E-Commerce

Overview

When embarking on your online venture its imperative that you go about it the right way. Making the wrong decisions can be expensive and your site may end up never getting out of the starting blocks.

Our in-house online expert Stu Francis has spent a number of years writing websites and interfacing with 3rd party web developers and has the following key points to keep in mind

Use a Bespoke system

'Off the shelf' e-commerce packages are designed to get you an online presence as cheap and fast as possible. 99% of the time your 'off the shelf' website will fail to perform and be lost amongst the millions of transactional websites online today. A bespoke system can be tailored to your market and designed to perform, making your site stand out from the crowd.

Research your development company

Anyone can build a website; you could buy a book today and have your own site up and running within a month. But building a website that performs is a science. Check out your designer’s portfolio, you won’t get the actual facts and figures but it will show you if they have experience in your market.

Get the foundations right

Make sure your website is scalable. If everything goes to plan and business picks up, your site needs to be able to cope with the traffic. If your site reaches its capacity and suffers, you risk losing your newly gained business. As your online business grows you may wish to add extra features and functionality to your website, if your website is not scalable you face an expensive redesign which if the foundations are correct, can be avoided.

Stock control integration

If you are selling shop stock online then it is important to be able to fulfill the online order. If the item sells in the store then it needs to be removed from your website as soon as possible and vice versa. A customer whose purchase is not fulfilled will probably not shop again.

Marketing and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

Seek advice from your web developer about running SEO and Marketing campaigns. This is also a science and when done the right way can boost your sales, when done the wrong way it can be expensive and damaging to your site reputation and rankings.

Remember

A high-street shopper has a limited choice of places to shop due to time and location, whereas online your competitors are only a few clicks away. Your customers will look elsewhere if your site is slow to respond, difficult to navigate or unable to fulfill purchases made. Provide your online customer with a fast, quality service and they will return.