The site runs on our green web hosting and the TradingEye ecommerce software with a completely bespoke template for the new shop. It also uses the Google web fonts service for the swirly page titles – this is better for search engines than using images, as it adds extra text and keywords to the pages.

Here are some basics for increasing customer trust in your website:

1. Make sure your payment pages are protected by Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate. These certificates help prove your identity and increase sales.
2. Show the seal from your SSL provider prominently on your website to show that you take security seriously.
3. Use images of your retail premises and your key members of staff. People often prefer to buy from companies that have a real life shop with items in stock rather than a “drop shipper” working from their back bedroom and not keeping any stock.
4. Make sure your website looks professionally designed, without visual errors. A badly designed site shows a lack of quality assurance that decreases the likelihood of making a sale. After all, if customers perceive that you don’t care about your website, you might not care about them.
5. Use clear, sensible navigation and site structure that helps people find what they are looking for quickly.
6. Show your contact information on every page – don’t hide from your customers!

So here are some quick ideas to increase customer trust in your ecommerce website. Many can be dealth with quickly and easily to help you sell more products online. Contact us on 0115 933 2516 if you need help with adding these items to your website.

Nick

Things we like:

• WordPress is free, stable and well supported software
• We love WooThemes and their great framework & themes
• WordPress does well in search engines, it’s well structured, well coded and pings update sites to tell everyone you have published new stuff

Things we are not sure about:

• Because WordPress is so popular, people attempt to hack it a lot. Security updates are regular and need to be kept up with. Luckily they are easy to install!
• WooCommerce is a bit thin on features at the moment, but more plugins will be coming soon for payment gateways and new features.
• It might not be right for a larger ecommerce website – we’ll need to test how it works with hundreds of products
• If paid plugins are needed to access certain functionality then Zen Cart or Open Cart would be a better option as they probably have those features for free.

We are working on a demo WooCommerce shop at the moment, link to follow shortly!

Nick

The Zen Cart site uses our completely redone front end template, branded up to match Kate’s existing logo and colour scheme. We have added lots of extra features to Zen Cart to make it more user friendly such as popup Lightbox style product images, Facebook Share buttons and account functions across the top of the site.

The shop control panel benefits from our Paramita theme to make it more attractive and easier to use. Hearrings.co.uk also runs on our eco-friendly green web hosting, a quick and easy way to be greener!

If you’re thinking of setting up an ecommerce website, give us a call and see how we can help on 0115 933 2516.

The second is a Zen Cart eCommerce website for a Scottish jewellery creator and artist. She has been fortunate enough to secure funding to develop her business so we are providing green web hosting and building a new shop to promote her wares online.

More info to follow once the sites are finished!

Read the rest of the article at http://www.internetretailing.net/2011/07/uks-ecommerce-workforce-set-to-double-by-2015/

Domain Name
Firstly you will need to get a keyword relevant, memorable domain name and point it to the relevant server. You can brainstorm ideas for domains, or use a domain name suggestion tool – find one through Google.

Web Hosting
Next, web hosting: this is where your website and connected email addresses will actually live.

Web hosting is usually renewed yearly. There are many different web hosting companies out there so it can get confusing!

Prices vary wildly and reflect the quality of support offered, how many websites are hosted on one server and a whether it is Windows or Linux based hosting.

Cheap hosts almost always create problems, especially with shop software, and the time and money spent fixing these faults nullify any savings made by buying low-cost hosting. Add potential downtime and lost sales to the equation and cheap web hosting isn’t the bargain it might appear. Make sure you are comparing apples to apples and preferably speak to people who already use the hosting to see what they think of it.

There has been a massive rise in web hosts claiming to offer “green web hosting” – most of these are making a superficial effort to appear environmentally friendly. Our green web hosting is powered by wind turbines, making it properly green!

Installing Your Shop
Once you have chosen your shop software, you will need to download the latest version from the developer’s website. You will then need to upload the shop onto your new hosting account, set up a suitable database and connect it all together with the right settings in the config files.

You will then have a basic shop installed and ready to tailor to your requirements. It may come with a basic template, but you will need to alter this to make your shop match your logo and colour scheme.

If you choose to have a SSL Certificate on your shop, now is the time to install this too.

Shop Design
Don’t use tacky, freely available templates. Spend some money on a professional template so that your eCommerce website will look trustworthy and encourage people to purchase from your online shop. Branding is very important online and you need to make your shop recognisable and trustworthy.

Adding Products
Once you have your shop system installed, you will need to add your products! The systems we use allow two ways of adding or editing products. You can enter them manually through your control panel, or batch import products using a spreadsheet. The second method is MUCH quicker!

It’s worth thinking about how your products will be organised before you start uploading. Try to categorise products so people can search for what they want directly. If you sub-categorise too, results will be shown that are more relevant to what people are looking for.

