Thursday 28 August 2014

Affordable ecommerce web design

ecommerce web design


Affordable ecommerce web design in Northern Ireland.

Affordable ecommerce web design in Northern Ireland from Designer Web NI make for tremendous Internet shopping websites that should produce revenue all night. An affordable ecommerce web design could start off with the essential basics of regular retail shops. To operate an ecommerce web site appropriately, your company must do a quantity of things that the regular shop keepers do. This assistance to ecommerce website web designs should assist to acquire affordable ecommerce website visitors to be genuine shoppers on your Internet ecommerce site.

The shop has products for sale

Everybody in ecommerce or wanting to get into ecommerce has thought this one out. If there are products that your company aspire to acquire like: modern tandem; cabbage; spaghetti; second hand parts for dish washer; or motorcycle batteries. Your business can be sure to find it for sale on the Internet.

Any product, no matter how great or nicely priced, does not make the basis for a good ecommerce website.

Featuring products

The supermarket needs a place to put on show its products. Typically the products are presented in a large purpose built building. Various products will be displayed in the window for passers-by to see. On the web, your products should be put on show on an ecommerce website. Think about how the regular retail shop showcases their products on sale. There are products prudently put on show in the window to entice the likely customer in. There will be open aisles leading to shelves stocked with many products, all of which are conveniently prearranged to sway the buyer to part with money.

Navigation of the ecommerce website

Navigation of the ecommerce website is important to an affordable ecommerce web design; web surfers to your ecommerce website need the same type of visible, undemanding pathway. They ought to have the ability to see your products that your company are selling, look at the price and compare against other similar products for sale with zero effort.

Online browsers to your affordable ecommerce website want to be able to observe your products with no difficulty. Bear in mind that they can not pick the products off the shelf and bring them to the till as they would do in the traditional shop. The back-end of your ecommerce website is just as critical as the front-end to the shopper. Your business will make sure that your company can complete the supply and distribution of your merchandise ahead of your affordable ecommerce web design going live. You are required to be able to provide on your agreement to the customer and complete sales.

Too many ecommerce websites go out of business due to the owners concerned were not able to secure the supply and distribution of their goods offered for sale on their website. When people spend money on the Internet and do not acquire the products that they bought in an acceptable time scale or do not acquire the products, they will obviously not be happy, and the chances are good that they will never purchase anything from your company ever again. They will tell all their friends in real life and on social media how disappointed they are with your pathetic customer service. It is fairly simple to post a note on social networking sites to hundreds of contacts. Bear in mind that prejudicial service messages typically receive copiousness harmful or nasty responses.

Maintaining your eCommerce website

The shop owners go for a building for their shop that are kept in respectable state of repair, and comprise all of the amenities that are needed. Electric and temperature are crucial to make customers comfortable and in buying mode. If the shop isn't in good repair, the problems should get fixed.

Many ecommerce website administrators do not keep their website in a good state of repair. They could throw up web sites that contain immense sections with under construction notices. Maybe their ecommerce website is hosted on Servers that present a changeable or slow service. If a buyer attempts to access your affordable ecommerce website and it is not available, what would you think they could do? They will simply click through to an alternative website where they may view the products that they need and make a purchase. Remember that a lost sale is a sale to the competition. Will they come back to you? Conceivably they should not return to your affordable ecommerce website!

Affordable ecommerce online shop Server

You must hold a regular ecommerce hosting if your business would like to operate a decent ecommerce solution. Your affordable ecommerce web design will introduce a entirely functional, whole shop with pleasant ecommerce website web design to acquire online visitors to get as far as making a purchase on your ecommerce website. There should not be any 'Under Construction' or 'Coming Soon' announcements.

Ecommerce Usability

Usability is another influential factor of affordable ecommerce web designs. If possible shoppers can not travel through through your ecommerce site straightforwardly, they should not complete a purchase. Consideration should be placed to the retail process. Understand that your competition are just a click away.

It is imperative that your business maintain your affordable ecommerce website as often as necessary. An affordable ecommerce site that's full of obsolete links will kill off the online shopping experience. An ecommerce website design that will not offer any innovative products should put off website visitors and your can be confident that they will not return. If your company can not afford the man hours required to maintain your ecommerce website, your company can not offer to have an affordable ecommerce website.

Affordable ecommerce website design

Even if your company have numerous of products on your ecommerce website, the website visitors still may well not purchase from you.

Running a specialist looking, entirely functional ecommerce website with an outstanding website theme is a feature for your company to build credibility with future online shoppers. Comparable to regular shops, your company have got to attain your customers' trust before they should get as far as making a purchase on your corporate ecommerce website. You have got to allow your net visitors experience your company, including being familiar with your products or services before they should make a purchase from your website. How would common shop keepers develop credibility with their customers? How can we develop credibility with future customers on the net? It is necessary to display contact information and must be part of the website design so that it isn't over powering.

