Effective Ecommerce - Designing a Great Web Site

A Home Business Article Contributed by Sharon Hill

Ecommerce Essentials Include a Great Web Site

"If you build it, they will come" is not valid for ecommerce. You may build it, but they will only come if they find it. Effective search strings are essential. Once your ecommerce site is found, however, you will need to keep folks perusing it - viewing page after page, and responding with inquiries and, hopefully, purchases.

The Making of a Great Ecommerce Web Site

There are several essential ingredients in your ecommerce web site repast.

They are:

1. easily viewable products; no guess work about how to navigate the site. Attractively, prominently displayed products or services. Never assume that folks who peruse your site are proficient at navigating the Internet. Make it all obvious - and make it a little larger point size than you think is necessary. Remember, an ever-increasing percentage of the U.S. population is 50+. This is an important, often moneyed, market. Keep in mind that their eyes are aging and build your ecommerce site accordingly.

2. A reliable ecommerce delivery vendor; you have to be confident that once the consumer makes the money commitment to buy your product or service online you, or the ecommerce vendor you choose to help you, can actually deliver it - and right away. Were you to have a first time customer that used your shopping cart to pay for a product from your ecommerce business but did not receive that product in a timely fashion you would probably lose that customer the first time this happened.

Not only would you more than likely never regain that consumer - you'd probably lose the opportunity to sell to her or his family, friends and business acquaintances as well.

3. You must choose an ecommerce web site host that can offer ongoing 24/7 support. Never put your site out there incomplete. And keep coming back to it periodically to refresh links, updated dated material, add some new enticement.

4. Free information or other give-aways are essential. Many money-making ecommerce firms started by giving it all away. Consumers are used to this. If you charge for too high a percentage of what's available on your site your viewers will simply go elsewhere where free information is rampant.

Selling Yourself - Crucial to Ecommerce Success

I can't stress this enough. If you don't let the folks who view your web site know who you are and where you are, they won't buy from you. It's that simple. It's the same as the brick and mortar sales concept - people buy you, they don't buy your products. If folks don't get to know you, don't get to like you, they won't buy from you.

Think about the people and firms with whom you do business on a regular basis. Is your auto mechanic someone a friend recommended? Do you not get your hair cut by someone you personally like? The same is true - even more so - with ecommerce. While its immediacy and ease of conducting transactions from home make it a very attractive way of doing business, it also makes it much easier for the business owner to hide from the consumer. Do not let this happen.

Include your contact information prominently at least one place on the site. Let those ecommerce browsers know who you are, where you are, how to get in touch with you by phone, email and snail mail. Include your bio and your picture. Let that consumer know if there is a problem they can get in touch with a live person. Instill confidence or they won't buy.

Yes, ecommerce is about a slick site, and a great product or service. But it's also about selling yourself. That's the core of any business success - ecommerce or otherwise.