Each product requires a unique SKU (Stock Keeping Unit), which is basically a ‘product code’. Naming images with an SKU results in a well organised system that means you can rapidly mass upload product images with the correct  names via your product spreadsheet.

While you can often get product descriptions pre-written from your suppliers, other ecommerce sites will probably also be using them. To capture your customers’ attention write your own blurbs promoting the most striking features. You could compare them to other products you sell so a range of choices are all laid out in one place.

Imagine selling the item face to face or recommending it to a friend: how would you convey the (time saving/revolutionary/novelty) features?

Images
A great photo can sell the product for you. Images should be square and centered on a white background with a margin round the edge. Use the largest, best quality images you can find. If you can, get professional photos from your suppliers, but if you’re providing your own shots, ensure the background and lighting is perfect, or employ a good photographer to do it. This investment will pay off instantly with increased sales.

It’s worth watermarking your images with your company name or website address: firstly this thwarts competitors trying to steal them, and secondly if people save the picture, your logo tells them where to go back and buy it from.

Pricing
Product pricing is a tricky area. Competition can be fierce when selling online, so have a strategy. Don’t assume that being cheaper is all that it takes to make the sale: customers also need to trust you and receive excellent service. Competing on price alone leaves you selling to bargain hunters who might return the goods anyway, wasting your time and energy.

However there isn’t a formula to what affects your sales so experiment with pricing, discount coupons and special offers after your site has started running.

VAT
UK VAT can be a nightmare: get advice from your accountant whether you should show VAT separately on your website and invoices. We are not informed enough to accurately advise on this aspect of your business!

Text Content
There need to be some pages like ‘About Us’, ‘Postage’, ‘Returns’, ‘Terms & Conditions’, ‘Privacy Policy’ etc. These are not provided with your shop software so you need to write them yourself or get a copywriter to create the content for you.

It makes sense to get legal advice on your Terms & Conditions to make sure you aren’t breaking any laws or setting yourself up for a fall.

Payment Gateway Setup
Your website needs to be connected to a service that checks customer card details, takes payment, and passes this information back to you. You could use Paypal or a payment processor such as Worldpay or Sagepay. These systems are usually set up in ‘testing mode’ until everything is working properly; then it’s switched to live mode for your customers to use.

Planning

Financial

• Only part of the cost of your site is the initial build so bear in mind you will need a budget for ongoing marketing and maintenance of your ecommerce site.
• Based on sales volumes discovered in your market research, how much can you afford to spend on the shop as an up front or monthly cost?
• What is your break even point each week or month after expenses, salaries etc?
• How many products on average will you need to sell to achieve this?

Business processes

• Decide in advance how things are going to work and how everything fits together
• Run a few test orders through your ecommerce site with a very low value product to see how it works from start to finish
• Tie your ecommerce site into your back office software such as Sage accounts (if you have it and it’s possible to connect them). Even a basic spreadsheet uload/download will save you hours of boring duplication of product and customer information.

Legal issues

• Know the legal points that apply to your business – for example do you understand the Distance Selling regulations and the Sale of Goods act?
• Are there any laws specific to your product range?
• Make sure your terms and conditions are clear, relevant and are actually agreed to when a customer makes a purchase. A copied and pasted set from a different country that you don’t really understand is not going to protect you. Investing in a bespoke set of Ts & Cs is money well spent.

Legal entity/business address

• Who is the owner of the shop?
• Are you a sole trader, limited company or partnership?
• What is the business address? This needs to be shown on every page of your shop.

Branding

• Have you got a memorable, short name?
• Have you got a professional looking logo and colour scheme?
• Have you got stationery documents that use your name and logo?

Domain names

• What domain name(s) will you use?
• Will they be the name of your company or contain product related keywords instead?

Website hosting

• Who will provide your website hosting?
• Will your chosen shop system work on their hosting?
• What support do they offer?
• Are you relying on what it says on their website or can you verify it – i.e. has a friend got an account with that company etc.

Shop software

• What sort of software will you use for your shop?
• Will it be a bolt-on to a normal website taking payments through Paypal, or a complete system with order management, customer logins and payment processing that puts money straight into your bank account?

Shop design

• Who is going to do the graphic design for your shop?

Technical support

• Who will you turn to if you need technical help?
• Are you going to take regular backups of your database and shop files? Your web host’s backups are not sufficient, so make sure your database and files are backed up by you, are well organised and available at all times. If a disaster strikes, you don’t want to lose your orders and product database after spending days entering it all.
• What happens when you need to add new features or upgrade your shop software?

Email

• Email enquiries will be sent to which address(es)?
• Do you have separate departments or one overall email address?
• Emails need to be answered same day, or at least acknowledged if an answer needs to be obtained from somewhere else.

