The two most common techniques most ecommerce sites use for driving traffic are SEO and SEM (AdWords, etc). Some more progressive sites are using social media, Twiiter accounts, Facebook fan pages, and Facebook advertising, with varying degrees of success. You hear less about the paid shopping comparison engines. For those who don’t know how they work here’s a quick primer (remember there are plenty of exceptions to every rule).

I’ll use the Australian market for examples as it’s the one I’m most familiar with, but the principles apply everywhere. Australia has a few shopping comparison engines: the homegrown GetPrice.com.au and Shopbot.com.au, as well as the Ebay owned shopping comparison behemoth, Shopping.com. There’s also a few smaller players.

The process goes something like this. You setup an account with them. You need to get your products to them somehow. Unless you have a very small number of products, the best way to do this is with an automated feed – XML, CSV or similar. Most shopping comparison sites support 2 or 3 formats, usually similar to each other but unfortunately usually not identical. Your shopping cart software may have a module already to provide a feed for these sites. If not, it’s a relatively small job for a decent programmer to make one. The shopping site sucks up all your products and puts them in appropriate categories. For example, if you have a women’s fashion site, you might have a bunch of products end up in the leggings category.

They get traffic, typically through a number of means including SEO, SEM, and doing distribution deals with other sites such as Yahoo! or other popular portals. People come to the site, typically to a product comparison page. They click through, and end up on your site. You pay when someone clicks.

The great thing is because they tend to attract relatively qualified traffic, the sites convert well and often have a better conversion rate and lower cost per click than AdWords.

If you aren’t using shopping comparison sites, I recommend you investigate them.

Categories: Uncategorized | Date: May 29th, 2010 | Author: Mark | 1 Comment

Magento Professional Edition is out, an attempt to fill the gap between the free Community Edition and the more expensive Enterprise Edition. It comes with warranty, support, and a few nice features like rewards points, gift certificates, and other revenue boosting modules installed out of the box, at a much cheaper price point than Enterprise (from $US2,995/yr for Professional vs $US12,990/yr for Enterprise). It lacks some  enterprise features such as sophisticated permissions, extra security features, etc, but will meet the needs of many store owners who need a supported solution but can’t afford the enterprise license.

Categories: Uncategorized | Date: May 29th, 2010 | Author: Mark | No Comments

Like anyone else, I have my opinions about which shopping carts I like and don’t like. While to an extent that comes through on this site, I do try and remain neutral and not state strong opinions (which I have). I’m going to make an exception.

osCommerce, please, shut down and let your users move on.

osCommerce is possibly the single most widely used shopping cart package on the web. It was started in 2000 – 10 years ago now, and the last major release was 2 years ago! This is the internet folks, 2 years is an eternity. That version wasn’t exactly cutting edge either.

osCommerce is bloated, clumsy, has terrible templating (well, basically no templating), and without adding a bunch of often incompatible and poorly documented add ons, is pretty useless out of the box.

As best I can tell, osCommerce has a few main users:

1. Amateur programmers who see it in cPanel and use it because it saves 20 minutes to install.
2. People whose ecommerce startup is so poorly funded they can’t afford a few hundred dollars for a commercial package (not saying you need to go commercial, but often in my experience price is the main reason for choosing osCommerce – if you are so poorly funded your business is almost certain to fail).
3. People who just blindly accepted the recommendation of their web developer, who has been using osCommerce for 5 years and doesn’t want to learn a better package.

Now, don’t get me wrong, osCommerce can do the job. However, any customizations will take several times longer than they will on a well designed package. It’s lagging behind in technology. Yes, I know about 3.0. But what decade will that be released? And will it really be that good?

If you are price sensitive, there’s a lot of modern free packages available – for example, Magento, OpenCart, PrestaShop and many more.

I don’t want to undermine Harald, the leader of osCommerce, who has lead the projects since its inception. He’s done a lot of awesome work. But I think it’s time to move on to those who can release more than once every few years, who have up to date technology and have an infrastructure based on latest techniques – 2000 was a loooong time ago!

Flame away….

