e-commerce solutions for you

e-commerce - Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some of the most common questions about e-commerce. If you have other

questions or would like more information about e-commerce please contact me.

• What is e-commerce?

"E-commerce" is simply online electronic commerce: buying and selling products over the Internet. Products are displayed in an online store, and potential customers can read information about the products, see them on the Web site, and have the option to purchase them online. The Mall is an excellent example of e-commerce in action.

• Is e-commerce a safe way to accept credit card information from my customers?

Yes. But you have to choose the correct shopping cart software (or credit card processing software) Safety is of utmost importance for all packages offer the highest level of online security. Your business information — sales, order numbers, and inventory information — should be kept securely, and your customers' credit card numbers are encrypted (encoded) to ensure that no one can intercept them.

• How can e-commerce help my business?

E-commerce lets businesses tap into the world's largest market: the Internet. According to a study by IntelliQuest Information Group, almost four out of five people surveyed said they planned to shop or buy online within the next year. With an eCommerce package, you can sell your products worldwide through your Web-based store. You can also decrease your overhead costs since online stores don't require expensive real estate or paid staff. E-commerce can dramatically increase your profits by reducing cost of sales.

• Isn't e-commerce just for big companies?

On the contrary, e-commerce is a unique opportunity for businesses of any size because it levels the playing field. With a well-built online store, even the smallest companies have great potential for success on the Web. Amazon.com is a great example of how e-commerce enabled a tiny startup to become the dominant player in the online book market.

• Do you need an existing business to profit from e-commerce?

Definitely not. All you need is a business checking account. Some of the most prominent e-commerce companies — including Music Boulevard, CDNow, and Cyberian Outpost — do not operate traditional brick-and-mortar stores. If you have something to sell, you don't need a store.

• What do I need to begin selling my products online?

All you need to get is a business checking account, all necessary business licenses, and an eCommerce package, eCommerce software,  webspace, merchant account, credit card gateway, and the necessary agreements with the credit card processor (the acquiring bank).

• How long will it take to set up my Web store?

Provided you have a business checking account, you can set up your new Web store within a week. If you already have a Web site, or if you choose one of the better eCommerce website developers , it may take even less time.

• Will I need to hire a Web site programmer or designer?

Not necessary. Most of the current turnkey solutions provide very powerful features that have all important components pre-built all you need do is fill in the blanks. But you would do better if you hire someone who has actually implemented a eCommerce web store, as this considerably reduces risk and might save you a lot of money.

• How much time will I need to invest in operating my online business?
  

The advantage of e-commerce is that, for much of the time, it runs itself. You do not have to monitor your site — the e-commerce software can correctly process incoming orders. In fact, when you purchase one of the larger eCommerce packages, your site can even process credit card payments for you.

• Will e-commerce work for my business?

 The question you should be asking is my product selling successfully offline! If the answer to you is "yes", then it will sell even better online. However you should take the following facts into consideration too. What is the level of your sales returns (it should be nil or almost nil). How good is your distribution network? It is very good if you can deliver within 24 to 48 hours in Canada and the USA. If you are unable to deliver to this entire region. Then you could specify the distribution radius in your website and ask customer living only in that radius to place orders. You can crosscheck the validity of the order using the postal codes on the customers address as a data validation procedure.

• How do I use e-commerce to develop my business ?

E-commerce can help your business to grow in many ways. Through operating a website and providing information regarding your knowledge with the use of auto-responders you will be able to communicate with your customers immediately. On-line sales is the most profitable way to boost your sales. The other advantage is that unlike your off-line business your online business is open 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Further, there are virtually no operational costs only income!

e-commerce can help in the following ways too:

1. To Establish A Presence

Approximately 240 million people worldwide have access to the World Wide Web (WWW). No matter what your business is, you can't ignore 240 million people. To be a part of that community and show that you are interested in serving them, you need to be on the WWW for them. You know your competitors will.

2. To Network

A lot of what passes for business is simply nothing more than making connections with other people. Every smart business person knows, it's not what you know, it's who you know. Passing out your business card is part of every good meeting and every business person can tell more than one story how a chance meeting turned into the big deal. Well, what if you could pass out your business card to thousands, maybe millions of potential clients and partners, saying this is what I do and if you are ever in need of my services, this is how you can reach me. You can, 24 hours a day, inexpensively and simply, on the WWW.

3. To Make Business Information Available

What is basic business information? Think of a Yellow Pages ad. What are your hours? What do you do? How can someone contact you? What methods of payment do you take? Where are you located at? Now think of a Yellow Pages ad where you have instant communication. What is today's special? Today's interest rate? Next week's parking lot sale information? If you could keep your customer informed of every reason why they should do business with you, don't you think you could do more business? You can on the WWW.

