Ecommerce Websites
Any website needs a good navigation structure. Whenever a user is navigating inside a store with more than one sub-level of navigation, it's important to show them where in the site structure they are by using appropriate navigation menus. A site with many items, such as ebay, needs a sort feature. You should at least have a sort option based on price on product pages and search results. Other sort options which can be incorporated include popularity, newness (date of manufacture) and whether or not the item(s) are in stock.
All ecommerce websites should have search functionality. Google offers a paid for service whereby shops can include a search bar into their webpages, without advertisments, for an annual fee. A search feature will save the end user a lot of time when searching for products in a large ecommerce website. Sometimes a person may want to see everything that you sell. A wildcard search function on your website would allow the user the option of seeing every product on one page. This can also be achieved using RSS feeds which people can subscribe to in order to be notified of new products.
It's particularly important for internet shop sites to show pricing and cost savings clearly, but nearly every website can benefit from providing that extra bit of detail before the customer clicks to a product page. The cost of a product is usually the most important factor in deciding whether or not a customer makes a purchase from your site. Customers must also be able to see clearly what the costs of delivery are and what the delivery options are from your online shop website. It is important to be able to offer track and trace and insurance in case something unexpected happens to the package. The UK post office has a no facility for finding lost articles that have not been sent by recorded delivery and you wiill proprably not get a refund for lost items unless it is insured. Keep the customer informed by email or phone when the payment has been received and when the item has been shipped. When you send out an order confirmation, make sure to include all of the product details to reassure the buyer that they've selected the right item and to give the customer the option to fix an incorrect order before the item is shipped.
In addition, the following hardware and software considerations should be adherered to...
- Web hosts needs to be able to store website files on secure servers. Unix based website hosting tends to be more secure than Windows based servers as all version of Windows are more susceptible to viruses than any version of Linux.
- Protection of credit card details from eavesdroppers is needed as the data passes through the internet between the client and the server as indicated by a padlock logo that appears on the browser window. Double click on the padlock and it will give you the website security certificate details.
- Use of a regularly updated anti virus program, spyware program, security updates and patches. Never run a program from a recipient who you do not know and never devulge your password information to anyone claiming to be from business first unless they can be verified.
- The webserver and the network that it is on needs to maintain logs of all activity. This produces an audit trail that can be used to find the source of any attempt to steal sensitive information.
- Fail safe technology such as off site backups is required in case of a catastrophe such as virus or damage to servers and uninterruptible power supply to prevent power cuts from corrupting a transaction in progress.
Finally, it is important to market your website so that people can find it. The following is a list of techniques for marketing an online shop website...
- Search Engine Optimisation (Improving natural search engine listings)
- Display-Advertising (Buying web banner ads)
- Email-Marketing (Newsletters and Junk Mail)
- Affiliate Marketing (A parent business rewards another affiliate business for each customer brought about by the affiliate-company)
- Interactive advertising (Viral marketing techniques to engage the consumer in a personal way)
- Online reputation management (Similar to webpage marketing except it is for a name or brand, and the optimisation is not a single web site but rather any site that contains only positive references to that name or brand.)
- Social Marketing (blogs, social bookmarking).
Succesful ecommerce website marketing can be measured by higher search engine placement for your ecommerce websites main keywords than before your internet marketing campaign commenced and it is easy to set up yourself or to pay another company to do it for you.