ECommerce | eCommerce and Marketing News & Tips

Online Business Basics: Overcoming Failure

Posted in eCommerce August 20th, 2009 by admin - Comments (2)

The dot come bubble

The online business boom really garnered a ton of media attention about 10 years ago when “dot com” was one of the most heard terms on television and in publications like Newsweek. That type of online business was completely unexplored territory and definitely had its ups and downs. Today, the online business world is a different place but is especially ripe for the picking if you have the drive and motivation to make it happen. It sounds scary but the number of people who attempt to form an online business compared to the number that actually succeed is extremely low. Some circles will swear as many as 90% will fail. Read more…

When good looks do not equal good sales

Posted in eCommerce August 17th, 2009 by admin - Be the first to comment

According to a new research conducted by Bianca Price PhD of University of South Australia, the power of “gorgeous girls” at the counter has some very clear limits. Regardless of whether or not the product was related to appearance (for example, a mobile phone compared to mascara) if the female customer perceived the staff member to be better looking than her, she was less likely to purchase the product.

Good looks don't convert to sales?

This may raise some eyebrows but it’s something I suspected all along (I never liked salemen who are better looking than me :p). How does this apply to online selling, you ask? Well, there are several take home lessons from this research for online marketers and business owners: Read more…

Online Business – What you need to know to start an online business

Posted in eCommerce August 16th, 2009 by admin - Be the first to comment

online business

There can be no doubt that the online sector is the largest growing business arena today. Almost every company, large or small, is attempting to establish a profitable and efficient online presence. For some organisations, this means the creation of an ecommerce site, for others it simply means setting up a professional website, to act as a store window. However a company decides it can best make use of the World Wide Web; there are a whole host of challenges to be overcome. Below we will take a look at some of the issues face by a business wishing to establish itself online, and discuss how these can be overcome. Read more…

Zencart SSL/TLS – do you really need it?

Posted in eCommerce,Tips & Tricks August 12th, 2009 by admin - Be the first to comment

Ehh? SSL? What is it?

SSL: Secure Sockets Layer (this is the predecessor of TLS)
TLS: Transport Layer Security

What are they: cryptographic protocols that provide security and data integrity for communications over networks such as the Internet. TLS and SSL encrypt the segments of network connections at the Transport Layer end-to-end. (wikipedia)

Why is it important (technically): The TLS protocol allows client/server applications to communicate across a network in a way designed to prevent eavesdropping, tampering, and message forgery. TLS provides endpoint authentication and communications confidentiality over the Internet using cryptography. (please view the wikipedia link above for more info) Read more…

Starting an online business – Tips from an owner

Posted in eCommerce August 10th, 2009 by admin - Be the first to comment

The Trials and Successes of an Online Business

I have been the proud owner of an online business for just under three years now, and it hasn’t always been easy. In fact, I would go so far as to say that until recently it hardly seemed worth the huge efforts I was putting into keeping my business afloat. But now that my life has finally settled down, and I have been able to start bringing in regular profits, I can say that the dues I paid were well worth it.

But that doesn’t mean you have to go through the same trials I did. If you are thinking about starting an online business, or you have been running one with less than stellar results, you don’t have to learn the hard way by trial and error. Instead, you can learn from my mistakes, and follow these guidelines to getting started, and running a successful, profitable online business, no matter what niche you settle into. Read more…

Design an online store with hundreds of thousands of products

Posted in eCommerce,Web design's Tips August 1st, 2009 by admin - Comments (2)

Recently we have been working with zencart stores that have thousands of products with over a hundred categories and sub categories. We have also seen other zencart stores with more than 100000 products, pretty amazing right? The dilemma is how to present these products and categories in a user friendly way yet still allow search engines to index them well (remember: search engines don’t necessarily index all your links especially if you have too many links and if they are too “deep” in the level. (By levels, I mean something like this: site.com/level1/level2/level3/…. If you are using the default zencart you won’t have this type of link, but if you use some Zencart SEO URL such as Simple Seo Url(SSU) you do have the ability to create links with levels like that. By default SSU uses only 2 level which is really good).

You can put products in multiple levels of categories, allowing users to drill down to the exact category that contain the products they want.
Cons: too many levels will drive the users nuts and you will your your sales. Also, search engines will more than likely ignore many of your product links or update them very slowly.
You can put reduce the category levels, but then you will end up having too many top level categories or putting too many products in one category.
Cons: too confusing and inconvenient for users to easily locate their products (zencart’s search happens to be NOT the best search one can have). Read more…

Best Practice in Shopping Cart Design – Part 1

Posted in eCommerce February 2nd, 2009 by admin - Be the first to comment

An Overview

There can be no doubt that on-line sales are the fastest growing facet of the retail marketplace. More and more people are becoming competent internet users; this provides an ever increasing number of potential customers for an on-line retail store. Newcomers to the on-line sales arena could be forgiven for thinking that this is a simple business model to adopt, simply put up a storefront and sit back and wait for sales right? Wrong, establishing an effective on-line store requires careful planning, and this document aims to introduce the key issues faced by new store owners.

5 Ways to Promote Your Site and Keep Customers Coming Back

Posted in eCommerce January 9th, 2009 by admin - Be the first to comment

Any webmaster can tell you a dozen ways to get more traffic for your website. A quick search over at Google brings back millions of websites full of tips on gaining increased levels of website traffic. Unfortunately, having millions of people visiting a website does not instantly bring financial success. Website traffic needs to be targeted to the site content and products; unless traffic is highly targeted it is unlikely to convert at a decent ratio. So are there any ways to both promote a website and keep those valuable customers coming back time and time again? Of course there are, check out these five ideas below.
Read more…

Zencart Ajax Checkout

Posted in Ajax Checkout,eCommerce January 9th, 2009 by admin - Comments (20)

In our continuous effort to help shop owners convert more leads into sale by improving customers’ shopping experience, we have developed the brand new ZenCart Ajax Checkout. Eliminating the need for multiple steps and required registration, One-Page Checkout will dramatically increase the number of completed purchases. Ajax checkout’s ultimate goal is to:

Allowing customers to complete the checkout process on a single page (Similar to Fast And Easy checkout module)
Presenting the least information at a time. We don’t want to scare the customers and drive them away by presenting too much information to fill in at once.
Coming soon: Allowing the customers to checkout without creating an account (Similar to checkout without account module)

Now is the time to bring your business online

Posted in eCommerce,Zencart January 1st, 2009 by admin - Be the first to comment

Today’s world economy continues to decline due to many different crises and experts believe that recovery is not possible even after a year or two. This particular situation has created a major impact on businesses all over the world. Many business owners are now looking for ways to reduce or minimize the cost of operation to help their business survive. This is where eCommerce comes in. Lots of business owners resort to eCommerce because of the many benefits it could give. Taking your business online will not only cut the cost of operation but will also help introduce your business to more people and increase your total sales.
Read more…

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