Ecommerce shop catalogue

The regular supermarket present their shop as tempting as achievable for consumers. Merchandise is shown to tempt the customers to make a purchase.

People shopping on the net must to be able to look at and know the products ahead of making a purchase. Although, do not make the oversight of loading too many photos onto too few pages, resulting pages would load far too leisurely and should not provide as much information as necessary. A beneficial affordable ecommerce web design should have numerous web pages (a page per product); and should be organised into categories. It should be searchable, use thumbnails to offer quicker page load times, and present thorough information on every item on sale. An effective affordable ecommerce website should also demonstrate complete item particulars to win over the Internet customer to make the acquisition.

Ecommerce website contact information

Several ecommerce websites are knowingly made anonymous and supply no contact prospect for people wanting to make purchases on their website. It is obviously a dent in their credibility. Imagine this, "If I'm thinking of buying your wares, I intend to know who I am dealing with!"

Expert ecommerce websites may provide authentic names for contacts, not pseudonyms like 'info' or even worse, names that look like passwords or nicknames, like 'King Peter 9'. They list information about their important staff and their company so that the net visitor can access easily. Add credibility by including photographs of yourself and your main staff on your affordable ecommerce website. Shoppers have need of the feeling that they know you, or that they identify with you, to be feeling secure and comfortable before they should make the transaction.

Customer service information

Respectable affordable ecommerce web designs also offer information about customer service and contact information that is translucent and effortlessly within reach. Searching through numerous pages to uncover an email address in a tiny font on the foot of a page should leave your would-be customer with dubious feelings, and not agreeable feelings. Nearly everyone should not even take the trouble to search, as they should just guess that Your business are not the kind of business that they want to do business with.

Credibility with would-be customers can be made by making your customer service information a prominent feature of your ecommerce website. Make sure to put 'About Us' and 'Customer service' page links on your ecommerce websites footer area and make sure that it is obvious on every single page.

Remember to really perfect the information on the Customer Service and About Us pages; if a person clicks on 'About Us' and all they see is "under construction ", your credibility should be destroyed. Online shoppers must notice a fully featured customer service policy to be comfortable about making a purchase. Many ecommerce sites use FAQs which give answers to familiar questions, such as how to order, shipping charges, and return policies.

Ecommerce customer assistance

No matter how undersized your affordable ecommerce web design is, your company ought to present customer assistance in real-time. There are numerous Internet-based customer assistance applications and PHP scripts that enable your ecommerce site visitors acquire instant support. That is a good way to assist ecommerce visitors to make a purchase!

Completing purchases over the Internet

If your company intend to acquire visitors to your ecommerce site to generate a sale on your ecommerce website, your company are required to make it uncomplicated and secure for them to make the payment for their goods over the Internet.

Online shoppers would like the same stuff from your ecommerce site that they get from regular shops. Your ecommerce website should have to ensure that they are absolutely in safe hands and comfortable before they make a sale on the Internet.

Online payment facilities and debit card dealing are worth noting. Contrast to a physical shop and observe what takes place online when attempting to pay for goods.

Shop compliments

Shop owners would usually close the sale with a "Thank you, please come again" You must do this on your ecommerce website also. It could be a down-to-earth screen that is shown after the sale thanking your customer for their custom, a follow-up thank-you email, or a brochure that your company put in with the completed purchase (or all three!), your company must inform your ecommerce customer that your company sincerely are thankful for their custom, this message should be built into your ecommerce web design.

Blank displays or displays that only duplicate the order form after the sale don't give people shopping online the friendly, nice sentiments that may possibly turn into impending sales. Ensure that this isn't the situation.

For an affordable ecommerce web design in Northern Ireland, hosting, script installation, assistance, script maintenance and Search Engine Optimisation best practices, phone at Designer Web NI for a coffee.

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Monday 28 July 2014

Ecommerce web design

Ecommerce web design


Ecommerce web design starts with applying the basics of retail success. To run a ecommerce web site, you need to do what traditional shop keepers do. Follow these rules to get your ecommerce site visitors actually shopping on your Internet ecommerce site.

The shop keeper has a product or products that she wants to sell.

Everyone in ecommerce or thinking of getting into ecommerce has this one figured out. Want a new car? Fresh spinach? A replacement part for your ancient typewriter? You'll find it on the 'Net. But a product, no matter how superior or well-priced, does not a good ecommerce site make.

The shop keeper needs a place to showcase his product. Traditionally, this is a building of some kind.

On the Internet, it's called an ecommerce web site. Think about how the physical retail shop showcases their products. There are products in the window to entice the customer inside. There are aisles leading to shelves of more products, all conveniently arranged for the customer.