4. To Serve Your Customers

Making business information available is one of the most important ways to serve your customers. But if you look at serving the customer, you'll find even more ways to use WWW technology. How about making forms available to pre-qualify for loans, or have your staff do a search for that classic jazz record your customer is looking for, without tying up your staff on the phone to take down the information? Allow your customer to punch in sizes and check it against a database that tells him what color of jacket is available in your store? All this can be done, simply and quickly, on the WWW.

5. To Heighten Public Interest

You won't get Newsweek magazine to write up your local store opening, but you might get them to write up your Web Page address if it is something new and interesting. Even if Newsweek would write about your local store opening, you wouldn't benefit from someone in a distant city reading about it, unless of course, they were coming to your town sometime soon. With Web page information, anybody anywhere who can access the Web and hears about you is a potential visitor to your Web site and a potential customer for your information there.

6. To Release Time Sensitive Materials

What if your materials need to be released no earlier than midnight? The quarterly earnings statement, the grand prize winner, the press kit for the much anticipated film, the merger news? Well, you sent out the materials to the press with "The-do-not-release-before-such-and-such-time" statement and hope for the best. Now the information can be made available at midnight or any time you specify, with all related materials such as photographs, bios, etc. released at exactly the same time. Imagine the anticipation of "All materials will be made available on our Web site at 12:01 AM". The scoop goes to those that wait for the information to be posted, not the one who releases your information early.

7. To Sell Things

Many people think that this is the number 1 thing to do with the World Wide Web, but we made it number seven to make it clear that we think you should consider selling things on the Internet and the World Wide Web after you have done all the things above and maybe even after doing quite a few more things from this list. Why? Well, the answer is complex but the best way to put it is, do you consider the telephone the best place to sell things? Probably not. You probably consider the telephone a tool that allows you to communicate with your customer, which in turn helps you sell things. Well, that's how we think you should consider the WWW. The technology is different, of course, but before people decide to become customers, they want to know about you, what you do and what you can do for them. Which you can do easily and inexpensively on the WWW. Then you might be able to turn them into customers.

8. To make pictures, sound and film files available

What if your widget is great, but people would really love it if they could see it in action? The album is great but with no airplay, nobody knows that it sounds great? A picture is worth a thousand words, but you don't have the space for a thousand words? The WWW allows you to add sound, pictures and short movie files to your company's info if that will serve your potential customers. No brochure will do that.

9. To reach a highly desirable demographic market

The demographic of the WWW user is probably the highest mass-market demographic available. Usually college-educated or being college educated, making a high salary or soon to make a high salary, it's no wonder that Wired magazine, the magazine of choice to the Internet community, has no problem getting Lexus and other high-end marketer's advertising. Even with the addition of the commercial on-line community, the demographic will remain high for many years to come.

10. To Answer Frequently Asked questions

Whoever answers the phones in your organization can tell you, their time is usually spent answering the same questions over and over again. These are the questions customers and potential customers want to know the answer to before they deal with you. Post them on a WWW page and you will have removed another barrier to doing business with you and freed up some time for that harried phone operator.

11. To Stay In Contact With Salespeople

Your employees on the road may need up-to-the-minute information that will help them make the sale or pull together the deal. If you know what that information is, you can keep it posted in complete privacy on the WWW. A quick local phone call can keep your staff supplied with the most detailed information, without long distance phone bills and tying up the staff at the home office.

12. To Open International Markets

You may not be able to make sense of the mail, phone and regulation systems in all your potential international markets, but with a Web page, you can open up a dialogue with international markets as easily as with the company across the street. As a matter-of-fact, before you go onto the Web, you should decide how you want to handle the international business that will come your way, because your postings are certain to bring international opportunities your way, whether it is part of your plan or not. Another added benefit; if your company has offices overseas, they can access the home offices information for the price of a local phone call.

13. To Create a 24 Hour Service

If you've ever remembered too late or too early to call the opposite coast, you know the hassle. We're not all on the same schedule. Business is worldwide but your office hours aren't. Trying to reach Asia or Europe is even more frustrating. But Web pages serve the client, customer and partner 24 hours a day, seven days a week. No overtime either. It can customize information to match needs and collect important information that will put you ahead of the competition, even before they get into the office.

14. To Make Changing Information Available Quickly

Sometimes, information changes before it gets off the press. Now you have a pile of expensive, worthless paper. Electronic publishing changes with your needs. No paper, no ink, no printer's bill. You can even attach your web page to a database which customizes the page's output to a database you can change as many times in a day as you need. No printed piece can match that flexibility.

