e-Commerce: Everything you need to know about selling online

e-COMMERCE:EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SELLING ONLINE

Agenda
About me and e-CBD
The e-commerce landscape
How to know when you’re ready to sell online
Shopping cart options
Dealing with your bank – What you need to know
The five biggest mistakes you can make
Top ten tips for selling online
Case Studies
Converting visitors to sales
Marketing your store
Further reading

About Me and e-CBD
Communications degree
Worked in Public Relations and Journalism
Joined e-CBD with Marilyn Strauss in 2001
Focussed on online marketing
Stared memery 2008
I’m Marketing Magazine’s ‘Online Marketing Guru’
Write regular features for Marketing Mag

About this Workshop
It’s not a lecture, it’s a workshop so if you have questions, write them down and we’ll go through them at the end.

How much do we know?
Does anyone not have a website?
Who is already selling online?
Who is using a payment gateway with their bank?
Who has used PayPal

What does the e-commerce landscape look like?

How to know when you’re ready to sell online

How to know when you’re ready
Are people looking for what you want to sell?
Will people buy what you sell online?
Can you compete?

Are people looking for what you want to sell?
Go to Google’s Keyword Tool and find out!
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Example
http://www.dogtrainingproducts.com.au
‘dog harness’

Will people buy what you sell online?
Are there competitors online?
Are they doing well? (Longevity, nice design, marketing budget)
What if you’re the first to sell online? (They said no-one would buy shoes online)
Are you selling something people need to experience? (You’ll have a hard time selling boutique wine to new customers, and easy time to existing customers)
Are you selling something people want NOW? (Pizza sells very well online, beer does not)

Can you compete?
Don’t compete with Amazon.com unless you’re Dymocks
Don’t compete with eBay
Find your niche
But make sure it’s profitable

Finding your niche – The Long Tail
Source: http://blog.hubpages.com/2008/10/the-long-tail-of-hubpages/

Finding your niche – The Long Tail
Source: http://modernl.com/article/forget-the-long-tail-go-for-the-sweet-spike

Shopping Cart Options

PayPal Buy Buttons
PayPal Shopping Cart
Shopping cart linked to PayPal or to your bank

PayPal – Free payment network
Great for dipping your toe in the water
Easy to setup
Pay per sale
Takes people away from your site
People get scared of PayPal
Doesn’t go straight to your bank

PayPal Examples
http://blackmarketrhythmco.bandcamp.com/
http://twollow.com

PayPal Shopping Cart
Visit PayPal.com.au and create an account for details

Professional Shopping Cart
Make it look exactly how you want
Incorporate a large database of products
Advanced tracking and stats
Deal with your bank, integrate with Quickbooks and make your accountant happy
You need a merchant account

Dealing with your bank – What you need to know
You need a site before you can get a merchant account
You need a payment gateway – the bank will try and sell you theirs
Must show your full contact details
Need a returns policy
Show bank guidelines
Costs:
Per transaction
Yearly fee

Professional Shopping Cart
e-CBD Shopping Cart (Interspire)

The Five Biggest e-commerce mistakes

The Five Biggest e-commerce Mistakes
Making the checkout process to complicated
Being too expensive
Looking untrustworthy
Not doing your research
Know your competitors back to front
Know your conversion rates
Know your profitibility
Not being visible in Google

Be the cheapest! (Online and offline – make it worth the wait for shipping)

Look the most professional/trustworthy (they’ll be shopping around)

Explain everything as well as you can (and as succinctly)
Video, image galleries

Make the process super easy. Don’t make them scroll or login.

Show people’s opinions of what you’re selling

Give an incentive for them to buy from you

Create a sense of urgency

Answer their questions without them having to ask (FAQs)

Make your products easy to find with intuitive searches and accurate categories

Make your products easy to find with intuitive searches and accurate categories
Give them a reason to come back (most sales happen to existing customers)

Case Studies

Case Studies
Flowers

Converting Visitors to Sales

Website Optimisation
Conversion Rate Optimisation
Content Strategy

Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)
CRO can increase conversions by 50 - 600% in some cases
Unoptimised sites conversion can be as low as 0.1% - 3.1%
CRO is often looked at last when it should be first. The end result of having a site is to attract traffic that performs some action to fulfil a goal after reaching the site.
What are your site goals? - Sales, leads, download something, read your article, sign up for your newsletter, click on your ads etc.
CRO, Content Strategy and SEO are interlinked. SEO brings the traffic, CRO Converts the Traffics and both involve utilising a content strategy.

Makes your site more helpful for visitors making them more likely to purchase or use your services
Makes your site more SEO friendly which can potentially increasing your search engine traffic by 60% - 600%
Makes your business seem professional and legitimate which builds brand confidence
Content Strategy

A five second home page test

Legitimate/Trustworthy Design
Easy Navigation
Credible Logo
Clear Value Propositions & Benefits Oriented Language
Content Layout
Calls to Action (CTA)
Effective Use of Imagery
Interactivity & Engagement
Cull Uneccessary Content which dilutes goals
CRO – Hit List

CRO – Ten Actionable Tips
Make Credible landing pages that look trustworthy and legitimate.
Great logo
No spelling mistakes
Clear and modern design
Legitimacy cues e.g. Social Media, Security logos, Awards, Testimonials etc.
Make navigating through your site easy and clear. Use sensible navigation titles.
Use "benefit oriented" language and headings giving strong value propositions. "Save time and money ..."
Location - Most important offers, information etc in prime locations (top left, left side and center)
Calls to Action (CTA):
Size, Colour & Location as well as value proposition
What will they get when they click "the button"?