Navigation is critical to ecommerce web design; visitors to your Internet shop need the same kind of visible, easy-to-follow pathways. They need to be able to examine your products and compare them with other products easily.

Visitors to your Internet shop need to be able to access your products easily. They can't just pick them off the shelf and carry them to the till as they would in the traditional shop. The back end of your ecommerce site is just as important as your front end in terms of ecommerce web design. You need to arrange the supply and distribution of your product before your ecommerce site goes "live". You must be able to deliver on your promise to the customer.

Too many ecommerce ventures collapse because the people involved didn't bother to secure the supply and distribution of their product ahead of time. What happens when people go shopping on the Internet don't get the product they ordered in a reasonable amount of time or don't get it at all? They will get angry, and chances are good, no matter how nicely you apologize to them, they'll never buy anything from you again. They will tell all their friends how unhappy they are with your excuse for customer service!

The shop keeper chooses a building for his shop that is in good repair, and has all the facilities such as electricity and heat that are necessary to make his customers comfortable. If the building isn't in good repair, he fixes the problems.

Too many ecommerce entrepreneurs don't bother to do this. They throw up sites that have large sections under construction, or have their sites hosted by providers that provide erratic or slow service. If a potential customer tries to access your ecommerce website and it's down, what does she do? She clicks through to another site where she can view the products they are interested in. Will they back? The chances are that they will not be back to your site!

You must have consistent, 24/7 hosting if you want to operate a decent ecommerce web design. You must present a fully functional, complete shop to get visitors shopping on the Internet. No 'Under Construction' or 'Coming Soon' notices.

Usability is another important component of ecommerce web design. For instance, if potential customers can't navigate your site easily, they won't bother. Pay special attention to the ease of the buying process. Your competition is always only a click away.

And you must maintain your ecommerce site regularly and often. An ecommerce site that's full of dead links kills the Internet shopping experience. An ecommerce web design that never offers any new content will bore visitors. If you can't afford to maintain your site, you can't afford to have one.

But even if you have excellent ecommerce web design, site visitors still may not shop from you...

Having a professional-looking, fully functional ecommerce site is one way you build credibility with potential Internet shoppers. Just as in the traditional shop, you must win your customers' trust before they'll shop on your Internet site. You will need to let your site visitors get to know you and your company as well as learn about your products before they will start shopping Internet. How does a traditional shop keeper build credibility with their customers and how can we do it on the Internet?

The 'physical' shop keeper makes her shop as attractive as possible, and displays the product to best advantage.

People shopping on the Internet need to see the product before they'll purchase it, too; incorporating an Internet catalogue into your ecommerce web design can really help build credibility. But don't make the mistake of loading many pictures onto too few pages, resulting in pages that load too slowly and don't provide enough information. A good Internet ecommerce catalogue will utilise a vast amount of web pages; it will be organized into categories, searchable, use thumbnails to give faster load times, and provide detailed information on each product. An excellent ecommerce site design will also provide product information and make it easy for the Internet shopper to purchase the product.

The shop keeper (or members of her staff) is physically present in the shop to welcome, communicate with, and serve the customers that come into the shop.

Too many ecommerce sites are anonymous and provide very limited contact opportunities for people thinking of shopping on the Internet, it is a real blow to their credibility. "If I'm thinking of buying your product, I want to know who you are!"

Real ecommerce sites provide real names as contacts, not pseudonyms such as 'webmaster' or worse, names that look like passwords, such as 'King1724'. They supply information about their staff and their company that the Internet shopper can access easily. Build credibility by putting a picture of yourself and/or your staff on your site. Customers need to have the feeling that they know you, or at least that they know something about you, before they'll do any Internet shopping.

Respectable ecommerce web design sites also provide information about customer service and contact information that is clear and accessible. Having to drill down through 50 pages to find an email address printed in a tiny font on the bottom of a page will give your potential customer queasy feelings, not good feelings. Most won't even bother to search. They'll just assume that you're not the sort of person they want to do business with.

Build credibility with potential customers by making your customer service information a prominent feature of your site. Put an 'About Us' and a 'Contact Us' or 'Customer Service' link on your ecommerce site's navigation menu and make sure it's on every page.

And write those pages; if someone bothers to click on 'Customer Service' and all they see is a single email address, your credibility will plummet. Shoppers need to see a fully developed customer service policy to feel comfortable about Internet shopping. Many Internet shops use FAQs which provides answers to common questions, such as how to order, shipping charges, and return policies.

And no matter how small your ecommerce site is, you can now provide customer service in real time. There are a number of Internet based customer service applications and scripts that let your ecommerce site visitors get immediate, on-demand help. That is a good method to entice ecommerce visitors!

