This is my journey as an E-commerce Consultant
Posts tagged E-Business
We envision to enthusiastically facilitate error-free paradigms…Writing web copy!
1694 days
‘We envision to enthusiastically facilitate error-free paradigms while continuing to authoritatively revolutionize economically sound opportunities to meet our customer’s needs’
This snippet of text was generated by the Mission Statement Generator from the Dilbert comic strip website, but this kind of web copy rings close to the truth for some organisations.
When you are writing content in blogs and also for websites you need to consider your target audience and speak to them in their language. Avoid hype that sounds like advertising jargon. They are already AT your site, so give them an excuse to stay. Organise the content and structure your writing for easy readability.
Always proofreed…. This is my biggest sin. All posts on this blog are edited around 3 times once posted!
A useful post when you are thinking about your web content is Web Writing for Many Interest Levels
Green and Ethical E-commerce – Honesty and Responsibilty
1694 days
Customers are being more socially responsible with their buying and value companies that have the same thinking. Customers can be selective with their choice of e-commerce offerings as the internet fosters a socially responsible consumer base.
Non Ethical practises include selling non medical miracle cures like weight loss pills and hair loss creams that have no real research to back up claims, sites that are built to deceive customers with false promises, sites that sell conflict items (such as gold and diamonds from Africa) or items associated animal testing. These at all costs should be avoided.
But how can you be green on the hyperweb?
-Increase your product range to provide environmentally friendly and fair trade products
-Reduce excess packaging and marketing materials, can it be recyclable?
-Allow customers to reserve on-line and pick up in store
-Off set your carbon footprint by recycling and re-using within your company. Take part in local and national environmental improvements where you can.
-Publish your environmental policy and encourage your customers to re-use packaging and recycle
-Send email invoices to reduce paper use
-Use electronic means of keeping customer information and office memo’s, again keep aper use to a minimum and reduce waste. -Recycle all waste paper.
You don’t have to spend a huge amount of money within a company to be green. For example, as a small e-commerce store owner. I re-use all bulk hair packaging, use a single blue plastic mailing bag and also re-cycle paper and plastic where I can as part of a routine. Small steps can help an e-commerce company be that little bit greener, and help build customer loyalty.
E-commerce and its multi-channel adventures!
1695 days
‘Multi- channel’ has become a bit of a ‘Web 2.0 buzz word, but it has become one of the most expansive sectors in e-commerce. ‘Multi Channel’ (we shall call it MC 2.0 for comedic slogan purposes only) can involve a retail organisation having several touch points for interactions with customers and also several competitive routes to market. Large traditional ‘Bricks and Mortar’ (apologies for my over use of apostrophes this evening) companies have expanded to incorporate several channel for example Next Retail
Next have:
- Walk in Stores
- Paper mailing catalogue (which is also present in the store to showcase the full range of products)
- Online Shop
- Call centre operations
- Affiliations with comparison shopping engines, pay per click advertising, shopping directories as well as other new media advertising.
To complete the set they should think about marketplaces such as eBay. They may be satisfied with their end of season re-sellers already on eBay.
In response to this expanse in retail channels, companies specialising in total retail solutions (such as Channeladvisor,Marketworks, Venda and Truition) have spawned from the far corners of the earth. These systems incorporate as many product to consumer channels from one platform as possible, providing a custom branded system. These systems are also available (and mostly piloted by) the smaller virtual retailer. Many of these smaller retailing business have taken such a slice from the high street that the larger players had to respond to the drop in sales.
Going MC 2.0 is about opening up your offerings to different markets as well as your products being available across all channels.
Retailers should be looking to synchronise the service level across all channels. All channels should be fully integrated with existing systems and correctly aligned across:
- Price (even though some companies have set up separate branded channels to be more competitive on-line without being detrimental to their high street trade)
- Promotions
- Gift Vouchers (should be able to be used off-line and on-line)
- Terms and Conditions
- Order process and Returns
A customer likes a single experience across the various channels.
One department should administer all channels to the consumer, as a customer does not like to be passed from pillar to post with their queries about a product or order.
