what your competition is selling items at)Value-based pricing (what your customers value your product [...]

Keep your site fresh to keep your customers buying

sales@oscworks.com.au — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0100

For a wary online consumer, one way to assess whether an ecommerce website is safe and secure to purchase from is to look at whether the site is kept up-to-date.

A well designed website that has a good selection of products, an easy-to-use checkout system, an active newsletter and is obviously well maintained is more likely to inspire confidence in the buyer that the products they order from you will be of high quality and actually get delivered to them. Keeping your shopping car [...]

Happy 50th birthday credit cards

sales@oscworks.com.au — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0100

This week, the credit card turned 50 years old. Credit cards are an invaluable part of everyday life and for many owners of online shops, essential.

The worldwide credit card network was started by American Express in 1958. Bank of America followed quickly with their BankAmericard. The Bank launched the card in a novel way, sending out 60,000 cards to consumers in the area. At first, few had any idea what to do with the cards but they learned the benefits of credit cards quickly a [...]

Ecommerce Setup Costs: Don't pay too much

sales@oscworks.com.au — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100

When shopping for ecommerce software to start your own online shop, features and the monthly costs are important factors to consider. But even if the monthly payments are affordable for your business, what about the setup cost? Small businesses need every cent they can save when they set up given the costs of business registrations, phone and Internet connections, business cards, stationery, suppliers and buying stock. So why spend too much for your ecommerce store setup?

What [...]