If you want to get visitors to your Internet shop visitors actually shopping on your ecommerce Internet site, you need to make it easy and safe for them to pay for their purchases through the site on the Internet.

Internet shoppers want the same things from your ecommerce web site that they demand from traditional shop keepers. You will have to make them feel safe and comfortable before they will start shopping on the Internet.

Online payment systems and credit card processing are a case in point for comparison. Compare what happens on the Internet when trying to pay for a purchase with an offline shop keeper.

The physical shop keeper ensures that customers feel secure in his shop.

You need to do the same things to get people shopping on the Internet. Site security is a prime concern of potential Internet shoppers. You may have to work especially hard at this, because you have to deal with both the reality and the perception of Internet credit card processing. The reality is that on a secured site, transmitting personal information such as credit card numbers is less dangerous than using a credit card in a 'real world' retail situation, where someone might look over someone else's shoulder and steal the number, or pick the credit card slip out of the rubbish bin later.
"there is more risk in handing your credit card to a stranger serving your dinner than in shopping Internet."
But the perception of credit card processing is that transmitting personal information such as credit card numbers over the Web is much more dangerous and that hackers lurk everywhere.

You must have SSL (Secure Socket Layering) on your Internet payment pages, so you have the ability to handle encrypted transactions. You must visibly show your potential Internet shopper that your site is secure and that your Internet payment systems, such as credit card processing, are safe to use. Using a third party payment processor like PayPal or SagePay takes away the need and expense of a certificate for SSL

The physical shop keeper makes it easy for customers to purchase products. She or a member of her staff is there to take your money, whether it be cash, cheque, credit or debit card.

Too many ecommerce sites make Internet shopping difficult. My personal annoyance are websites that only offer an order form that the customer has to print off, fill out, and post in. Why on Earth would I want to do that when I can just go to a traditional shop and hand over my cash, credit or debit card? If you have an Internet shop, you must offer a form of Internet payment, such as online credit card processing.

To accept payment on the Internet, you can use an Internet payment gateway system, such as PayPal, or set up a merchant account for credit card processing.

Many ecommerce solutions providers include credit card processing with their ecommerce packages. Easy Ways to Get Your Small Business Into Ecommerce presents a selection of inexpensive turnkey ecommerce packages for small businesses.

The physical shop keeper closes the sale with a "Thank you; please come again."

You need to do this on your ecommerce site, too. Whether it's a simple screen that comes up after the transaction thanking your customer, a follow-up thank-you email, or a thank-you card that you ship with the completed order (or all three!), you need to let your ecommerce customer know that you appreciate their business.

Blank screens, screens that automatically return to the home page, or screens that just repeat the order form after the transaction do nothing to give people shopping on the Internet the warm, fuzzy feelings that may translate into future sales.

Encourage Internet Shopping

Having a quality product is only one piece of the ecommerce puzzle. The biggest struggle is to get potential shoppers to visit your ecommerce site.

But even after you've put those pieces in place, you have to entice them to do their Internet shopping on your site by treating them as well as or better than they'd be treated in a traditional shop. Following the guidelines of popular ecommerce sites will assist in making the shoppers to become customers.

For an affordable ecommerce web design, hosting, installation, support, maintenance and SEO best practices, go to Designer Web NI for the complete package.

Sunday 27 July 2014

Ecommerce solutions

Ecommerce solutions


Building a website will not automatically give you an online business! Whether you sell a product or provide a service, ultimately the goal is for your website to generate income.

You most likely need an eCommerce solution that works for your business model and needs.

Do you know which one ecommerce solution is right for you? Below is a list of some ecommerce online shopping cart solutions.

Ultimately, you do not need to know about which solutions are available if your business is generating any business. Let a window cleaner clean windows, an electrician do electrics, a plumber do the plumbing and the website specialists do the website.


OS Commerce

Originally (in the late 90's and early 2000's), I used OS-Commerce for an affordable ecommerce solution on many sites for various reasons. OS Commerce provides you with the tools to set up a complete and self-hosted online store website.

Zen Cart

After OS Commerce, I moved on to Zen Cart for an ecommerce solution as it was basically OS Commerce with bells and whistles which made life much better with a more powerful solution.

Zen Cart is a user-friendly, open source shopping cart software which is based on OS-Commerce. The ecommerce web site script is developed by a group of like-minded shop owners, programmers, designers, and consultants that think ecommerce could and should be done differently.

OpenCart

Written from scratch and without the baggage of another script, OpenCart is a feature-rich, easy to use, search-engine friendly ecommerce PHP script with a great user interface.
  • Unlimited categories and products.
  • Multi Currency support.
  • Multiple languages for products.
  • Consumer product reviews and ratings.
  • Uses templates and themes.
  • Automatic image resize.
  • Lightbox for product gallery images.
  • Multimple Payment Gateways.
  • Various Shipping Methods.