Categories: Uncategorized | Date: May 15th, 2010 | Author: Mark | No Comments

I’ve been playing with a service called LotusJump. Basically what LotusJump does is analyses your site based on the key phrases you are trying to rank for (you provide these), and gives you a collection of specific, actionable recommendations. Often small business people kind of understand SEO but don’t know where to start. LotusJump overcomes this barrier by providing the actual specifics you need – “go to this URL and do this” type of things. The recommendations focus almost exclusively on link building, which is the cornerstone of competing for tough keywords.

It doesn’t provide deep recommendations on how to change your site (although gives some basic content information). That is pretty tricky to automate.

While the recommendations aren’t going to get you to the number one spot for an ultra competitive term, there’s no doubt that if you follow them you’ll see a substantial increase in rankings, and could easily achieve a number 1 spot for a term of medium competitiveness. Given it’s aimed at small businesses (as far as I can tell anyway) this is perfect. Following all the recommendations will be a substantial amount of work – we’re talking days here, not hours. Still, SEO is a tough game and that’s what it takes.

With the basic service at a reasonable $24.99, those with little SEO experience would find it a great spend. I’m impressed.

Categories: Uncategorized | Date: Apr 27th, 2010 | Author: Mark | No Comments

There are now a huge range of shopping cart and ecommerce platforms available to business owners who wish to sell product online. One factor or feature that might be a useful addition to a shopping cart is an affiliate tool.

An affiliate management program allows you to pay affiliates for introduced business. Affiliate marketing is a great way to add more sales and revenue to your business at very low risk – you only pay the affiliate when the product has been sold.

Affiliate shopping cart tools also fully integrate with your ecommerce processes so it can simply be a case of activating it in your admin panel and then filling in some details of the program and then simply promote it.

Having a shopping cart with an affiliate program tool also means that your program can be scalable. What do I mean by that? Well if you had a manual process to track and pay affiliates you would get stuck after say 5 or 10 affiliates. It would be a lot of work. With a web based tool, you can have hundred s of affiliates and depending on the platform you can even auto pay then each month via PayPal.

Things to think about

• Does the shopping cart have an affiliate module?
• Does the affiliate module have a means of electronically paying the affiliates?
• Does the affiliate module have a real time tracking facility for affiliates to login and get their stats
• If you are considering a standalone affiliate programme to bolt on to your existing shopping cart, is it compatible?

An affiliate marketing tool is a great feature of any shopping cart system. It might be worth investigating affiliate marketing options before choosing a shopping cart. You could save yourself time and money in the long run.

This guest post is by Jason Hulott is a 14 year veteran of affiliate marketing and Internet marketing. SpeedieAffiliates can help affiliate marketers and affiliate managers with a range of affiliate marketing services.

Categories: Uncategorized | Date: Apr 24th, 2010 | Author: Mark | No Comments

Thousands of wannabe entrepreneurs dream about being their own boss and the rewards from starting their own company. Unfortunately, they completely overlook the qualities and hard work it takes to succeed. Around 80% of businesses fail in the first two years, mainly due to inadequate skill and knowledge. Below, we’ll highlight and debunk myths about starting your own business.

Economy is bad – This is a popular myth about starting a business. Most entrepreneurs wait for the “right time”. The truth is there is no right or wrong time. There are many entrepreneurs who have started in a bad economy, or when in debt, but are now successful.

We have a perfect business plan- No plan is perfect. Markets change every day and you need to adapt. Don’t spend lots of your time writing business plans and doing growth predictions – you never know how your consumers will react to your products. Instead of writing a detailed plan focus on the key points and revise often.

Innovation means success – It’s good you are innovative and trying something new, but not every innovative product succeeds. You need to confirm whether the market is ready for the concept. A recent example is Google Buzz which hasn’t made a huge impact (yet). Make sure the market has enough space for your product to grow.

Perfection is important – Don’t wait for a perfect product to make your first sale.  Start selling once you’ve got a workable product and improve it based on customer feedback. A good example of this is Microsoft and improvements to Windows 1.0 in 1985 till now on the basis of customer’s feedback.

Turning a hobby into a business –Many business consultants suggest turning your hobby into a business. You still need to understand the huge difference between a hobby for fun and for your client’s money – the stakes and the demands are a lot higher when it’s someone else’s money.

