Taking Ecommerce Web Site Development to Another Level
A Home Business Article Contributed by Jenni Mckinney
Development of Your Ecommerce Web Site Should Include Products
If you are currently handling the development of your service company's ecommerce web site, consider what your site is selling. Unfortunately, the majority of service-oriented businesses sell only services, thus severely limiting their potential for higher profits. For example, if your company designs web sites, then the service you are selling requires trading time for money. Since time is a limited commodity, so will be the money you can make this way.
But if you added a few products to the services your ecommerce web site offers, you could be earning a passive, residual income off the products with no additional time invested beyond the original creative process. You may wonder how a service-oriented company could have related products to retail, but just a little bit of brainstorming can provide a multitude of ideas.
For example, if your company designs web sites, you could oversee the development of a few web site templates and offer them for sale at a reduced price. This way, you are reducing the time spent for the money earned and you may even gain a new market or two.
Development of Your Ecommerce Web Site Should Include Peripheral Items
If your ecommerce web site will be selling primarily products, you already have a jump on your service-oriented competition. However, selling one or two mainstream products is not enough to maintain a high level of interest among repeat buyers. Instead, consider offering a minimum set of peripheral, or accessory, products alongside each main product in order to generate continued impulse buying as well as a returning shopper.
In addition, if the peripherals you choose to offer are small and light enough, they should not increase your shipping costs to any significant degree, even though you will be able to require a higher shipping fee from the customer. Also, consider looping your accessory items to other main products, so that one of your main products is always shown on the buyer's screen, since your main product will generate the most profit.
Development of Your Ecommerce Web Site Should Include Competitor's Pricing
Attracting a potential buyer to your ecommerce web site is difficult, and keeping the buyer there is nearly impossible. To balance out the odds, consider implementing the competitor's pricing into the development of your site. Not only does this show the buyer that you have confidence in your product, but it also removes the necessity of the buyer to leave your web site and go to your competitor's in order to price the item.
In fact, one of the main competitors of any product-oriented ecommerce web site is Amazon.com, and they offer a program which allows you to systematically conduct searches of their products and display the results on your own web page! Though you must pay a fee for this service, it is still a great tool to have in order to keep customers from drifting away from your site, possibly forgetting where they were.