6. Use images correctly:
Hero Shots of products or services
People using products, multiple angles, before and after etc.
Avoid stock images where possible
Make images clickable and include descriptions where appropriate
7. Add a video. Studies show a video can increase conversions by 80%. Make sure it isn't set to auto-play.
8. Use interactive content:
Flash applications e.g. interactive maps, interactive product information, 360 views etc.
Calculators attached to lead form e.g. savings calculator, cost calculator, get a quote etc.
Comments and feedback forms
Search functionality, chat functionality (where appropriate)
9. Incorporate user testing into your design process for your website. Do a six foot test on your landing page/homepage. Also use free user testing services such as "5 Second Test" or "Click Test".
10. Cull unnecessary content and learn to "get to the point".

Content Strategy
People come to a site for something: information/answers, complete a task
They don't read much (depending on what they are looking for)
Information is skimmed and scanned before committing to deeper reading
Write so people can grab the information they need quickly
Test your content on real people

Content Strategy – Action Items
People come to a site for something - make your content useful and helpful not just content for contents sake.
Make content "grab and go" friendly by using good layout and sub headings. Entice them into reading more.
Do a "Content Audit". Go through the whole site (within reason) and note all forms of content. Work out how you can:
Improve the layout and structure of the site
Add new and helpful/enticing content
Cull boring and useless content
Ask yourself: "Would you bother looking at the content on your website?" then fix the reasons you wouldn't.
Ask yourself for each page on your site: "Who is your audience and are you answering their questions or helping them to fulfill the task they need to perform?"

6. Get others to look at your site. Put together a survey. Use an anonymous 5 second test on different pages.
7. Break up written text with headings, subheadings, bullet points, horizontal lines
8. Make text helpful and SEO friendly by adding text links. This is the bread and butter of "The Internet" paradigm.
9. For lots of information use a PDF download. If you have to scroll down more than 3 - 5 times maybe there is too much on the page.
Use automatic/interactive content like widgets, calculators and areas where people can leave comments.
FREE TIP – Buy one get one free - that such a great deal I’m actually making money by buying it – What are you “giving away”? Free shipping, internet discount, samples of a product, free trial, limited trial, upgrade discounts, promotional coupons

Marketing your Store

Marketing your Store
SEO
Email Marketing
Social Media Marketing
Advertising, PR and Word of Mouth

Search Engine Optimisation

Search Engine Optimisation
Read!
http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en//webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769

Email Marketing

e-CBD’s Top Email Marketing Tips
When someone buys something, offer them incentives to sign up to a regular newsletter
Offer everyone on your site a newsletter with incentives, like special deals
Send them a welcome message as soon as they’ve subscribed
Personalise each newsletter as much as you can. Make the recipient feel special
Tailor the subject line for your audience
If they unsubscribe, ask why. Get feedback on what you could have done better
Don’t send anything without testing it first!
Track referrals on your website using Google Analytics
Tweak your campaigns by testing different subject lines and formats. See what gets the best click through rates

e-CBD’s Top Email Marketing Tips
Send your newsletter out at lunchtime on Monday or Tuesday, or on Friday morning if you want to reach people for the weekend. These are the times when people are most active online.
Make sure the recipients can see who it’s coming from, your name, or your company (or both).
Remember that inboxes are smaller than computer screens. Don’t make your email too wide.
Make sure it looks good on an iPhone
Have a subscribe option at the bottom of emails as well as an unsubscribe. People might have forwarded their friends the email. Make it easy for them to keep getting it.
Don’t send an email newsletter to anyone unless they’re expecting to get it. Just because they gave you their email address doesn’t mean they want you to send them a newsletter.

Use Facebook advertising, it’s cheap
Setup a Facebook page for your business and give people incentives to join
Set up a Google alert for your brand and engage the people who are talking about you, wherever they are talking
Set up alerts for your industry (especially if no one is talking about your brand)
Keep an eye on what people near you are saying on Twitter
Spend some time each day reading about what other people are doing. There are 1 billion social media marketing blogs out there. Reading blogs is much easier than writing blogs.
Create a community of interest around what you do. It takes time, but it’s worth it.
Don’t start something you can’t finish or maintain properly or it’s a waste of time and you’re better off with Google Ads
Use LinkedIn as a networking tool. Join groups and ask questions.
If you want people to talk about you, be creative (or pay someone who is).

You could write a book on each of these
Each has its place, but all help to give legitimacy to an online store
If people recognise your brand when they find you online, you’re more likely to make a sale
Write down the names of as many online flower stores we visited before as you can remember. How many can you think of?

e-Commerce: Everything you need to know about selling online

by Matt Granfield

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