Setting up a professional e-Commerce site

So, this week we are looking at setting up an e-Commerce store on the net! So far, we have chosen a domain name and our next step is to start setting up a site.

For any kind of store, you will be needing photos of the items that you intend to sell. No matter how good your description is, remember the old adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” How true that is! So, if your photo skills are up to snuff, get all set up and start shooting photos of your products. If you are not a good photographer, you might want to consider hiring a photographer to shoot the images for your store. Another option would be that sometimes the product manufacturer can provide you with photos of the products, which are usually quite professionally done. If you are selling products from a large manufacturer, there is a good chance they can provide images for you. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that if you have a lot of competition on the product line, you might want to shoot your own photos so that they are different from the ones that your competitors are using, just make sure they are as good or better than those other photos!

The product descriptions that you write are also very important! Make sure that you do not misspell any words! This will give your site an “amateur” flavor, and will hurt your sales.

Another important thing will be pricing your items. Surf around to competitor sites and see what their prices are, so that you can be sure you don’t over or under charge! Under charging can hurt you just as much as if you had overcharged. Why? Well, if you are selling an item for way less than a competitor, people will get the idea that your item is not as good. Maybe it is damaged. Maybe it is a second. Somehow, there must be some reason why you are charging so little. Some people will grab up the bargain. Others will never come back to your site because you have given an impression of cheapness. Be competitive. In my case, I often have the highest prices for my goods when compared with my competitors. I make up for that by offering the best service! If you buy from me and you have a problem, I take care of it, no questions asked. This is worth a slightly higher price for many people.

As you set up your site, make sure that it looks professional. If you go out and hire a high school kid to design and construct the site, at least make sure that it doesn’t look like a high school job. My opinion would be to either hire a professional, or to shop on the web for a professionally designed template for your site. You can buy a very nice template for as low as $50 or so, and up to as high as you wish to spend.

When shopping for the template, make sure you get one that is appropriate for the merchandise that you will be selling. If you are selling fishing gear, getting a site that has pictures of lingerie and women’s undergarments might not work too well! For a site selling Monster Truck equipment, you probably don’t want it to be pink. If you are selling gardening supplies, you might not want a black background. These things are just common sense, but they are so very important, and I often see people make mistakes that are as blatant as these examples that I have given. Don’t make that kind of mistake! Think about what kind of people are likely to buy the product that you are selling, and then decide what kind of colors and pictures that kind of person would want to see on your site. In my case, with my WowPhilippines.com site, I sell things like flowers and candy to men all over the world who have girlfriends in the Philippines. I deliver the gifts that they buy to their girlfriends. What kind of theme do I have on my site? Well, I have pretty Filipina women! I have hearts and such. Guys who have Filipina girlfriends obviously like to see beautiful ladies from the Philippines, so that is what I give them when they come to my site!

If you are going in to e-Commerce on the site (and if you are reading this, you are!), you will need some kind of shopping cart on the site. Sometimes your payment processor will provide you with a shopping cart functionality, but it is often rather rudimentary. I prefer to use a real shopping cart system, not something that was provided by the payment processor for free. Don’t take me wrong, nothing wrong with free… but I want something professional. Even a professional system can be free! I use OSCommerce, which indeed is free. It is an open source shopping cart software, very flexible, and can do anything that even very high priced shopping cart systems can do. You can freely download OSCommerce, install it on your server, and start using it! Nobody will ever ask for a penny for the software.

So, to complete this step, you need to set up your site, using a template, a custom designed website, etc., then you need to put the shopping cart software into place. Enter all of your merchandise items into the database, and spend some time learning to use the software. After this, you will be ready for the next step in staring your business, getting the right payment processor. We’ll talk about that tomorrow! See you then.

Choosing the right domain name for your e-Commerce site

OK, so you have decided that you have something to sell on the Internet?  You need a site where you can sell your items to customers!

If you need a website, that means that your first step is to purchase a domain name for your site!  What is a domain name?  Well, one of my sites is “www.WowPhilippines.com” so “WowPhilippines.com” is the domain name!  You get a domain name by visiting a company that sells domains.  There are lots of places where you can register your domain, when I need a domain name I generally buy it at GoDaddy.   You can generally purchase your domain name for about $9 or so through GoDaddy.  Some domains cost a bit more, some a bit less, but most names can be gotten for about that price.  Some country specific names are more.  Here in the Philippines where I live “.ph” domain names are about $35 per year.  But, there is nothing stopping a person in the Philippines from buying a “normal” .com name, they don’t have to stick with the .ph name just because they live here.

Personally, unless you have a very specific reason to do so, I recommend that you stay away from country specific names.  There are exceptions.  For example, the Island nation of Tuvalu has the “.tv” domain suffix, and if you are setting up a video site, it might be a nice to have .tv at the end of your name.  However in most instances, I feel that .com is the way to go.  The only problem is, though, that .com names are getting harder and harder to get, because so many have been taken already.  However, if you search enough, you will find one that is a good fit for your business.

What do I mean by a “good fit?”  Well, you want something that ties in with your business, or with the products that you sell.  For example, my site at WowPhilippines.com is a site that sells gifts for delivery in the Philippines.  If you had a site that sold electric razors to the US market, WowPhilippines.com would not be a good domain name for you!  However, for my particular business, it is a very desirable domain.   So, brainstorm and come up with names that tie in with your business model.  When you find one that is available, grab it!  An example that would not be a good fit would be if you got the domain “flowers.com” and you intended to sell weight lifting equipment on the site.  You get my drift!

You should also be careful in choosing domains too.  Analyze the name and make sure that it does not contain any vulgar words, or sayings.  For example, when you combine multiple words to make a single domain name, sometimes if you combine those words, and somebody reads it in a way that is different than you intended, it might say something that is completely different than your intention, so be aware of that.

OK, so you should choose your domain, based on the business that will be set up on the site.   What’s your next step?  Get your site set up and make sure it functions properly!  Stop by this site tomorrow and I’ll fill you in on that step!

Running an e-Commerce store is not always easy!

If you set up an e-Commerce site, don’t think that you can set everything up and suddenly money just starts rolling in!  It’s not that easy.  There are a number of things you have to do to bring traffic in, make people buy, and make sure that the sale is legitimate.  If you get one of these things wrong, the whole exercise could be quite costly for you, so it’s good to use caution, and make sure you do things right.  You know what, even when you do everything correctly, it doesn’t mean that you’ll make money!

So, what should you do?  Let’s have a look and see.

1. Purchase a domain name that is relevant to the business you want to set up.  If the domain name has nothing to do with what you are selling, you might have a harder time making sales on the site.
2. Set up the site in a professional manner.  Make sure that your shopping cart software works properly.  Make sure the site is attractive, and themed to tie in with your product line.  Choose colors that fit in with your product line too!
3. Make sure that you have a payment processor that is reliable, honest, and will work for your target market.
4. Be vigilant in protecting yourself from fraud.

OK, so let’s spend the rest of this week looking at each of the above points more closely, and see how they can affect your online operations.  Watch this site for the rest of the week to read my specific recommendations for each point!

See you tomorrow, when we will look at purchasing the right domain name!