CS cart

CS Cart is a fully customisable eCommerce solution platform for medium-sized businesses:
  • More than 70 payment gateways.
  • Build-in affiliate program.
  • On-page checkout facility.

Prestashop

PrestaShop is a free, fully scalable, open-source ecommerce solution. PrestaShop offers some enhanced features, including:
  • higher speed, and
  • easy-to-manage administration back office.

ContentShelf

Fully loaded with over 50 features, Content Shelf ecommerce solution has everything needed to sell and deliver digital products.

Shopify

With Shopify you can create an ecommerce online website shop with all the bells and whistles.
  • Over 100 professional themes + mobile themes.
  • Design a custom store.
  • CMS + micro-blogging platform.
  • Social media sharing.

Volusion

Volusion is an ecommerce website for online store and hosting combined:
  • All-in-one ecommerce solution.
  • Mobile and Facebook store included.
  • Average 3x more online sales.

1ShoppingCart

One shopping cart is an all-in-one eCommerce solution.
  • Fully customisable storefront design.
  • Online product catalogs.
  • Upsell and autoresponder features.

King Cart

King Cart is a turn-key ecommerce solution to your online shop site needs, featuring:
  • Merchant Account;
  • Paymeny Gateway;
  • Shopping Cart;
  • all in one complete package. 
The cost of King Cart depends on your sales.

Shopping Cart Elite

Shopping Cart Elite allows you to push your products in various marketplaces including eBay, Amazon, Craigslist and many others. It uses your existing online product database and allows you to create templates that resemble your product page.

ShopSite

Shop site is an ecommerce solution with an intuitive interface, you can have an online shop setup quite quickly. Your online hop won’t outgrow the Shop Site script, and you will not need expensive add-ons in order to have a fully functioning online shop.

Tomato Cart

TomatoCart is open source ecommerce solution developed and maintained by over 64,000 active users from over 50 countries and regions.

Magento

Magento has feature-rich solutions that address a wide range of business sizes, needs and budgets.

SpreeCommerce

Spree Commerce is a 100% open source ecommerce solution powered by the popular Ruby on Rails framework. It was designed to make customisation and upgrades as simple as possible.

Lite Commerce

Lite Commerce is an open-source e-commerce solution (OSL 3.0).
  • It can work like a Drupal 7 module and as a stand-alone web application.
  • Pre-built Ecommerce CMS package installing both LiteCommerce and Drupal.
  • Uses a clean and smooth user interface with nice AJAX enhancements.
  • Featuring a quick and easy one-page checkout.
  • Uses a highly customisable modular architecture.
  • Has an automatic upgrade function.
  • PHP code optimised for high performance.

GetShopped

Right out of the box you can use this WordPress e-Commerce Plugin to make a beautiful online shop.
  • Multi-tier pricing for quantity discounts.
  • Search Engine Friendly with Pretty URLs.
  • 100% customisable.
  • One-page checkout.

ShopperPress

ShopperPress is a Premium WordPress theme that transform WordPress into a fully functionality online shop with shopping cart functionality.

Fat Free Cart

FatFreeCart is a shopping cart ecommerce solution, developed by the team behind E-junkie shopping cart. It works inside your website or blog and will even work from a MySpace page. It is simply a copy-paste cart and does not require you to register or install anything.

InfusionSoft

InfusionSoft is everything you need in one package. A CRM, ecommerce solution, social media and email marketing. All of his is available in a single, powerful system that automatically converts leads into new customers and grows sales from existing ones.

3d Cart

3D Cart is an ecommerce solution that enables the website guys to easily build, edit, and maintain your online shop, and collect orders without any programming or HTML knowledge.
  • Pick a base template and customise.
  • Include your corporate logo.
  • Upload product images.
  • Add product descriptions and prices.

FoxyCart

One of the fastest checkouts available fro an ecommerce solution. Foxy Carts unique and innovative checkout is fast, conversion optimised, and profitable. Featuring: reduced time to market; lower implementation costs; lower long-term costs.

You know you have a good eCommerce solution when…

…it generates:
  • More trust.
  • Repeat customers.
  • Higher conversions.
  • More engaged user experience.
  • Higher search engine rankings.
  • Word of mouth.
  • Positive social media  comments.

Saturday 26 July 2014

Ecommerce sites


e-commerce online shopping cart


The ecommerce site is the first interface between the customer and the seller on the Internet rather than a traditional bricks-and-mortar shop. Your ecommerce site should be your best sales assistant and is the perceived image of your company. So your ecommerce website needs to be designed in such a way that it should have good user interface so that it is easily used and worked upon by customers without any hassles or confusion. A good ecommerce web site is a great way to showcase your products (or services), therefore it is definitely very important for your sales, revenue and profits. Some ecommerce sites are unconventional and rich in visual effects which could be detrimental to revenues generated from the site.