You can set your own schedule – Many aspiring entrepreneurs think they can set their own schedules. The reality is different. As a boss you need to be everywhere, with your employees, your clients and more. As boss you set the work culture in your company – if you want your employees to work extra hours then you have to. As a boss you will often be the first to enter and last to leave.

Products sell themselves – You might have the greatest product in the world but it won’t sell itself without marketing. In many markets thousands of other people might be selling the same products, so you need to take the initiative to go to your audience instead of waiting for them.

These are seven myths about starting a business. Do you know of any others? Feel free to share them in the comments below.

This guest post is by Gagandeep Singh who works for Fortepromo Promotional Products.

Categories: Marketing | Date: Mar 30th, 2010 | Author: Mark | No Comments

I’m a fan of the Get Elastic blog. However, I just saw something a bit odd today. They used to have a post about the optimum number of steps in a checkout process.

This image is copied from that post:

However, this post has now vanished. They’ve had a one page checkout since 2006 but have recently been touting their success with it.

Conspiracy? Something else? Who knows. Seems a bit strange though!

Categories: General | Date: Mar 20th, 2010 | Author: Mark | 1 Comment

Today’s guest blogger is Roko Nastic, contributing author and editor at WebmasterFormat.com, place where webmasters can quickly and easily gather all the necessary info to develop successful websites and to find the best web hosting provider.

If you have an ecommerce site, you need a shopping cart that keeps up with the times. Your shopping cart can literally make or break a sale, so make sure that yours is effective, easy to use, and has the features that you need.

Most of us who are active Internet shoppers have war stories to tell about the “shopping cart from hell” we experienced on some ecommerce site. You know how it goes. You click “Add to Cart” and you’re immediately whisked there, even though you’re not done yet. So you try to get back and keep shopping but you can’t get out. You’re trapped in your own cart and try as you might – you can’t see the expected “Continue Shopping” button so you panic and hit your browser’s back button. Later you discover you’ve wiped out your original choice. And then there are those sites where you need to click a “Buy” button to place an item in the cart, even though you’re not yet sure you’re ready to buy. Or the site where you can’t figure out shipping costs until you’ve entered your credit card number. Finally there are those maddening sites where you click “Add to Cart” and you can’t tell whether anything has happened or not. Where’s the visual indication “Your Cart Has Been Updated?” And so it goes.

What You Don’t Want: Abandoned Carts

There are a lot of studies done on “abandonment” rates – where shoppers with items in a cart flee the site without buying. No one knows for sure why but many think the quality of the whole shopping cart process may be a contributing factor. If you’re new to the game you’re going to have to decide whether you want to buy a pre-packaged shopping cart software package or have your web site designers build a custom one for you. It is an important decision. What should you be looking for?

Getting Ideas from Top Sites

Visit a few ecommerce sites against which you compete and test them out. List what you like and don’t like. Perhaps they have features you hadn’t considered in your business plan, like discount coupons. They can be an effective tool so perhaps you should consider adding them. Some businesses, like parts supply outlets, can make do with “bare bones” shopping carts that simply allow you to order the needed part and be on your way. However, the vast majority of ecommerce sites sell related products and some carts can include suggested additional items. For the best example of this, go to Amazon. Their shopping cart program has just about every feature known to man! Does that mean every ecommerce site needs a shopping cart procedure as extensive as Amazon’s? Some feel theirs is one of the best out there and their impressive sales performance would seem to support that contention. Others feel it is cumbersome and intrusive. They extend “up-selling” to the point the shopper can be overwhelmed with potential choices. What are some of the features that make Amazon’s shopping cart both effective and ineffective at the same time?

Overkill

Whether or not you have an Amazon account, when you put an item in the cart you end up on a page loaded with suggestions for more stuff to buy. And for those with accounts, the page is even more loaded up with stuff, based on browsing history. Generally this “up selling” is a good practice but it can be overwhelming and irritating to some customers. If you have a dog products site and a customer adds a collar to the shopping cart it’s a great idea to have the capability to display leashes. But dumping dog bowls, bones, beds, and flea shampoo may be overkill.

