Web Hosting Geeks' Blog » shopping carts http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog Web Hosting Industry News, Latest Trends, and Analyses. Thu, 09 Feb 2012 05:48:19 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Adjusting Product Catalogs and Shopping Carts for Higher eCommerce Conversionshttp://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2011/03/09/product-catalogs-shopping-carts-ecommerce-conversions/ http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2011/03/09/product-catalogs-shopping-carts-ecommerce-conversions/#comments Wed, 09 Mar 2011 21:09:33 +0000 Art http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/?p=1463 Building and optimizing a successful business website is an ongoing challenge that can be especially difficult for novice webmasters that are not experienced with e-commerce. Ultimately, the goal of an online store owner is to create a user-friendly interface that their customers can use to shop for products or services with minimal effort and maximum convenience. Unfortunately, accomplishing this is not as easy as it would seem, as there are many factors to consider when customizing the shopping experience of your site visitors.

Perhaps the most important aspects are those related to the product catalog and the checkout process, which is facilitated by integrated shopping cart applications. While the majority of e-commerce hosting plans include product catalog creators and robust shopping cart applications that can be installed quickly and easily on your site, most people do not know how to use such tools to improve their conversion rates.

Designing an Effective Product Catalog

Product catalog creators allow you to import hundreds or even thousands of product images, descriptions, and even reviews. However, if the product pages are not properly organized and categorized, the process of finding the right product can be very difficult for your site visitors, even with the use of a site wide search engine. When you add a product to your catalog you’ll have the option of adding keyword tags, which would cause the product to appear in search results if the specific keywords were searched for by one of your customers. Thus, it is imperative to add as many relative tags as possible to your products, to ensure that they will show up in search results when customers search for specific products, or related items. It is also important to enable features such as customer reviews, which will let your previous customers leave feedback about specific items, thereby increasing sales conversions by convincing future customers.

Setting up an Effective Shopping Cart

After creating a robust product catalog that is properly tagged, organized, categorized, and is easy to navigate, it’s time to set up a shopping cart that will allow your customers to purchase multiple items simultaneously upon checkout. Some shopping cart applications will even let your customers use issued coupon codes for purchase discounts, which you can grant to repeat customers for higher conversions and residual business. Shopping carts also give you the ability to accept multiple forms of payment by integrating payment processors such as PayPal, which will accept credit card payments from your customers on behalf of your business in a secure manner. After setting up the shopping cart, you’ll want to do a couple of test runs and proceed with the checkout process yourself to see how convenient it is, and to look for any errors that may be occurring.

Expanding Your Site’s Capabilities

Many shopping carts and product catalog creators are open source applications, which means they can be amended and improved by any developer with the interest to do so. Thus, there are many third-party plug-ins and extensions that can be added to shopping carts and product catalog creators to improve the overall functionality and add new features. If you want the highest conversion rates possible, then you’ll want to experiment with such extensions in order to refine the checkout process and provide the most enjoyable shopping experience for your customers.

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]]> http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2011/03/09/product-catalogs-shopping-carts-ecommerce-conversions/feed/ 0 The Power of Ecommerce Customer Reviewshttp://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2010/10/19/the-power-of-ecommerce-customer-reviews/ http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2010/10/19/the-power-of-ecommerce-customer-reviews/#comments Tue, 19 Oct 2010 07:00:19 +0000 Art http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/?p=1170 eCommerce is an industry that gained popularity exponentially as customers began telling their families and friends about their experiences shopping online. In fact, this concept can be seen in any major movement or industry that has gained popularity quickly. The best way to increase the amount  of  people that visit your site, and most importantly, purchase items from your store, is to increase the amount of people that share information about your products. There are many ways to create a buzz about your site, and one of the best ways to convert visitors into sales is to incorporate the capability of customer reviews on your eCommerce site.