Telephone

• What telephone number(s) will be used for sales enquiries?
• Who will answer sales queries?
• Have you looked at setting up freephone or local rate numbers?
• Will someone be available to answer calls? If not, have facilities to take a message taken return their call ASAP.
• If you are planning on having a “day job” as well as your eCommerce site, think about how this will affect your web business.

Search engine research and optimisation

• Who is going to do your keyword research, and using what tools?
• Who is going to optimise your website text and code to use these keywords?
• What analytics data will you be using?
• Who will monitor and optimise the site on an ongoing basis?
• Are you going to monitor conversion rates?

Marketing

• How will you promote your ecommerce website?
• Good search engine results rely on lots of quality incoming links to your site. Have you got ideas of how to get these links?
• Will you be running a pay per click (PPC) campaign such as Google Adwords?
• Who will run this?
• Are they experienced enough to ensure you are not wasting your money?
• What is your PPC budget per month?

Product catalogue

• Who is going to enter your product text and images initially? This can be a very time consuming process!
• Who is going to maintain your product text and images?
• Will the content come from suppliers or will you have to take photos and write the descriptions yourself?
• How often will you update the pricing on your site?

Stock

• Will stock be held by you or will items be sent directly from the supplier?
• If stock is sent to you first before you send it the customer, are you going to charge the customer for that delivery cost or absorb it?

Order Processing

• How will you take payments over the internet?
• What fees will you be charged for this by your payment service provider?
• Who will check daily for orders and process them?
• Who will communicate with customers
• Who will despatch the goods or order from supplier?

Deliveries

• How fast will orders be delivered?
• Can you guarantee delivery times from manufacturers?
• What postage rates will you use?
• You may have to go to the Post Office daily or get a courier company to come to you so allow time for this.

Returns

• What is the returns process for customers?
• Who will deal with that and where do the goods go on return – can you send them back to the supplier or will you have to resell them?
• Is a refund or credit note given to the customer?
• Are there any restocking fees for your customers, or for you if you send them back to the supplier?
• Are there any bespoke products that you sell that cannot be returned? Are you clear about that when a customer orders them?

Why are we asking so many questions?

The answers to many of these questions will affect what you need to ask your web designer to include when they quote for your website. It is very important that you understand that unless you specifically ask for services, they are unlikely to be included for free.

If you ask a web company to build your website but don’t pay for product entry, search engine optimization or post launch marketing then you will need to make alternative arrangements. This is a common cause of misunderstanding between clients and web companies and can leave you with a great site but no sales once it is launched!

Once all these things have been considered, then we have a viable plan and can make a start on the ecommerce website.

Introduction

A lot of people start up an ecommerce website business without a plan. While it might be tempting to skip this bit or think of it as a necessary evil just to please the bank manager, you are making a mistake to get started without knowing what you are doing and how you are going to do it.

While it may be tempting to skip all this and “wing it”, you will be taking a massive risk with your time and money. Planning may only take a day or two and will give you a firm foundation to your new business along with a blueprint for what you need to do beforehand and once your ecommerce site is up and running.

Once you start working on your plan, you will see where you might need help from a solicitor, accountant, IT consultant or web design company. Bear in mind that if you engage a web design company to design your ecommerce site, they will not provide all the other business related services described here, much as an accountant would not design your website for you!

Research

Market research

Make sure you do your market research. This step is missed by so many startups and small businesses and could sink your business very quickly. Before you even plan your website, you need to know that there are enough people out there wanting to buy your product and that you don’t have unbeatable competition. A simple fact is that if you don’t sell enough of your products at a high enough markup to pay your bills and turn a profit, you are going to fail. Quickly.

What are you thinking of selling, and who to?

Is this suitable for selling online? What will your focus be? You can’t sell all things to all people, so choose a specific demographic and product range. This will influence the shop name, branding and design. Get this wrong and you could be alienating your target market before you have even started.

Is there a market?

Do people even want to buy your product?

Is the market big enough?

If there are people who want to buy your products, will there be enough sales to make the business profitable? What kind of sales volume can you realistically expect?

Who else is selling to this market?

Can you compete against established players? Will any new arrivals impact your trade?

Why will people buy from you?

What is special about your business that will make people stop buying somewhere else and then stay with you?

So, looking good?

If your research is positive and you find out that you can profitably compete in a certain market, then you are ready to plan your shop. If there is no market, the market is too small or you cannot compete against established players then you have a choice on whether to continue. The idea is not going to make you money, so will essentially be an expensive hobby. There is nothing wrong with doing that, but understand that it will not support you financially and will take up time and money that you could be spending on something more profitable.

So your idea is still a winner? Excellent! We can move on to more detailed planning.