Articles by "ecommerce"
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I was sitting and thinking what to share with you guys now, so I came up with some web info that might be useful for you, well it is off-topic from our site theme but I thought worth to share.
Building a website for your small business is just like constructing a boutique shop. Let's learn about successful brands and how to translate those punchlines into your personal success.

Have you heard of George Matthew Adams? He was an American columnist at the turn of the last century. His inspired posts sent waves of encouragement rippling through the masses until his death in 1962. Listen to this:
"Every one of us, unconsciously, works out a personal philosophy of life, by which we are guided, inspired, and corrected, as time goes on. It is defined in the conversation, in the look of the eye, and in the general mien of the person. It has no hiding place. It's like the perfume of the flower unseen, but known almost instantly."

Think about your favorite brick-and-mortar clothing store. Why do you keep going back? To draw on Adams' quote, every company has a "life philosophy" a unique scent that emerges from the flower-that-is-the-brand. That scent doesn't just express itself in the kind of pants they sell. Don't get me wrong, you like the pants and they fit you great, but it's the whole experience that keeps you reeled in. It emerges from the lighting, the decor, the background music, the way the sales associates speak… everything. Successful brands have a pervasive identity that attracts and locks in their target buyers.

The secret is passion. When the executives at the top of the food chain understand their product, not just what it does, but what it means then they can build a whole culture around their service. The marketing schemes all fall into place by themselves.

If you own an ecommerce website, you know conversions are key. You need to sell your products and services effectively. One way to do so is by using a technique called ecommerce merchandising. It is a method of using your website to tell a complete story about your company and its products. To do so, you need to make your website visually intriguing. Incorporating video testimonials is an excellent online visual merchandising technique. You can also increase sales by providing crisp, clear images of all of your products. Accompany those product images with clear product descriptions and group them in ways that encourage sales of multiple related products. Then visitors will become curious about multiple products and be more likely to make multi-item purchases.

Now we need to translate this into your small business website. All we're going to do is analyze some aspects of a great store and how to move that over to your site. This is especially important when using a third party to build your site for you. You need to know what you want and need in order to receive the product that you and your business deserve. Start with website builder reviews to find flexible solutions to implement these ideas.
  1. Stay Small
  2. Think of your online business as a boutique storefront. Some of the classiest places aren't flooded with products; rather they create a distinct line of select items and present them tastefully. So it's true: less is more. Don't be afraid if your company sells three items or offers one service. If you offer quality and present tastefully then your audience will stay focused all the way to checkout.
  3. Make it Worthwhile
  4. Have you noticed that many stores greet you with on-sale items right at the door? Why is that? It's done to make you feel like the store wants to be accommodating. The same is true about your site. Make the "offer they can't refuse" be the first thing they see.
  5. Pounce on Compulsions
  6. Every store keeps goodies at the checkout line. In the supermarket it's lighters and candy. At a clothing outlet it may be the brand's signature cologne. The rationale is that once the buyer is already pulling out the wallet – now's the time to squeeze them for some extra cash. When constructing your site, plant a special offer that only gets revealed at checkout. Your chances of landing some extra sales will skyrocket.
  7. Be Available
  8. A good company makes sure that you are greeted by a salesperson that is oh-so-eager to show you around. A really good company makes sure that the salesperson is well educated as to the brand's history and significance and has a detailed knowledge of the product. How does this translate into your site? Well, is your contact info easy to find? To you have a quick turnaround rate for answering inquiries? That would be one way. A second way of being available is creating and installing filters that narrow down product searches to better fit your customers' needs.
  9. Sell Something That You Love
  10. Excitement is totally contagious. The best salesman is the inventor himself. He knows the ins and outs of his creation. He created it out of a desperate need and he sees salvation resting in his product. As he describes all the mind-blowing nuances of his gadget, he has you drooling. You buy the gizmo. The same has to be true of your product. Do you describe it in a way that conveys your passion for what you sell? Do the images you use relay your product's soul?
Use these five amazing tips to transfer all of the winning qualities of a winning boutique store to your small business website and start making more sales today.
E-commerce has quickly become one of the most popular uses for the internet, and more sites are utilizing Linux shopping software than ever before. In fact, Forrester projects that online sales will reach 250 billion dollars in 2014, according to Tech Crunch, and online sales will account for 8 percent of all retail sales in the US by then as well. For those planning on building a shop online using Linux, there are several programs that you should be aware of, and we've assembled a few of our favorites here:

Zen Cart

Zen Cart is an open source shopping program offering easy administration and product management, and comes fully ready to run credit cards for your shop. Fast, user-friendly, and sleek, Zen Cart was developed by shop-owners and programmers using Oscommerce code as a base and features built in discount codes, coupons, and gift certificate functions. With hundreds of plug-ins available on the Zen Cart site, it's easy to customize everything from payment modules to buttons and graphics in your online Zen Cart shop. Zen Cart is a popular, user-friendly choice for your Linux-based shop. According to BuiltWith, Zen Cart is currently used by more than 150 thousand sites for their e-commerce needs.

Magento

Magento is an open source web application that offers users powerful control over the functionality, design, and content of their online shop. Magento provides checkout tools to calculate shipping, payment, currency exchange, and order management. One of Magento's more useful features is that it's shops are mobile-ready, and specifically tailored to shoppers using iPhones. Gartner research shows that smartphone sales accounted for more than half of all mobile sales made online in the third-quarter of 2013, so open-source software that is ready to display your shop on consumer's smartphones is practically a must. Magento also offers a powerful suite of marketing and promotion tools that feature multi-tier pricing, search engine optimization, coupons and promotional pricing tools all in one open-source package that is ready to use right out of the box.

VirtueMart

VirtueMart is an open source e-commerce application designed to be used in conjunction with Joomla! or Mambo web content management systems. Formerly known as Mambo-PHPShop, Virtue Mart shopping cart software offers a large collection of merchant services right out of the box. VirtueMart offers registration services for users, allowing shoppers to manage their accounts online, track order confirmations, and review order histories in an easy to use window. Registered and subscribed users to your VirtueMart store can track items that are currently out of stock and receive an automatic email notification when the item is back in inventory. VirtueMart shops come installed with payment software that recognizes popular payment services such as PayPal, Worldpay, PayMate, eWay, and more. Additionally, VirtueMart is easily customized using the wide variety of components, modules and plugins available on the VirtueMart site. Business owners interested in test driving VirtueMart can even visit its virtual demo store, as either a shopper or a site administrator, and see the outer and inner workings of a VirtueMart e-commerce site without installing a thing. Now that's customer service.