Using Shopping Carts for Customer Reviews

One of the best ways to get your customers to leave reviews about your products and services is to use shopping cart applications that let your customers rate and leave comments about their experience with your site. If you can provide an enjoyable shopping experience consistently then there is a good chance that you will have several positive reviews within a few weeks. Shopping cart reviews may be the best kind of reviews, as your future customers will see the previous customer reviews below the product description, and this will greatly influence their buying decision.

Using Forums for Customer Reviews

Another way to build up your client base is to enroll in online forums that are related to your industry. Not only can you subtly advertise on these forums, you can also receive good feedback from the members after you have made a couple of transactions with them. Forums are a great way to build your online presence because they are commonly indexed in search engines. When someone looks for product reviews of products you are selling there is a good chance that they could stumble upon the customer reviews on the various forums you are a member of. Forums are some of the most powerful social tools on the internet because they are communities that greatly influence the opinions of their users.

Using Directories for Customer Reviews

There are also a lot of shopping and business directories online that list online stores and document the reviews of previous customers. For example, the Google Shopping directory lists the reviews of products that are searched for by search engine users. When you execute a search for a particular product in Google the results that are returned may contain shopping results form various stores on the internet. Usually the stores that appear are the ones with the lowest prices or the most customer reviews. By ensuring that your site is listed in these directories you can maximize your chances of having your customers leave reviews on these sites for other future customers to see.

Customer reviews are definitely one of the primary deciding factors for many online shoppers. The internet is a massive community, and many people are afraid to be a guinea pig for any purchase. By having customer reviews online you can increase you customer’s confidence and increase the overall amount of sales you are bale to make.

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]]> http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2010/10/19/the-power-of-ecommerce-customer-reviews/feed/ 0 Reselling eCommerce Hosting Planshttp://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2010/06/09/reselling-ecommerce-hosting-plans/ http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2010/06/09/reselling-ecommerce-hosting-plans/#comments Wed, 09 Jun 2010 17:01:56 +0000 Art http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/?p=942 Web hosting services are generally seen as being classified into different types and categories. However there are some cases in which web hosting services can profit from each other and be distributed by one another. A perfect example of this would be using reseller hosting to establish eCommerce plans and sell them for a profit.

Reseller hosting gives the reseller enough freedom to package, label and distribute hosting services in a wide variety of types and sub-types. Reselling eCommerce hosting plans can be very profitable considering the amount of prospective clients there are. Virtually all webmasters are active on the internet because they own online businesses, so the essentially the entire market is saturated with online business owners that would be likely to buy an eCommerce hosting plan at one point or another.

Structuring eCommerce Hosting Plans

Since most reseller hosting companies do not give you the tools needed to create successful hosting plans, so you’ll need to properly structure each plan by providing the right tools and resources needed to create a full eCommerce plan. Tools like shopping carts, product catalog creators, merchant payment processors and other services need to be integrated into the hosting plan to create a proper eCommerce hosting plan. While this may seem as if it presents significant hurdles when offering eCommerce plans, in reality these tools can often be attained for free, or purchased in bulk with many licenses. Most reseller hosting accounts give you the freedom to create custom control panels, in which you can even include these tools directly within the user interface to create a genuine eCommerce hosting experience.

Pricing eCommerce Plans

After you’ve assembled a selection of plans for your clients, you’ll need to offer competitive pricing so that you can establish yourself as a presence amongst your client base. A good way to set up a fair pricing plan is to investigate the current market conditions and the plans that are available from your competitors. Reseller plans give you great enough leverage to make a steady profit by simply raising the price by a few dollars and keeping the allotted server resources within the marginal range of your competitors. A good rule of thumb is to keep your pricing within $5-$10 of your competitors when financially practical.

Marketing eCommerce Plans

Selling eCommerce plans is generally easier than selling regular hosting plans, since there is a large market of online business owners, and offline business owners that would like to bring their business to the next level. One selling advantage that eCommerce hosting plans have is the fact that they are geared towards retail businesses, which are often looking towards globalizing their business outreach for higher profits. It is often easy to convince a local business owner to give your hosting services a trial run, and you can expect regular calls if you list a package deal in local business directories within your regional area. Converting leads into sales in the eCommerce hosting industry is rather easy if you offer trial periods and bundled services.