There are many ecommerce websites on the Internet for your inspiration.

Ecommerce packages

Setting up ecommerce packages involves many processes which would be beyond the majority of people. Analysis of requirements is to be completed first. After knowing what is to be sold, the script is chosen. Professional ecommerce hosting is chosen and the package is to be installed along with its database. Manufactures, categories and products are added to the website. The design of the website theme and it's implementation is quite a chore for the experienced. For the majority of people, the safest, best and most cost effective solution is to trust the ecommerce services to the professionals.

There is no shortage of e-commerce packages available to create an online shopping store. There is also no shortage of different types of ecommerce site for every niche, from selling services or widgets to a whopper of a mobile phone ecommerce site and everything else conceivable. Here are a few of the more popular ecommerce packages.
  • Open Cart;
  • Presta Shop;
  • Abante Cart;
  • WHMCS;
  • Magento;
  • osCommerce;
  • Zen Cart;
  • Loaded 7;
  • The Hoasting Tool;
  • Tomato Cart;
  • Box Billing;
  • Avactis;
  • Quick Cart;
  • Lite Cart;
  • Cube Cart;
  • Alegro;
  • phpCoin;
  • Axis;
  • Presta Shop 1.4;
  • Open Source Point of Sale;
  • CS Cart;
  • Zeus Cart;
  • Open eShop;
  • Blesta;
  • Client exec.
There are also plug-ins, modules and add-ons for CMS scripts to add ecommerce functionality. The most basic would be to add a PayPal button or link to a product information page for an instant transaction over the internet. Remember that e-commerce is the buying and selling of goods over an electronic medium, so does not necessarily have to be done on a full ecommerce website. If the budget is low and only selling one or two products per site, then I would recommend the PayPal buttons. For a larger site with multiple products, go for the ecommerce website solution.

Ecommerce Hosting

An unreliable website can be the death of an ecommerce shop. Your best strategies will fail if you ignore the primary requirement of successful ecommerce, which is a fast and reliable website hosting solution.

The Difference Between Conventional Hosting and Ecommerce Hosting

The difference between conventional hosting and ecommerce hosting is that the latter comes pre-loaded with software such as a shopping cart, a catalogue builder, an online store designer, and a payment processor. If you are comfortable with purchasing and managing your own software, you can gain a substantial price advantage with conventional hosting.

Ecommerce Website Hosting Evaluation


Internet Server Hardware

Your ecommerce website will be hosted on an Internet Server. The technical specifications of the server will determine your website's performance. Make sure that your ecommerce server has adequate resources to scale up over time.

Reliability and Uptime

For a website to be reliable, not only do you need the right hardware, but also the right maintenance regimen. Two identical servers may have substantially different performance, if one is maintained well, and the other is not.

You can determine the quality of maintenance by checking server uptime. Also, you can judge the reliability of a server in the following ways:
  • Many hosting providers maintain a real time log of server status. Keep track of the log.
  • Scores of websites publish consumer experiences.
  • After you narrow down your choice of hosting providers, make sure that they are not notorious for chronic hardware issues.

Security

Maintaining the highest levels of security is critical when you transact money online. Evaluate the security measures that the hosting provider offers. Additionally, make sure you do searches on the hosting company to find out about security-related issues.

Ability to Deal With Traffic Spikes

Traffic on most ecommerce websites is seasonal. For instance, on some shopping websites, traffic rockets during the pre-Christmas period. You should determine whether your hosting service can cope with the demands of traffic spikes.

Reliable Shopping Cart

A well-supported open source shopping cart is the most common choice of ecommerce businesses. Ensure that your hosting provider supports your preferred shopping cart software. Ideally, the shopping cart should come pre-loaded with your hosting account.

Hosting Pricing

There is little correlation between the quality and price of hosting. A premium priced service could well offer inferior hosting, and a discount-hosting provider might have all the specifications which you require. Ensure that you pay a competitive price for all the hosting features you need.

Also ensure that you do not ignore the cost of scaling up. Some hosting providers will lure you with bargain-basement prices, only to fleece you later with ridiculous upgrade prices.

Customer Service

There are hardly any hosting services that do not offer 24/7 support. What varies is the quality of service. An ecommerce business does not change its hosting provider frequently. In a sense, you are wedded to your hosting provider. Therefore, ensure that the quality of customer service is up to the mark.

