Six
Components of Good e-Commerce Site
By:
Nowshade Kabir
Many of your competitors are already doing business through
the Internet. You read that yearly growth rate of e-commerce
is over 25 percent. E-commerce segment for the businesses
that sells to other businesses or B2B, as it is called,
is escalating even in a better pace. Naturally, at one point,
you too decide that you need to have a piece of this action!
But, what are the main characteristics of a good e-commerce
site that you must consider even before you build one?
A small research will show that there are numerous choices
for you to make your business presence online. In fact,
you can be overwhelmed with all the possibilities that are
available on the Internet to build an e-commerce website.
However, it is important to plan your website before even
shop around for tools to build your site. There are some
basic components that all e-commerce sites include, such
as product or service description pages, a shopping cart
- so that buyers can select and keep items from your product
list till they generate a purchase order or an invoice,
a payment mechanism – so that buyers can pay for your
products online or offline. But, you also need to pay attention
to the following crucial aspects:
Product information
Buyers take their decision whether to buy a product from
your site or not depending on the information that you provide.
That’s why the product should have a clear and high-quality
picture, short and detailed specifications. If necessary
add attachments of diagrams, sketches, video etc. along
with the product specification. Write clearly and prominently
all sales terms and after sales supports terms, etc.
If you have many products, it is better to use an industry
standard classification system to categorize your products.
The goal is to have all the information related to the product
available on the website, so that the customer can take
a positive buying decision instantly.
Different Ordering Methods
The ultimate goal of your e-commerce site is to make sales.
Many people still don’t feel comfortable to make payments
through online transactions. You would be better off if
you include ordering processes by fax, telephone and ordinary
mail. In fact, to have a telephone number for customer support
and order is a must for any e-commerce site as it gives
buyers some extra feelings of security. That way they know
that they can always talk to a live person if anything goes
wrong.
Different Payment Methods
Although credit cards are by far the most acceptable means
of payments on the Internet, you should definitely consider
other methods as well. For small payments, Paypal is becoming
increasingly a popular mode. All e-commerce sites should
integrate this to their payment methods. More options include:
Electronic checks, e-bullion, Offline bank transfer etc.
Shopping Cart with Tax Calculation
In your search for shopping carts look for the ones, which
have different tax calculation mechanisms inbuilt. If you
are located in a province or state where your regional tax
gets calculated on top of the federal or vice versa, your
shopping cart should have the ability to calculate them
correctly.
Guarantees
As money back guarantees are becoming increasingly common
on online sales you should consider prominently posting
your money back guarantee on you website. Be sure to make
your money back guarantee generous! Customers are becoming
pickier on this issue. For example if you sell knowledge
base products like e-books, reports etc. make your hundred
percent guarantees at least of two months. For tangible
products, after sales warrantees should be also considerably
generous. Customers should feel completely secured to buy
at your website.
Privacy Policy
Your website must have a privacy policy. Customers are very
concerned about the information that they are relaying to
you. You must clearly explain them what you plan to do with
the various information that you collect from your customers.
If your site is planning to use cookies, make sure that
you covered this aspect in your privacy policy too.
Security
If your website collects sensitive information from your
customers, you should use security systems like SSL (Secure
Socket Layer). This guarantees that the data provided by
your customer will not fall into the hand of a malicious
hacker while transferring from his computer to the web server.
This also will reassure your customers that you are truly
concerned about the security of their personal and sensitive
information.
Once you know how to handle all the above mentioned aspects,
go ahead and look for a great tool to build your dream e-commerce
website and make money online!
About
the Author
Nowshade Kabir, Ph.D., is the founder, primary developer
and present
CEO, of Rusbiz.com, a global business to business e-commerce
portal with
feature like storefronts, aggregated catalog, e-marketplace,
trade
leads, internal messaging system supply chain solutions,
etc. With a
doctorate in Information Technology, Dr. Kabir has worked
an advisor to
government projects and has over 12 years experience in
International
Trade.
|
