Increase Your Online Sales By Varying Products Presentation and Site Redesigns

September 7, 2009 1 comment »

Many of our ecommerce customers frequently ask how they can increase sales when online advertising methods such as Adwords, email marketing campaigns, blogging and social media have reached their peak ROI or their site simply is not generating the amount of sales they think it should.

In situations where traditional online marketing solutions have become stagnate or are not returning the expected results, we usually suggest varying the presentation of the products, updating the interface and/or a site redesign to give the online store a fresh appearance.

A site redesign can be as simple as a minor menu modification or as complex as a complete company rebranding. Whether the site update is small or large, keeping the site design as well as the content fresh can jumpstart sales and convert returning “window shoppers” to customers.

Although customers love to see new items on their favorite online stores, keeping the website fresh does not necessarily require adding new content to the site.  Refreshing or modifying the presentation of existing content is sometimes just as effective and more feasible.

The areas that should be periodically refreshed are:

1) Product Placement: Vary the placement of your products on the website and how they are presented to the user. Try to emphasize different items on your home page on a scheduled rotation.  Add “Featured Items” to your store and track which displayed featured item(s) increase sales.

2) Update Site Menus: Optimize the site menus to give the users the most efficient way of locating their items. Simplify your menu system to make it more user-friendly. 

3) Redesign Your Website:  Refresh or redesign your website to reflect current site design trends. Change your color scheme periodically to give the site a fresh appearance while still maintaining your overall corporate branding scheme.

3) Sales! Discounts! Specials!: Give your customers a reason to purchase items that they overlooked or decided against purchasing in the past.   Catch the customer’s eye with great deals and cross-sell additional items to encourage multiple item purchases.

Don’t be afraid to do a site redesign or products display change even on a new site. You can always revert back to the previous scheme if the modifications do not yield positive results.

If your online sales are slow, periodically change up the site’s look and products’ presentation and you will be amazed at the increased visitor-to-sales conversion.

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Kevin R. Rounsavelle
Founder, Site Store Professional
http://www.sitestorepro.com

1 comment »

Posted in Website Marketing

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Do I Need To Hire A Professional Web Designer For My Online Store Or Website?

July 10, 2009 5 comments »

When creating a new online store or website, many site owners are faced with the difficult question of whether or not to hire an outside contractor or company to create the website design, menus, graphics and SEO features or to attempt the entire site development using in-house resources.

Hiring a professional website designer or firm will usually shorten development time, deliver a higher quality finished website and allow the store owner to focus on other aspects of the ecommerce site such as products development and marketing.

However, hiring a professional designer or firm can also greatly increase the development cost of the online website and may not be required for every situation.

The questions the store owner must ask before hiring a outside web developer are:

  •  Does my in-house staff have the knowledge and capabilities to develop the site within the required time frame and to create a visually appealing, standards compliant and manageable online presence?
  •  Does the site require a custom interface or can a pre-built website template be modified to accommodate the site design and layout?
  • Does the site require extensive graphics work and/or logo design which is above and beyond the capabilities of my staff?
  • Does my staff have experience with search engine optimization (SEO)?

If the store owner answers “NO” to any one of the questions above, a professional web designer or firm will most likely be the best route to ensuring that the finished site meets or exceeds the requirements of the intended web audience and that it is completed in the most efficient manner.

Situations where a company may not require outsourcing the website or online store development are:

  • Site owner or staff are experienced with website development and/or can devote the required time to learn specific areas of web-design and SEO that will be most beneficial for their online store development and deployment.
  • New website does not have to be launched within a specific timeframe and/or site is a second or home-based business that can be deployed gradually. (Individual(s) who will be developing website still must have some experience or be willing to learn proper web development.)
  • Development budget will not allow outsourcing of design/development. (Individual(s) who will be developing website still must have some experience or be willing to learn proper web development.)

The biggest variable in site development is always TIME;  time for development,  time for learning new technologies and time for testing and deployment.

The more time a company or individual has for site development, the less they will need to outsource. 

Although developing a website or online store entirely in-house will save money in the short-term, professional website developers bring knowledge and skills that may not be available with in-house personnel and their experience will ensure that the new website or online store is completed correctly the first time and therefore may be more cost effective in the long-term.

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Kevin R. Rounsavelle
Founder, Site Store Professional
http://www.sitestorepro.com

5 comments »

Posted in Website Development

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Choosing The Correct Payment Provider For Your Online Store

July 7, 2009 2 comments »

One of the most confusing and frustrating elements of setting up an online store is deciding which provider to use to process online credit card payments.