Ecommerce Hosting Solution

If you have the expertise and time to create your own ecommerce site, then that's great. But the rest of the busy retailers that need ecommerce solutions NI based Designer Web can produce a cost effective solution for your ecommerce hosting requirements.

Ecommerce website design

Successful ecommerce website design is started by applying the fundamental basics of retail success. To operate a successful ecommerce website, you need to do what the successful traditional retailers do. Follow these important tips to get your ecommerce site visitors actually shopping on on your site.

1) You have a product or products to sell.


Everyone with an ecommerce website or thinking of getting into ecommerce has this one figured out. Want a new computer? Mobile phone? A replacement part for some appliance? You'll find it on the Internet. But a product, no matter how superior or well-priced, does not make for a successful ecommerce website.

2) You need a place to showcase your products. Traditionally, this is a building of some kind.


On the Internet, it's called an ecommerce website. But for the traditional retail outlet, there are products in the window to entice the customer inside. There are aisles leading to shelves of more products, all conveniently arranged for the customer.

Navigation is critical to ecommerce website design; visitors to your online shop need the same kind of visible, easy-to-follow pathways. They need to be able to examine your products and compare them with other products easily.

Visitors to your online shop need to be able to access your products easily. They can't just pick them off the shelf and carry them to the till as they would in a traditional shop. The back end of your ecommerce site is just as important as your front end in terms of ecommerce website design. You need to arrange the supply and distribution of your product before your ecommerce site goes "live". You must be able to deliver on your promise to the customer.

Too many ecommerce ventures collapse because the people involved didn't bother to secure the supply and distribution of their product ahead of time. What happens when people shopping online don't get the product they ordered in a reasonable amount of time or don't get it at all? They get angry, and chances are good, no matter how nicely you apologize to them, they'll never buy anything from you again. And they'll tell all their friends how unhappy they are with your crummy customer service!

3) The retailer chooses a building for his shop that is in good repair, and has all the facilities such as electricity and heat that are necessary to make their customers feel comfortable. If the building isn't in good repair, the retailer fixes the problems.


Too many ecommerce entrepreneurs don't bother to do this. They throw up websites that have large sections under construction, or have their sites hosted by providers that provide erratic or slow service. If a potential customer tries to access your website and it's down, what does she do? She clicks through to another website where she can view the products she's interested in. Will the website visitor be back? More than likely, not!

You must have consistent, 24/7 hosting if you want to operate a successful ecommerce website. You must present a fully functional, complete online shop to get visitors shopping online. No 'Under Construction' or 'Coming Soon' banners.

Usability is another important component of website design. For instance, if potential customers can't navigate your site easily, they won't bother. Pay special attention to the ease of the buying process. Your competition is always only a click away.

And you must maintain your website regularly and often. An ecommerce site that's littered with dead links kills the online shopping site experience. An ecommerce website that never offers any new content will bore visitors. If you can't afford to maintain your site, you can't afford to have one.

Having a professional-looking, fully functional ecommerce website is one way you build credibility with potential online shoppers. Just as in the traditional shop, you must win your customers' trust before they'll shop online. You need to let your site visitors get to know you and your company as well as learn about your products before they'll start shopping online. How does a bricks-and-mortar retailer build credibility with their customers and how can we do it on the 'Net?

4) The 'traditional' retailer makes their shop as attractive as possible, and displays the product to best advantage.


People shopping online need to see the product before they'll purchase it, too; incorporating an online catalogue into your ecommerce website design can really help build credibility. But don't make the mistake of loading many pictures onto too few pages, resulting in pages that load too slowly and don't provide enough information. A good online catalogue will use a lot of web pages; it will be organized into categories, searchable, use thumbnails to give faster load times, and provide detailed information on each product. An excellent catalogue also provides stock information and makes it easy for the online shopper to purchase the product.

5) The retailer or sales assistants are physically present in the shop to welcome, communicate with, and serve the customers that come into the shop.


Too many ecommerce websites are anonymous and provide very limited contact opportunities for people thinking of shopping online, a real blow to their credibility. If I'm thinking of buying your product, I want to know who you are.

Successful ecommerce sites provide real names as contacts, not pseudonyms such as 'webmaster' or worse, names that look like passwords, such as 'King1724'. They supply information about their staff and their company that the online shopper can access easily. Build credibility by putting a picture of yourself and/or your staff on your site. Customers need to have the feeling that they know you, or at least that they know something about you, before they'll do any online shopping.

Successful ecommerce websites also provide information about customer service and contact information that is clear and accessible. Having to drill down through 50 pages to find an email address printed in a tiny font on the bottom of a page will give your potential customer queasy feelings, not good feelings. Most won't even bother to search. They'll just assume that you're not the sort of person they want to do business with.

