ecommerce guide 2011

A Guide to Ecommerce

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Imagine you walked down the high street. You are looking around. Your mind is processing all kinds of signs, signals and products.

You may want something, need something or impulsively something just catches your eye. That's the equivalent of you using the Google search engine; searching, scanning and looking for something.

You spot a shop. On this shop window you recognise the company name and see some attractive products and offers which entice you to come into the shop.

Inside the shop you see the different departments.

Since this is written from a guy’s perspective, you proceed to the men’s clothing section.

Inside the men’s clothing you see shirts.

So you head off to the shirts.

Inside the shirts section, you see lots of different coloured shirts.

You start looking at the shirts. You pick them up, feel them, turn them around.

Then you ask the shop assistant if you have this one in a neck size 16.

The shop assistant pulls out a number of shirts in a size 16 similar to the one you were looking at.

You look at the price, you feel the material, look at the pattern, collar style, cuffs.

You may even want to go try this shirt on.

You are weighing up in your head what does this shirt go with ? Part of a suit, just on its own ?

You can still head back to the other shirts in the shirt section if this one isn’t a match for you.

But on this occasion, since you are a guy and view shopping as a chore, you decide on a shirt to purchase.

Just as you are about to head off to the checkout, the shop assistant suggests this tie may go well with that shirt. And there is a deal on.

She is very persuasive !

So with your shirt and tie in hand, you head along to the checkout where they ring up your order. You whip out your credit card, put in your pin number.

In a nanosecond, your credit card details are sent to your bank, checked and verified and if the card balance is ok, the bank approves the transaction and notifies the girl at the checkout. She is now happy she will receive your money for her goods.

You can now have your goods as the exchange of goods and money has been successful.

The sales assistant wraps up your order, gives you the receipt and thanks you for shopping with her.

She tells you that she looks forward to you visiting again and pops in a little incentive along with your order to persuade you to come back soon.

You then exit the shop and carry on with your day.

Now let’s look at a shop online. You spot a shop. On this shop window you recognise the company name and see some attractive products and offers which entice you to come into the shop.

Inside the shop you see the different departments.

You see the Cufflinks section.

You see the Timepiece section.

You start looking at the watches.

You look at one watch and decide to find out more.

You look at this one watch. You click on more views to look at this one in more detail.

You look at the price. You look at the details of the watch. What is it made from , the warranty etc.

The shop assistant shows you some other ones you may also like.

If you make up your mind this is the product you want, you add it to your shopping cart.

The watch is now in your virtual shopping cart.

The cart reassures you of the product you wish to order by displaying the product name, image, quantity and price.

If you recall the offer, you insert the promotional code and select the delivery option. You proceed to the checkout to pay for the product.

At the checkout, you enter your name, email, phone, billing address, delivery address and card details.

When the bank confirms your card and passes the transaction to the retailer you receive a receipt and are emailed an order confirmation.

With a physical product, the goods are picked in the warehouse by the despatch person and sent by a delivery company to you.

With a digital product, you would be sent a link to instantly download the product.

Summary

• Whilst this is a very simplistic view of selling online, virtually every online retailer follows these key steps :

– Shop window

– Categories or departments

– Products

– Product detail

– Basket

– Checkout

– Receipt of order and delivery

• Each key step is customised according to the needs of the business, the products and what the customer needs in order to make a purchase.

Things you need• Product stock file

– A list of all your products, prices, descriptions, weights, measurements, shipping costs, product codes etc

• Merchant account number– It is going to take you about 30 days to secure a merchant account number from your bank. If you are a start up business or sole

trader, you will most likely be ineligible for a merchant account and have to rely on Google checkout or Paypal.– When you do have your merchant account, please make sure you have the correct authorities - what currencies you will accept,

which payment cards and types you will accept.

• Payment gateway provider– People like Sagepay act as the middleman between your online shop and the banks. Make sure you have the account up and

running and you understand which currencies, payment cards and payment types you can accept.

• Product photography– Photography for the ecommerce and online shops is costly. Don't assume you can just take photographs from your brochure or

from your camera. Photographs do the selling for products online. Get a pro.

• Shipping your goods to customers– You will need a place to store your products safely, someone to package up the order and put the customers delivery address

details on the order.– And you will need someone like the Royal Mail, Fedex, UPS or another shipping agent to collect the goods and deliver them to

the customer.

• Ecommerce Provider– You are going to need an ecommerce provider, someone like us, to pull this altogether.

It is not that easy

• We live in an ultra competitive world.

• There is so much of everything.

• If you are just getting started in ecommerce, remember your competition could have a 10 year head start on you.

• So you better have found a gap in the market, a solution that solves a problem unlike any other or a better offering.

• You need to do your homework into finding out the demand for what you are offering.

• If you have an existing customer base or retail presence, you can leverage that very quickly.

• You will need people resources and a marketing budget.

• Figuring out how to profitably attract customers, convert them into sales and get them and their friends coming back, that bit requires time, money, expertise and persistence.

About us

• Platonik are an Adobe Business Catalyst Partner.

• We build, run and grow ecommerce sites and online businesses.

• You can see ecommerce sites we have built here

• You can follow us on Twitter here

• If you have any questions, you can contact us here or just email fraser@platonik.co.uk