15. To Allow Feedback From Customers

You pass out the brochure, the catalog, the booklet. But it doesn't work. No sales, no calls, no leads. What went wrong? Wrong color, wrong price, wrong market? Keep testing, the marketing books say, and you'll eventually find out went wrong. That's great for the big boys with deep pockets, but who is paying the bills? You are and you don't have the time nor the money to wait for the answer. With a Web page, you can ask for feedback and get it instantaneously with no extra cost. An instant e-mail response can be built into Web pages and can get the answer while its fresh in your customers mind, without the cost and lack of response of business reply mail.

16. To Test Market New Services and Products

Tied into the reason above, we all know the cost of rolling out a new product. Advertising, advertising, advertising, PR and advertising. Expensive, expensive, expensive. Once you have been on the Web and know what to expect from those who are seeing your page, they are the least expensive market for you to reach. They will also let you know what they think of your product faster, easier and much less expensively than any other market you may reach. For the cost of a page or two of Web programming, you can have a crystal ball into where to position your product or service in the marketplace. Amazing.

17. To Reach The Media

Every kind of business needs the exposure that the media can bring, as we touched on in reason #5 "To Heighten Public Interest", but what if your business is reaching the media, as a newswire, a publicist or a public policy group. The media is the most wired profession today, since their main product is information and they can get it more quickly, cheaply and easily on-line. On-line press kits are becoming more and more common, since they work with the digital environment of more and more pressrooms. Digital images can be put in place without the stripping and shooting of the old pressrooms and digital text can be edited and outputted on tight deadlines. All the these can be made available on a Web page.

18. To Reach The Education and Youth Market

If your market is education, consider that most universities already offer Internet access to their students and most K-12's will be on the Internet within the next few years. Books, athletic shoes, study courses, youth fashion and anything else that would want to reach these overlapping markets needs to be on the Web. Even with the coming of the commercial on-line services and their somewhat older populations there will be nothing but growth in the percentage of the under 25 market that will be on-line.

19. To Reach The Specialized Market

Sell fish tanks, art reproductions, flying lessons? You may think that the Internet is not a good place to be. Well, think again. The Internet isn't just computer science students anymore. With the 70 million and growing users of the WWW, even the most narrowly defined interest group will be represented in large numbers. Since the Web has several very good search programs, your interest group will be able to find you, or your competitors.

20. To Serve Your Local Market

We've talked about the power to serve the world with a Web page. How about your neighborhood? If you are located in San Francisco Bay Area, the Raleigh NC area, Boston or New York, there is probably enough local customers with Web access to make it worth your while to consider Web marketing. A local Palo Alto, CA restaurant even takes lunch orders through the Internet! But no matter where you are, if the big client has Web access, you should be there too.

• What products can be sold using the internet ?

Any type of product can be sold using the internet but the most suitable type of product is what can be delivered over the internet e.g. software, text files, e-books, selling subs to members only sections of websites, information etc. These products also have the added advantage of being high margin products i.e. no cost of production (other than setup costs) against a perpetual flow of sales income!

• How do I promote my website ?

Their are many ways of promoting your website for free. Some pointers have been given below:

Search engines, keyword density analyzer (Search engines rank pages higher based on keyword density), free banners, free classified, join relevant internet clubs, free e-mail lists (not very effective), compile a list of prospective customers through personal contact (no spamming). Publish your own e-zine a very effective way of developing loyal clientele.

Some valuable advice can be obtained for only $17 (Make Your Site Sell), but first check out the FREE DOWNLOAD for a sample of the real thing.

• How much will it cost to promote my website ?

If you are adept at marketing and know how to design web pages to attract the search engines and identify your niche correctly it should not cost  you anything.

If you have $17 you could always buy this package "Make Your Site Sell" MYSS I have used this e-book and it has worked for me. I personally recommend this book - at $17 (800 pages) it is virtually a give-away.

• What are the critical success factors in designing good e-commerce website?

Success on the internet is dependent upon a few important factors. Almost everyone including the top internet marketers do not get the following correct the first time round:

TITLE - The MOST IMPORTANT factor is the title that you give your website using  as few words as possible and give the surfer the understanding of what you have to offer in your website. The title should be unique and easy to recall.

READABILITY - All sentences should be short and to the point. Jargon and complex sentence structure should be avoided at all times.

TIME - It is very critical that the potential customer is able identify what your selling within 10 to 15 seconds of entering the site

SELLING POWER: Every sentence on your website should be directed towards making the sale for example go to this site MYSS try and find any sentence that is not directly or indirectly connected towards making the sale.

• How should I market a product on the internet?

It's not about marketing the product itself but promoting the website then the product will be automatically promoted. If the product is specific to a certain industry you have to make sure that your marketing effort is directed at those hub websites where your typical customer would be accessing the internet. This is up to your judgment. Innovative and unusual methods of attracting attention are required. This is where the internet millionaires are made - it is through thinking differently.