Build credibility with potential customers by making your customer service information a prominent feature of your site. Put an 'About Us' and a 'Contact Us' or 'Customer Service' link on your ecommerce website's navigation menu and make sure it's on every page.

And write those pages; if someone bothers to click on 'Customer Service' and all they see is a single email address, your credibility will plummet. Shoppers need to see a fully developed customer service policy to feel comfortable about online shopping. Many online shops use FAQs which provides answers to common questions, such as how to order, shipping charges, and return policies.

And no matter how small your ecommerce website is, you can now provide customer service in real time. There are Internet based customer service applications that let your ecommerce website NI visitors get immediate, on-demand help. Now there's a way to entice ecommerce visitors!

Lastly, if you want to get visitors to your online shop to be actually shopping online, you need to make it easy and safe for them to pay for their purchases online.

Online shoppers want the same things from your ecommerce website that they demand from bricks-and-mortar retailers. You have to make them feel safe and comfortable before they'll start shopping online.

Online payment systems and credit card processing are a case in point. Compare what happens online to paying for a purchase at an offline retailer.

6) The traditional retailer ensures that customers feel secure in his shop.

You need to do the same to get people shopping online. Site security is a prime concern of potential online shoppers. You have to work especially hard at this, because you have to deal with both the reality and the perception of online credit card processing. The reality is that on a secured site, transmitting personal information such as credit card numbers is less dangerous than using a credit card in a 'real world' retail situation, where someone might look over someone else's shoulder and steal the number, or pick the credit card slip out of the trash afterwards.

During an interview with a Tomax CEO, he said, "there is more risk in handing your credit card to a stranger serving your dinner than in shopping online." But the perception of credit card processing is that transmitting personal information such as credit card numbers over the Internet is much more dangerous and that hackers lurk everywhere.

You must have SSL (Secure Socket Layering) on your online payment pages, so you have the ability to handle encrypted transactions. You must visibly show your potential online shopper that your site is secure and that your online payment systems, such as credit card processing, are safe to use. Using a gateway payment processor is a great way to have the transaction secure and the retailer does not need to have the card details.

7) The traditional retailer makes it easy for customers to purchase products. She or a member of her staff is there to take your money, whether it be cash, cheque, credit or debit card.

Too many ecommerce websites make online shopping difficult. My personal pet peeve is websites that only offer an order form that the customer has to print off, fill out, and mail in. Why would I bother to do that when I can just go to a traditional shop and hand someone my cash, credit or debit card? If you have an online shop, you must offer online payment, such as credit card processing.

To accept payment online, you can use an online payment system, such as PayPal, or set up a merchant account for credit card processing. Online payment systems such as PayPal allow you to set up merchant accounts and online payment processing for both debit and credit cards. You'll find more information on online payment systems in the Payment Processing section of this website.

Many ecommerce solutions providers include credit card processing with their ecommerce packages. Easy Ways to Get Your Small Business Into Ecommerce presents a selection of inexpensive turnkey ecommerce packages for small businesses.

8) The traditional retailer closes the sale with a "Thank you; please come again."

You need to do this with your ecommerce website design, too. Whether it's a simple screen that comes up after the transaction thanking your customer, a follow-up thank-you email, or a thank-you card that you ship with the completed order (or all three!), you need to let your ecommerce customer know that you appreciate her business.

Blank screens, screens that automatically return to the home page, or screens that just repeat the order form after the transaction do nothing to give people shopping online warm, fuzzy feelings that may translate into future sales.

Encourage Online Shopping

Having a quality product is only one piece of the ecommerce website puzzle. Another is getting potential shoppers to visit your ecommerce site. There are many techniques, PPC, SEO, newsletters and social media are a few of them.

But even after you've put those pieces in place, you have to entice them to do their online shopping on your site by treating them as well as or better than they'd be treated in a traditional shop. Following these important tips of successful ecommerce websites will help to persuade potential online shoppers to make the click that matters.

Ecommerce

E-commerce - selling on the internet

e-commerce

 What is ecommerce

The buying and selling of products and services by businesses and consumers through an electronic medium, without using any paper documents. Ecommerce is universally considered to be the buying and selling of goods over the Internet. Any transaction that is completed solely through electronic means can also be considered ecommerce. Ecommerce is subdivided into three main categories: business to business (B2B), business to consumer (B2C), and consumer to consumer (C2C).

Ecommerce usually adhere to some or all of the following practices:
  • Provide virtual store fronts on websites with online catalogues.
  • Buy or sell on websites or online marketplaces.
  • Use electronic data interchange.
  • Reach prospective and established customers by E-mail with newsletters.
  • Use business-to-business buying and selling.
  • Provide secure business transactions.
For a cost effective ecommerce solution, go to Designer Web NI. To see an ecommerce website in action, take a look at Camping NI's shop.