What is E-commerce?
| Category: E-commerce | Date: 2003-09-16 |
All the elements that make up Ecommerce are overviewed in this article. Unlike conventional commerce, with a direct interface with your customers, in Ecommerce the business contact and often the business transaction will be remote. You may not even know about it until you receive an Email from your credit card company.
Marketing
------------
The book about Web based marketing is being written now, in real life experiences. We've all read about spectacular failures during the infamous "dot com" boom and bust period. Success may be less interesting for the media, but there are some very real success stories in the E-commerce world, and it is these which are creating the "do's and don'ts":
1. A website is always a good introduction to a business.
2. Brochure your product range and services.
3. Don't try selling products where personal contact is essential.
4. Sell directly where convenience is important.
5. Sell directly commodity items and where a returns policy is easy.
6. Sell directly hard to find niche products.
7. Analyze your distribution channel and costs.
8. Immediately acknowledge credit card purchases with an estimate of delivery.
Show your products
------------------------
A simple catalogue of products or services with photographs and text. You might hyperlink to other sites (if you sell washing machines, for example, you might link to the manufacturer's technical page). For many businesses this, plus an Email link or query form, might well be enough.
Allow queries
-----------------
You can allow customers to contact you with a single click to bring up a form, this converts your customer's browsing into a potential sales contact.
Get feedback
----------------
You can add survey and feedback forms to your website, so that even if the viewer has no immediate interest, a general interest can be registered for follow up.
Affiliate marketing
-----------------------
Have you ever noticed that some websites have advertisements on them? This is called affiliate marketing, where companies will pay to be advertised on your website. It never does any harm to let other websites link to yours; add a "Link to us" at the bottom of each page.
Follow up marketing
-------------------------
Just as you would follow up business leads manually, the electronic equivalent is called "Autorespond". You can program any number of follow up prompts, customizing each and varying the time interval. You can have your own or use third party suppliers.
Take orders
--------------
Taking orders online is called a "Shopping Cart". This can be very simple, with just a "Buy" button next to a product list or a product photograph, or more complex with sub categories for sizes, colors etc. There are many ready made packages available, and also some which you just link to.
Take payment
------------------
The best way is by cedit card. It's easy to integrate credit card payment into a shopping cart, and all packages let you do this.
Automated delivery
------------------------
There is a distinction between selling physical products and selling data products. Data products would be things like directly downloaded software and electronic books. For data products it is possible to create a fully automated selling, acknowledgment and delivery system, where the seller need take no direct action for a sale to be completed. There are also third party providers which can be integrated into your website. The sale of products requiring physical delivery requires a special script to be written for your website shopping cart.
Automated acknowledgment
-----------------------------------
You'll also need a script for this. Scripting takes you past the immediate beginner stage, but you can find people over net to install scripts for you.
Databases
------------
If there is to be some check on delivery, or other automatic collection of data, a database will be involved. Now databases are complicated, and some specialized advice should be sought here. You have probably read very high profile press stories of spectacular security failures by well known companies who, foolishly storing their confidential databases on a website server, accidentally released customers credit card and other confidential information to the world. The only sensible advice here is to keep your confidential database separate to your website, well protected by encryption and firewalls, and to contract it out to a reputable specialist company. If you do use a database on your website, I would recommend taking out sensitive data as soon as possible and transferring it to your own off-line computer.
Summary
------------
There are many E-commerce elements that you can add to your website yourself, easily and without complications, including a shopping cart and credit card payment. There is, however, a clear division where specialist help or advice becomes necessary, especially with databases. I should add that "specialist advice" means just that. Don't take advantage of a cheap offer by "a friend's son who is a whizz on computers". Go to someone who has a proven track record and is likely to be in business for a long time to come.
About the Author
John Stuart Beeteson has over 30 years experience in the computer industry, and is the author of : "Visualizing Magnetic fields" published by Academic Press, and the two books of the WebSkel course "Success and Profit through Ecommerce." He is the President of WebSkel.