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]]> http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2010/06/09/reselling-ecommerce-hosting-plans/feed/ 0 Establish Credibility and Trust with Private SSLhttp://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2010/01/07/establish-credibility-and-trust-with-private-ssl/ http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2010/01/07/establish-credibility-and-trust-with-private-ssl/#comments Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:05:11 +0000 Art http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/?p=695 E-commerce has become an integral part of today’s business economy.  To no surprise, a number of web hosting companies have emerged to cater to the demand.  These firms specialize in services that are specially designed for people who want to sell goods and services online.  They generally offer features such as shopping carts, merchant accounts and payment gateways.  However, those looking to indulge in e-commerce need to be far more selective when it comes to choosing a web hosting provider.  With credit card numbers and personal data involved, the consequences of a security breach can be far more catastrophic than someone running a personal website.  For this reason, the use of security features such as SSL is a must.

SSL is one of the most widely used tools for website security.  Short for Secure Sockets Layer, SSL is a protocol that protects transactions between the buyer and seller with a cryptographic technology known as encryption.  Anyone who sells products or services online is required to implement SSL or higher for security.  This is why you see online services such as PayPal and various e-commerce sites with security seals representing that they are protected by SSL encryption.

Shared vs. Private

Most e-commerce hosting companies provide their customers with shared SSL certificates.  This basically means that a company purchases their own private SSL certificate, and shares it with all customers residing on its server.  While this does not mean that your site is lacking in security, it can be make potential customers very suspicious.  When someone visits your site and checks for an SSL certificate, they will see that the certificate is owned by the web hosting company.  This could either cause the visitor to question your credibility, or conclude that your site has been compromised by a hacker.  You have to keep in mind that many consumers have no idea about web hosting, what company provides you with service, or the difference between shared and private SSL.

Although a private SSL certificate isn’t exactly cheap, it can be very advantageous for your online store and web presence.  Once you purchase it from a CA (Certificate Authority), the certificate is yours and yours alone.  Now when potential customers visit your site, they will see that you own the certificate, giving them reassurance and the confidence they need to feel safe when shopping on your site.  There are fewer questions about whether your website is secure and no questions about who owns the certificate.  And because it requires a dedicated IP address, you can ensure that you do not endure penalties as a result of sharing a server with spammers that cause trouble for the shared IP.

Summary

Almost all web hosting companies that specialize in e-commerce solutions offer support for private SSL certificates.  As we mentioned above, there is nothing wrong with the shared variety, but having your own certificate can work wonders for your credibility.  It could be considered a small investment that shows your audience that you are a serious business owner who can be depended on.  Rewards for this investment could be customer loyalty and long-term profits.

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]]> http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2010/01/07/establish-credibility-and-trust-with-private-ssl/feed/ 0 The Importance of E-commere Software to Your Businesshttp://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/11/13/the-importance-of-e-commere-software-to-your-business/ http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/11/13/the-importance-of-e-commere-software-to-your-business/#comments Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:46:23 +0000 Art http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/?p=617 The e-commerce software forms the foundation for any online store.  It is this application that shapes every aspect of the customer’s experience from browsing the items they want to actually purchasing them.  This is why it pays to find a solution that perfectly suits your business.  There are several programs on the market, and this can make choosing one considerably difficult.  The good thing is that you do not have to spend hours upon hours evaluating every product on the market.  All you need to know is what features are the most critical to the success of your online store.

Easy Item and Category Management

It is important to know that e-commerce systems range from simple shopping carts to fully integrated solutions that can help you build an entire website.  While the functionality you require all depends on individual needs, features like image resizing, comprehensive listings and the ability to copy those listings to multiple categories will make it much easier to get your storefront up and running.  Another useful capability comes from integration features that allow you to import product listings from an existing store into your new setup.  For example, you have some programs that let you import product listings from your current store, a spreadsheet or the location of your choosing.