And this is the end for ‘E-commerce and its MC 2.0 adventures’ for now!
The different types of e-commerce website
1699 days
by Liz
in E-Business
The selling aspect of e-commerce doesn’t only involve selling tangible goods but also using internet technologies to market services.
Transactional websites enable you to purchase services or products online. The websites main contribution to this service is through the sale of the product and providing the corresponding information to facilitate the sale, on-line or off line. This is the most popular embodiment of the selling side of e-commerce and the most commonly associated with ‘e-commerce’ Most transactional websites these days are business to consumer sites, but there are a growing number of business to business suppliers on-line as the e-commerce world grows.
Relationship based websites provide information to stimulate purchases and build customer relationships. You will see this type of site more often in the business to business e-commerce and in the services industry. Products are not usually purchased on-line as this type of website is more of a sales tool. The website is built to provide information as to encourage off line sales and to generate leads from potential customers.
Websites can also purely provide information or news about a range of products. These websites have an array of options for generating revenue though affiliation, advertising, commission based sales or sales of customer data. Blogs can often cross over into this field as a targeted revenue stream though affiliations to appropriate products and services based on the general theme of the blog.
Some websites are built purely for branding purposes. The main focus of such a site is to support and strengthen the brand expanding its reach and influence among its target consumer. Again, you usually can not purchase online but sometimes the on-line interactivity of the brand. For example New Look Clothing. You can not purchase online but you can view the products and find your nearest store. This site makes sure the brand is correctly represented on the web.
These different classes of website all fall under the e-commerce banner with respect to selling.
Gearing up for Xmas 2007 – What to do in October…
1699 days
Right, its getting close so what do you need to do? You haven’t started yet? Thought so. So lets get cracking and here’s a few things to get on with or you can use it as a basic guide. It’s generic as every business is different and every product type moves differently. This post leans more towards your advertising and a little about inventory and website functionality. I am going to start my Christmas shopping this month, and I buy EVERYTHING on-line, and about 50% on eBay.
Week 1
Gather Data – Make sure you have the necessary data from last year October to December including your pay per click campaign statistics from last year. This has to include your website statistics, ROI, traffic sources, best keywords Google Analytics’s can provide this basic data if installed correctly, including basically what made your revenue.
Review Product Launch Dates – Many companies schedule launch of products in time for the Christmas season, especially consumer electronics. Make sure you advertising picks up on these trends if your product is relevant.
Gather Competitive Intelligence – know your enemy in the battle for Christmas! What paid campaigns did they use last year? What keywords are they ‘buying’ now? Does your paid search campaign match up?
Prepare a calendar of events – make sure you and your advertising/website team know what’s going to happen and when.
Week 2
Prepare your website for the new season – evaluate the ease of navigation, can your item be found in 3 clicks? Is your shipping information clear and above the fold? (above the bottom of your browser window, on initial viewing of the page)
Determine your up-sell opportunities, you will have related products to your main Christmas sellers.
Have you tried setting up on eBay to increase your reach?
Test your seasonal landing pages.
Re organise your product inventory, make sure there is room for your seasonal items. Taking off your lower selling items during this period to squeeze in more popular items is OK. Most catalogue companies do this to make way for Christmas. Put keywords like ‘Christmas gifts’ and ‘gifts for her’ within the HTML and keywords of your site. Remember gifts is what its all about now.
Week 3
Prepare for launch! Once Halloween is over its time for Christmas so you need to make sure you can flick on your advertising methods, be it standard advertising, marketplaces or pay per click quickly. Test your campaigns intensively and monitor your competitors for change. Test your website, and remove any dead links or fix broken pages. Set budgets wisely. You supposed to be making more money at Christmas not loosing it on excessive advertising!
Week 4
Launch your campaign. You will need to make sure the search engines know what’s going on so have you updated your sitemaps? Once November hits is all about Christmas, you need to make sure your Christmas and gift keywords have been indexed. Once your campaign has been running for a week you will be able to fine tune it in the first week of November.
