E Commerce Websites – Explode Your 2010 Revenue
2010 is going to be your year of dominating your market with some easy to follow ideas for your e commerce website. Don’t have an e commerce website? No problem! You can still apply these to any website and business model!
1. Stop using Flash
The positives are tediously obvious – it looks great and your marketing dept will love it. However, the negatives are immense: it doesn’t rank in search engines, it breaks all navigation and usability web conventions, it’s expensive to edit and alter and almost impossible to perform any sort of AB testing. Get your design and layout even slightly wrong from the word go and you’re pretty much stuck with it. It simply isn’t worth it, and with advancements in Javascript and CSS 3, it’s also pretty unnecessary.
2. Test, Observe, Learn & Test
We’re all guilty of not prioritising testing enough but there really is no better way to find out the truth about your online store. Usability guru Jacob Nielsen has carried out some fascinating studies that show 85% of development or design flaws will be picked up by just five separate usability tests. FIVE! That’s it! So get five willing (or bribed) stooges and get them to run through basic functions of your platform – purchase a product, contact customer service, etc. The results are always illuminating and often shed light on previously hidden flaws and unforeseen problems.
3. Develop a social media strategy
If 2009 was the year brands were switched on to the potential of social media, then 2010 must be the year they start to realise they can’t just launch into it blindly with no tangible objectives. Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter are now a derelict wasteland littered with the e-corpses of poorly executed fan pages and feeds promoting retail brands or products. Just ‘getting on there’ isn’t enough – you need to have something to say and be prepared to invest in saying it. You also need to ready to hear criticism and ready to respond positively. Above all else, have some idea of what you want to achieve and set tangible objectives. You can’t hit your targets if you have no idea of what they are. Remember, social media marketing is NOT FREE, it takes time, effort and dedication. Start thinking strategically about your presence on the social web and you’ll see far more success.
4. Increase your range
You will sell more products if you stock more products. This should be tattooed on every e-commerce manager’s eyelids. It is great to be a niche business/website, but be the biggest supplier of goods to your market within that niche! This will give you a better understanding of what your market wants, not want you want to sell!
5. Develop a proper email strategy
Email marketing fascinates me! It’s basic, it’s simple, but a well planned an intelligent email marketing strategy is without doubt, the single most effective way of driving revenue and customer loyalty. It amazes me to see businesses with a customer database that don’t do anything with them! Know I don’t mean just blanket spamming your database, but carefully targeted messages based around buying habits, demographic information and personalised content will deliver your business a healthy ROI. Using this to engage customers in a personal way via email will reap huge rewards for you this year.
6. Get it done!
For all those who haven’t entered the e commerce world yet, now is the time to do it. Don’t hesitate, stop procrastinating and ‘planning’, get started and you’ll learn more about your brand and your customers in months than you would do otherwise in years. Make 2010 the year when you actually keep to your resolutions by making resolutions which will bring real, genuine, tangible rewards so you are celebrating this time next year with a nice, fat annual bonus poolside in the Caribbean!
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Very Good points
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