Sales Services for Your Ecommerce Web Site Design
A Web Hosting Article Contributed by Frances Rhea
Encourage Sales with Your Ecommerce Web Site Design
An effective ecommerce Web site design is much more than just a main page, product pages and shopping cart. There are other pre-sale services you may wish to consider as part of your ecommerce Web site design.
Additional Pages for Your Ecommerce Web Site Design
Information sheets are valuable information pages regarding the area that your product or service addresses. These can be online pages or provided in downloadable format (such as Word or PDF documents). Add your Web site information to each sheet if you provide downloadable formats.
Since every question cannot be answered in a FAQ, you can offer to answer pre-sales questions by email. A rapid response will encourage your visitor to commit to the sale. When responding to enquiries, address the question thoroughly and offer further support. Make sure your spelling and grammar are correct. Thank the prospective client for their comments and questions. Request clarification if you are unsure of the request.
Live online customer support is another beneficial service. There are many products available that allow this type of communication. With special HTML/JavaScript coding embedded in your Web site pages, your visitor's arrival is detected. You are then alerted by a message from the company. The visitor can ask any questions they may have and you can respond immediately.
The Ordering Process for Your Ecommerce Web Site Design
If it takes more than one click to begin the ordering process, you will loose sales. Make sure that every page that has information about your products or services has an 'order now' link or button to facilitate quick sales.
These links or buttons should be easy to locate. Do not make them too fancy or bold. The best location for your 'order now' link or button is after paragraphs which detail some positive aspect of the product or service. Another good place is directly after a testimonial from one of your clients regarding the product.
Your Ecommerce Shopping Cart
A shopping cart is a software package or program that collects your customer details, assembles their order, calculates the total price, adds shipping and tax, then submits all of the data to you and your payment gateway to complete the processing.
There are many products and services on the market. It is important to find one that suits your business needs and allows you to implement future additions. The wrong shopping cart could cause a lot of headaches and end up costing you money as your business and products or services expand.
Shopping carts come in both free and paid versions. The free ones are limited in what you are able to offer and often limit the number of products and options that are available.
Paid versions are similar but offer a greater variety of solutions for you and your customer. There are remotely hosted and versions that you host on your own server.
The best solution I have found combines PayPal with 2CheckOut. This way you get the cart and payment gateway solutions together.