Some Musts

Amazon has customer reviews on products and it is perhaps their most powerful feature. Depending on the products you sell, customer reviews can significantly increase the chances of getting a sale. In today’s Internet environment people are paid to write reviews for some sites, regardless of whether they have used the product or not. Savvy customers can see through this, so don’t do it. Amazon also has a “wish list” feature where you can store items you’re only thinking about purchasing. Their checkout procedure is painless, but they don’t calculate shipping until you’ve entered your payment method, which some buyers simply will not do. Calculating shipping costs are a must for those shoppers who are comparing an online purchase with a purchase from a “brick and mortar” retail outlet.

You Get What You Pay For

So just how much “shopping cart” do you need? Avoid the temptation to go cheap and remember you may want to add features as your business grows. Although there are free shopping carts out there, you often get what you pay for. You can check the Internet for reviews of the many competitive vendors that have pre-packaged shopping cart software. Some offer varying levels of customization. This can be vital as you don’t want to use a shopping cart whose graphical representation is drastically different from the rest of your site. Perhaps the best source for you is old fashioned “word of mouth.” Let your friends, neighbors, relatives, and business associates know you are launching an ecommerce site or are considering changing your shopping cart software if your site is already up. With a little bit of luck, you might come across someone who has experience with a shopping cart software vendor. Finally, check with your local Chamber of Commerce for a list of businesses in your area with ecommerce sites. Many business owners are more than happy to share their experiences.

Categories: Uncategorized | Date: Feb 28th, 2010 | Author: Mark | No Comments

I’ve been chatting with Igor from Shopping Cart Elite recently. He’s got a product which seems to stand out from the “me too” of many of the products on the market. Some of the more innovative features include:

• A competition spy module, to watch prices on your competitor sites
• Some pretty sophisticated SEO features. Virtually all shopping carts on the market claim to have SEO features, but I’ve yet to encounter a cart which is 100% SEO optimized out of the box.
• Some thorough back office functions such as full inventory management, employee rights and task assignments, and an accounting module.

It’s also got a CRM (customer relationship management) module, which can save a lot of time, making tasks such as support emails with canned responses, supplier inventory integration, and an RMA (return merchandise authorization) module.

Another time saver and revenue generator is the ability to automatically post your inventory to your eBay store and Amazon Marketplace, as well as Google Marketplace. With eBay it claims to even research the competition and automatically suggest an optimized price point to sell at! How’s that for a time saver.

There’s some Shopping Cart Elite educational videos on YouTube to give you more of an idea about the features. Shopping Cart Elite is a hosted solution with a range of price points.

This blog post was partly sponsored by Shopping Cart Elite Review – Best eCommerce Choice

Categories: Uncategorized | Date: Feb 27th, 2010 | Author: Mark | 2 Comments

This is a guest blog post by Sandra from thinkingmoney.org.

With low overheads, the online business game is very competitive. In order to obtain success in this marketplace it is essential that you are aware that there are many things involved in having an eCommerce site.

As with any business venture, you’ll need to know your product inside out, who your target audience is and how you intend to sell to them. This will help yours marketing: it’s not all about presenting eye catching content anymore; being a pretty site does not help increase conversions.

Internet marketers are raving about CRO of late (Conversion Rate Optimisation). It’s all very well having a site, and the ability to purchase things from it, but the most important factor is actually getting people to buy from you. eCommerce sites cost a lot of money to setup well, accept credit cards deals in very techy and intricate coding. So you’d want people to actually buy right?

The first thing to do is establish what you want to sell and where you want the potential client to go. You will need well written content, with SEO anchor text, and persuasive language used. For this you may want to use a freelance writer who has experience.

The customer has to clearly understand what you can do for them; your USP’s will play a vital role. Clear calls to action will make a difference, if in doubt then test and test again. Once you learn the basics, it’s quite easy to test different colors and different positions on the page.

P.S. don’t forget to set up an analytics program on your site! Find out where your users are coming from and when they are leaving your site, and lots more insightful data!

Categories: Uncategorized | Date: Feb 18th, 2010 | Author: Mark | No Comments