E-Commerce Merchant Workshop
Boston Center For Adult Education

Email: msh@e-commerceadviser.com


E-Commerce Overview


"Online retailers have only a few seconds to entice shoppers into their web stores. Whether shoppers arrive at a home page or land on a product page after conducting a Google or Yahoo search, retailers have to make that instantaneous connection or lose the shopper to another site. As a result, much of the success of retail web sites depends on site design. But holding the shopper on a landing page isn't nearly enough to ensure success—retailers also have to make sure that consumers can browse other products and navigate a site smoothly.

Design and usability have thus become two of the most important initiatives that web site executives focus on. But there is no roadmap to creating the outstanding site. In fact, apart from a few general best practices—logo on top left, nav bar on left alongside the page—there are as many ideas of what makes good design as there are web sites. But not all are successful and many are way more successful than others."    Source: www.internetretailer.com


Key Components


  • Business Plan
  • Implementation
  • Marketing
  • Monitoring

Business Plan
NOTES
  • Products
  • Services
  • Information
  • Retailer
  • Wholesaler
  • Manufacturer
  • Dropship
  • Affiliate
  • Search Engines
  • Geography
  • Age, Sex, Income, etc.
  • Geography
  • Technology / Shopping Cart
  • Price
  • Quality
  • Features (e.g. Smell, Color, Texture)
  • Return Policy
  • Shipping Cost
  • Contact/Support
  • Reputation
  • Presentation & Image
  • Technology

Design

Objectives

  • Traffic
  • Conversions

Optimization

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Backlinks

  • Articles
  • Directories
  • Exchanges

Viral

  • Blogs
  • User Video (e.g YouTube)
  • Social (e.g. MySpace)

Monitoring

  • Metrics
    • Hits and Visitors?
    • Did visitors leave right away? Duration
    • How did a visitor get to your site? Referrals
    • What did they see first? What did the click on? Entry Page
    • What did they see and then decide to leave your site? Exit Page

  • Sample Reporting Tools

  • Google Robot Report

Hosting Services and Domain Registration

  • Domain Name
  • Fees
  • Technology
  • Performance & Capacity
  • Top 10 (Reviews)
  • Support, Support, Support