Extensive Customization

The last thing you want is an online storefront that looks just like what everyone else has.  This is when an e-commerce software package that offers customization comes in handy.  There are some applications that allow to customize your store through a variety of pre-designed templates.  Others allow you to use development technologies such as HTML, CSS and PHP to change the look and feel of your store.  These programs generally require that you have a certain level of technical skills in order to make the modifications.  In either scenario, an e-commerce solution that enables customization can help to ensure you have an online store that is uniquely your own.

Integrated Shipping Calculators

The ideal e-commerce software will not only calculate your order totals, but also accurately calculate the shipping and handling charges associated with those orders.  To ensure flexibility, you may want to opt for something that gives you multiple ways to determine shipping.  For example, you may choose to charge for shipping based on the total of the order, or do so based on the weight of the item.  Another consideration that deserves attention is making commonly used shipping channels such as UPS, USPS and FedEx available to your customers.

Not all e-commerce software is created equal.  Then again, neither is every storefront.  Online stores differ greatly and so do the individual requirements of the merchants who maintain them.  Regardless of how feature-rich and powerful it may be, there is no single program that makes the perfect solution for everyone.  It is all about accessing your needs and understanding what it takes for your business to be successful.  One of the best approaches you can take is evaluating a few products, determining their value, and then selecting one that best suits your requirements.

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]]> http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/11/13/the-importance-of-e-commere-software-to-your-business/feed/ 0 Microsoft Dynamics RMS and Your E-commerce Systemhttp://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/09/17/microsoft-dynamics-rms-and-your-e-commerce-system/ http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/09/17/microsoft-dynamics-rms-and-your-e-commerce-system/#comments Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:09:03 +0000 Art http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/?p=528 Many companies are moving their businesses online because of the potential the internet offers to move far beyond the traditional brick and mortar offerings and explore new markets.  Apart from the internet itself, there are many tools available to help effectively market your products or services and send your business soaring to new heights.  An e-commerce website is the key to your success, and a powerful retail management system like Microsoft Dynamics RMS can be that tool needed to propel your online store ahead of the competition.

What is Microsoft Dynamics RMS?

Microsoft Dynamics RMS is a software product that provides a robust, yet intuitive interface for administering all the business related needs of an online retailer.  It allows you to manage everything from point-of-sale systems to the centralized controlling of the multiple storefronts that make up your business.  Offering a built-in web integration tool, the software can easily be integrated with e-commerce shopping carts scripted in ASP.  When coupled with such a shopping cart, the extensive features of Microsoft Dynamics RMS allows you to leverage real-time data from your retail system to ensure that your customers are always up to date with the most recent products and services.

Designing Your Storefront

The design of your store is critical when integrating a shopping cart with your retail management solution.  You may want to start out with a simple design and then make gradual upgrades as the demands of you and your customers increase.  Furthermore, take careful consideration to the overall presentation of your store and how it might appeal to potential customers.  For example, if you sell teens apparel or ring tones, you may want to choose a fun design targeting younger customers.  If you specialize in services and solutions geared towards IT professionals, it would probably be best to do away with all the flair and opt for something more professional.  Whatever you decide, find yourself an e-commerce system that can deliver the extensive customization options you need to support various types of stores.

After getting your shopping cart and all the associated features together, it is time to integrate your store with the Microsoft Dynamics RMS software by using the integrator tool.  Once this process has been completed, the data from your retail management system will be automatically synchronized with your online store.  From here, you can access the administrative panel of your shopping cart and then make whatever changes that need to be made in regard to products, services or features.

Market Your Store

Just having a beautiful online store integrated with a dynamic retail management system will not make you an instant success.  In order to attract new customers, you will have to take a proactive approach and promote your store as you would any other business orientated site.  Therefore, you need to make sure your shopping cart offers search engine-friendly features that help you make the most of your keywords, URLs and meta tags.  Microsoft Dynamics RMS can provide the streamlined management facility you need to make an impact, but it is up to you to make your online store a success.

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