How to Make Your Ecommerce Site Happen

If you plan to sell anything online, having an ecommerce
plan is as important as your original business plan.
Because you’re exploring new territory, making decisions
about technology and marketing, and establishing a new
set of vendor relationships, a well-thought-out plan will
serve you well.
Your ecommerce plan starts with website goals. Who
are your target customers? What do they need? Are they
getting information only, or can they buy products at
your site? These key questions, asked and answered
early, will determine how much time and money you’ll
need to develop and maintain an online presence.
Second, decide what products or services you'll offer.
How will you position and display them? Will you offer
both online and offline purchasing? How will you handle
shipping and returns?
As you explore the web for vendors to support your e-
business, have a clear idea of how you want to handle
the “back end” of the business. If you decide to sell
online, you’ll need a shopping cart component, which is
a means of handling credit card processing, and an
organized order fulfillment process.
Finally, even if you build an amazing website, don’t
assume people will find you on their own. If you want to
develop a consistent flow of traffic to your site, it’s
essential that you plan, execute and maintain an ongoing
and multifaceted promotional strategy that’s carefully
targeted to your audience. This is in addition to the
promotions, advertising and marketing you already do
for your brick-and-mortar business.
The Name Game
Once you’ve decided to have a website, one of your first
“to-do” items is to make a list of possible website names
or URLs. Then run, don’t walk, to the nearest computer,
log on to the internet, go to your favorite search engine,
and type in “domain registration.” You'll find a list of
companies, such as NetworkSolutions , GoDaddy and
Register , that will guide you through the simple domain
registration process. For a modest fee, you can register
a domain name for one or more years.
If the name you decide on is taken, you’ll want to have
at least two or three backup options. Many of the
domain name registrars, like GoDaddy or Register, offer
several alternatives that are still available. From the
available names, choose one that’s easy to spell and
remember, and describes what your company does.
Make sure you’re not imposing on someone else’s
trademark or copyrighted name. In many cases, the
name of your company, with the addition of dot-com
(www.[YourCompanyName].com) is a suitable domain
name that you should definitely register. Once you’ve
chosen a name, prompts on the domain registration site
will guide you through a simple registration procedure.
With your ecommerce name established, start telling
people your domain name and promoting it heavily. Print
your web address on your business cards, brochures,
letterhead, invoices and press releases as well as on
your product packaging and within product user manuals
and advertisements. Stick it on other items, too, such as
mouse pads, T-shirts, promotional key chains, and even
your company’s van.
Website Basics
Once you’ve registered your domain name and have a
plan in place for what you want to offer prospective and
existing customers online, the next major challenge is
designing and building your actual website or online
presence. A well-thought-out site outline includes:
Content. The key to a successful site is content. Give site
visitors lots of interesting information, incentives to visit
and buy, and ways to contact you. Once your site is up
and running, continually update and add fresh content to
keep people coming back.
Structure. Decide how many pages to have and how
they’ll be linked to each other. Choose graphics and
icons that enhance the content.
Design. With the content and structure in place, site
design comes next. Whether you’re using an outside
designer or doing it yourself, concentrate on simplicity,
readability, and consistency. Remember to focus on
what you want to accomplish.
Navigation. Make it easy and enjoyable for visitors to
browse the site. For example, use no more than two or
three links to major areas and never leave visitors at a
dead end.
Credibility . This is an issue that shouldn’t be lost in the
bells and whistles of establishing a website. Your site
should reach out to every visitor, telling that person why
they should buy your product or service. It should look
professional, and give potential customers the same
confidence they'd get with a phone call or face-to-face
visit with you. Remind visitors that you don’t exist only
in cyberspace. Your company’s full contact information—
company name, complete address, telephone and email
—should appear on all or most of your individual web
pages and be displayed prominently on your site’s
homepage.
At this point, you have two options: You can bring your
detailed outline to a prospective web designer, or you
could go the do-it-yourself route. Once a designer has
your outline, the process will be more efficient, but
creating a website from scratch can still be costly and
time-consuming. Consider researching one of the many
website or ecommerce turnkey solution services, which
allow you to design, publish, and manage a website or
ecommerce site by customizing website templates using
online design and management tools. These services are
inexpensive, powerful, and allow you to create highly
professional websites with no programming skills.
Once you know what tools and resources you’ll use to
create and manage the site, the next step is to organize
your site’s potential content into a script. Your script is
the numbered pages that outline the site’s content and
how web pages will flow from one to the next. Writing a
script also ensures your website is chock-full of
appropriate content that’s well-organized. Page one is
your homepage, the very first page that site visitors see
when they type in your URL. Arrange all the icons
depicting major content areas in the order you want
them. Pages two through whatever correspond to each
icon on your homepage.
To create a successful website, all the elements must
work seamlessly. Sure, having top-notch content is
essential, but it must be displayed in a manner that’s
easy to understand, visually appealing, simple to
navigate, and of interest to your target audience. It’s not
just about what you have to say, but it’s also the manner
in which you present that content that will either attract
or repel your audience.
Finding the Host with the Most
Now that your site’s design and content creation are well
underway, the next step is publishing your site on the
internet. For this, you have three basic options. The first
is to host it yourself on a computer that can be
dedicated as a web server (or a computer that’s
permanently connected to the internet) and has a
broadband internet connection. This will prove costly to
set up and maintain. For most online businesses, this
isn’t the best option, at least in the beginning.
The second option is to use an established and reputable
web hosting company, which stores and manages
websites for businesses. There are several large, well-
established web hosting companies that cater to a
worldwide audience, including Yahoo!, Google, and
GoDaddy. Or you might prefer a local, small-hosting
provider, since they offer a direct contact—especially
important if your site goes down. Most of these
companies also offer domain name services, so you can
sign up when you choose your name.
A third option—and the most popular (as well as least
expensive)—is to use a website turnkey solution, a
company that provides all the site development tools and
hosting services in one easy-to-use, low-cost, bundled
service, which is entirely online-based. In other words, to
create, publish, and manage your website, you don’t
need to install any specialized software, and no
programming is required. Using an internet search
engine, enter the phrase “website turnkey solution” or
“ecommerce turnkey solution.” Also, check out what’s
offered by Yahoo!, Google, GoDaddy and eBay.
Not sure which host to choose? Log on to Compare Web
Hosts, where you can compare hosts based on price.
Other variables include amount of disk space allocated
to you, available bandwidth, number of email services
offered, customer service support availability, database
support, and setup fees. For even more information,
check out CNET Editors’ web hosting guide , with
discount codes for some.
Ecommerce Needs
Many ecommerce entrepreneurs turn to web hosting
companies to solve all their ecommerce needs, such as
handling credit card transactions, sending automatic
email messages to customers thanking them for their
orders, and forwarding the order to them for shipping
and handling—and of course, domain registration and
hosting.
Another option is to incorporate an electronic shopping
cart module, which allows people to place their orders
online and process their credit card payment
transactions. A site using a shopping cart module should
have these four components:
1. Catalog . Customers can view products, get
information and compare prices.
2. Shopping cart . The icon works like the real thing. It
tracks all the items in the basket and can add or delete
items as the customer goes along. It’s like an online
order form.
3. Checkout counter . The shopper reviews the items in
their cart, makes changes and decides on shipping
preferences, gift-wrapping and the like.
4. Order processing . The program processes the credit
card (or payment option), verifies all information, and
sends everything to the database.