Support@webskel.co.uk
http://www.webskel.co.uk
Marketing
------------
The book about Web based marketing is being written now, in real life experiences. We've all read about spectacular failures during the infamous "dot com" boom and bust period. Success may be less interesting for the media, but there are some very real success stories in the E-commerce world, and it is these which are creating the "do's and don'ts":
1. A website is always a good introduction to a business.
2. Brochure your product range and services.
3. Don't try selling products where personal contact is essential.
4. Sell directly where convenience is important.
5. Sell directly commodity items and where a returns policy is easy.
6. Sell directly hard to find niche products.
7. Analyze your distribution channel and costs.
8. Immediately acknowledge credit card purchases with an estimate of delivery.
Show your products
------------------------
A simple catalogue of products or services with photographs and text. You might hyperlink to other sites (if you sell washing machines, for example, you might link to the manufacturer's technical page). For many businesses this, plus an Email link or query form, might well be enough.
Allow queries
-----------------
You can allow customers to contact you with a single click to bring up a form, this converts your customer's browsing into a potential sales contact.
Get feedback
----------------
You can add survey and feedback forms to your website, so that even if the viewer has no immediate interest, a general interest can be registered for follow up.
Affiliate marketing
-----------------------
Have you ever noticed that some websites have advertisements on them? This is called affiliate marketing, where companies will pay to be advertised on your website. It never does any harm to let other websites link to yours; add a "Link to us" at the bottom of each page.
Follow up marketing
-------------------------
Just as you would follow up business leads manually, the electronic equivalent is called "Autorespond". You can program any number of follow up prompts, customizing each and varying the time interval. You can have your own or use third party suppliers.
Take orders
--------------
Taking orders online is called a "Shopping Cart". This can be very simple, with just a "Buy" button next to a product list or a product photograph, or more complex with sub categories for sizes, colors etc. There are many ready made packages available, and also some which you just link to.
Take payment
------------------
The best way is by cedit card. It's easy to integrate credit card payment into a shopping cart, and all packages let you do this.
Automated delivery
------------------------
There is a distinction between selling physical products and selling data products. Data products would be things like directly downloaded software and electronic books. For data products it is possible to create a fully automated selling, acknowledgment and delivery system, where the seller need take no direct action for a sale to be completed. There are also third party providers which can be integrated into your website. The sale of products requiring physical delivery requires a special script to be written for your website shopping cart.
Automated acknowledgment
-----------------------------------
You'll also need a script for this. Scripting takes you past the immediate beginner stage, but you can find people over net to install scripts for you.
Databases
------------
If there is to be some check on delivery, or other automatic collection of data, a database will be involved. Now databases are complicated, and some specialized advice should be sought here. You have probably read very high profile press stories of spectacular security failures by well known companies who, foolishly storing their confidential databases on a website server, accidentally released customers credit card and other confidential information to the world. The only sensible advice here is to keep your confidential database separate to your website, well protected by encryption and firewalls, and to contract it out to a reputable specialist company. If you do use a database on your website, I would recommend taking out sensitive data as soon as possible and transferring it to your own off-line computer.
Summary
------------
There are many E-commerce elements that you can add to your website yourself, easily and without complications, including a shopping cart and credit card payment. There is, however, a clear division where specialist help or advice becomes necessary, especially with databases. I should add that "specialist advice" means just that. Don't take advantage of a cheap offer by "a friend's son who is a whizz on computers". Go to someone who has a proven track record and is likely to be in business for a long time to come.
About the Author
John Stuart Beeteson has over 30 years experience in the computer industry, and is the author of : "Visualizing Magnetic fields" published by Academic Press, and the two books of the WebSkel course "Success and Profit through Ecommerce." He is the President of WebSkel.
Support@webskel.co.uk
http://www.webskel.co.uk
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