Payment processing is a very competitive business and many merchants are pressured into choosing a specific provider based on either not knowing the available options or following the advice of their local bank or website hosting company.

Banks and hosting companies are RESELLERS of merchant accounts. They make money if you purchase their merchant account plans. Most banks, credit unions and hosting companies will encourage their account holders to use their “partner” providers.  However, online payment processing is not a “one size fits all” scenario and a merchant may be able to save thousands of dollars in fees by shopping around and researching alternate payment solutions.

Furthermore, contrary to what many local banks tell their customers, your net credit card sales can be deposited directly into your business checking account from ANY payment solution.  Therefore, you are not required to choose a specific payment provider just so that you can receive your online sales into your primary business checking account.

Before entering into an online credit card processing agreement with your local bank or website hosting provider, get quotes from several different payment solution providers based on your website’s estimated number of daily and monthly transactions , average transaction amount and gross monthly  sales.   Your total cost per month can vary significantly based on the number of transactions, average amount per transaction and total sales per month.  

Call online merchant account providers directly and compare their rates with the package(s) offered by your bank.  Companies such as First Data, Chase Payment Tech, Wells Fargo and BankCard USA work with virtually any payment gateway and shopping cart system.  Some providers may have a lower monthly fee but the per transaction percentage or per transaction fee could make it cost prohibitive for high-volume websites.  Conversely, for lower volume websites, providers that have higher per transaction fee but no monthly fee may be more cost-effective.

After receiving quotes from several providers, consult with your shopping cart company to verify compatibility with your preferred payment solution.  Your online store developer or ecommerce provider can usually also provide recommendations on which payment solution will work best for your business type. Once you determine the best payment solution provider based on your sales volume and complete the merchant account application process, you will need to configure your shopping cart to send online payments through the provider’s supported gateway.  Most shopping carts include major payment gateway support built-in.  However, if your shopping cart does not support your preferred payment solution, it can usually be programmed into the system for a one-time nominal fee.

For new businesses that cannot accurately predict their sales volume, it may be wise to not sign a long-term contract or use a service such as PayPal or Google Checkout that provides credit card processing and online payments without requiring a contract. During the first few months of online business, the merchant will get a good idea of their average transaction amount and gross monthly sales.  The merchant will then be able to calculate the most economical, long-term payment solution provider for their online store.

For detailed information on the differences between online merchant accounts, payment gateways and how online payments are processed, please visit the resources below:

http://www.authorize.net/resources/howitworksdiagram/

http://www.ourshop.org/resources/internet-merchant-accounts.html

If you have any questions on which type of payment solution is best for your specific online store or have comments, please feel free to submit them below!

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Kevin R. Rounsavelle
Founder, Site Store Professional
http://www.sitestorepro.com

2 comments »

Posted in Online Store Setup

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Authorize.net Outage Forces Online Stores To Think About Redundancy

July 4, 2009 7 comments »

On Friday, July 3, 2009, Authorize.net, one of the world’s largest online payment processing companies suffered a massive systems outage which brought down thousands of online stores.

As a result, I spent the majority of July 3 talking to and calming down many of our ecommerce clients who use Authorize.net as their primary and in many cases, only online payment processor.

The biggest question/complaint I received was: “How could one of the biggest payment processors in the world be brought down by an incident at only one of their locations and why didn’t they have some type of redundancy in place that would prevent the entire network from going down?”

Although there has been no official report on how a fire at their primary data center also brought down their backup data center and even their public website,  this incident not only sheds light on having redundancy and fail-over on mission-critical systems but also the importance of having an alternate shopping cart checkout system in place for your online store.

In the past, store owners have primarily concentrated on redundancy for their website hosting, database and email servers but have ignored the one central point of failure that would bring their online sales screeching to a halt: their credit card processor.

Many of our clients that were using Authorize.net as their only payment processor are now implementing PayPal, Google Checkout or a secondary payment gateway on their stores as a backup in case there is another extended network failure from Authorize.net.

Having an alternate payment source such as PayPal or Google Checkout will allow merchants to continue to operate and process orders even if their primary payment provider is down or not responding to credit card authorization requests.

Although the Authorize.net incident yesterday cost merchants millions of dollars in lost sales, hopefully it will prevent future lost revenues by proving that ecommerce solution providers, no matter how large or small, will eventually suffer system outages and it is up to the merchant to prepare for such an emergency by having backups in place for all elements of their ecommerce site, including their payment provider.

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Kevin R. Rounsavelle
Founder, Site Store Professional
http://www.sitestorepro.com

7 comments »

Posted in eCommerce Headlines

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