The term ‘success in business’ is an ambiguous one. Jack might be happy by simply making a profit, but Jill might only be satisfied with a few million in her pocket. Whatever your understanding is of success and however long it takes you to get there, you all start from the same place. As a beginner of selling online, you have a steep learning curve ahead. Follow these Seven tips as a base to future work and you’ll be well on your way to ecommerce success.

1.       Define a Marketing Budget, e.g. SEO, payperclick ads, magazine ads.


Too many merchants only include set up costs and can’t afford to market their store once it’s ready to trade. Marketing is one of the highest expenses to a business; as a beginner, watch your conversion rate so you don’t blow all your money in the first month.

2.       Good Product Photography Sells


Buying a product online can be impulsive for customers. Don’t waste a conversion opportunity with a poor quality, dark photo with a busy background. Your photos should showcase your product. Set them on a white background, well lit without shadows. Let them convey quality in every way.

3.       Cheapest Doesnt Equal More Sales


There are strategies to achieve selling without losing profit margins. If you’re in a highly competitive market, find something you can do better than anyone else. Service, speed of delivery and loyalty programs are all examples of what can set you apart from competitors. Push this difference to your customers and your prices won’t matter as much anymore.

Read more: Top 7 tips for beginners to be successful in e-commerce.

There’s plenty of people talking about Pinterest right now and for good reason. It recently became the third largest social network on the Internet, with only Facebook and Twitter ahead of it. So what it is it? And how can your business cash in? BigCommerce support team ninja, Erika Jarvi, explains:

What is it?

Pinterest is a visually-driven website, where people can “pin” pictures or videos of their favorite things/places/people on a virtual pinboard. As a user, you can categorize these pinned pictures into multiple boards, all with their own theme. When a picture is then pinned, a short description can be written about it, and the picture is automatically linked to the place from which it came.

The ease with which you can post pictures, coupled with the social nature of the site (which uses Twitter-like “following” to watch pins from other users) makes it a great way for you, as an e-commerce store owner, to get your products promoted.

When you first get into Pinterest (it is a invite-only service right now, but after I requested an invite, I got in fairly quickly), you’re asked to specify a few interests of yours, and then you’ll automatically follow prominent members with those same interests. It’s a great way to start buying into the service.

Pinterest will also start you off with five common board themes (which you can change or delete, if you want) to start pinning your favorite things. There’s even a handy bookmark you can put in your browser’s link bar that will automatically start the pinning process without having to login to Pinterest if you’re on another website.

Read more: Pinterest: Can it help my business?

Here's a news flash for you:

People make money on the Internet. I know, unbelievable, right? The thing is that people often assume that the only companies that make money through eCommerce are the large companies with hundreds of employees and call centers in India. In truth, there are a lot of successful smaller operators in the eCommerce market; you could even make an argument that the Internet levels the playing field to a certain degree.

Benefits of eCommerce

Noobpreneur.com lists some of the benefits that eCommerce provides to any business, big or small. Some being, accessibility, not only to customers but also to suppliers and associates; advertising, the ability to reward loyal customers; communication and reducing cost while increasing overall effectiveness. The big guys all take advantage of these benefits, there's no reason a "Mom and Pop" store can't do the same.
The cornerstone of most of these benefits is efficiency. Owners can make sales and have information available to customers 24/7 without having to pay the staffing or ancillary costs of keeping your business open late. Also, you can advertise to worldwide markets or to very specific target demographics for a fraction of traditional marketing expenses. Even better, that marketing can give you feedback--it is generally easy to get data on how many people responded to a particular ad campaign, so you can fine-tune your efforts.

Read more: When Small Business Meets eCommerce: How Small Businesses Succeed in the Digital Marketplace

Five tips to Improve Your Website Credibility

By Heidi Richards Mooney, Founder Women in Ecommerce™

Many small business owners update and maintain their own websites. Sometimes the job falls to the wayside as you run your day to day operations. This is particularly true if you have a brick and mortar business supported by an online presence. You may not depend entirely on your website for your income. So you might neglect one of the most important ways new customers find and research your company. Your ecommerce WEBSITE.

 1. Update your site.

If your website is dated, or looks as though it has not been attended to in quite some time, you could be loosing credibility and worse CUSTOMERS! Review it often to see what is out of date. Is the copyright info at the bottom current? Do you have old or missing links? Just like an older home looks new with a new coat a paint so can a website with more updated colors and graphics. Does the site look old-school? Of course if old-school is the impression you are trying to create then just updating a few things could solve your problem.

 2. Include Social Proof.

Do you have reviews and 3rd party endorsements (testimonials) and media coverage on your site? When people visit your site, often the first thing they want to know is if others have had a good experience dealing with a company. Testimonials are “social proof” that you’re a credible and trustworthy person/company in which to do business. Start asking for testimonials from current clients and start seeking media coverage by implementing a media campaign to get attention to your website.

 3. Build Your Professional Credibility.

Have you won any awards lately? If so, they should be clearly visible either with a link to an awards or “news” or “buzz” page or with clickable graphics that take the visitor to a page with more information about the award.

Read more: Credibility Begins at Home … on the Net

There are times in every industry when your sales experience a slump. If you are a victim of such a low season in your e-commerce business, fear not. You can boost your sales and make the most of the low season in the following ways.

Limited-time Discount Offer

You may have seen large companies using this strategy a lot. There is a simple reason for that ? it works.

Offer a limited time discount to your consumers during the low season to attract them to your business. A recent study has proven that consumers are often looking for special deals when making purchases. You should therefore offer them a good discount deal during the low season ? not only will this build good will for your business, it will also boost your sales.

Read more: How to Boost Your E-Commerce Sales in Low Season

Crafting an online presence isn’t complicated. In fact, with the modern (and often free) tools available through the web today, you can establish a cross-platform marketing effort in a single afternoon that reaches hundreds and even thousands of people throughout the world.

The three most common steps to establishing an effective online presence include blogs, newsletters and social media. Within each of these, you typically have a personal profile set up that not only establishes your business but points back to your home page. Here’s how to get going.

Step 1: The Blog

Some business owners aren’t fond of blogs. After all, they’re a lot of work to write and maintain. But blogs posts have recently evolved. No longer just standard articles, they now incorporate video, photos and audio files, all of which may feature minimal written content but still be highly relevant to your brand. Blogs are important because they demonstrate that you know what you’re talking about, quickly establishing you as an expert in your industry. The second critical functionality of a blog is that it generates repeat visits, providing new material for new or existing customers to come back for. In addition to promoting lead-capture, the more contact you have with your customers, the more they’ll be inclined toward purchase. Popular services include Weebly, WordPress, Blogger, and Tumblr.

Step 2: The Newsletter

With a strong (and continuously growing) database that has hopefully been generated by your blog, you can send out monthly or even bi-monthly newsletters containing a mix of useful information as well as specials, coupons and promotions. Email marketing has been shown to be one of the most effective (and cost-effective) ways to generate sales. Quickly paying for itself, a regular newsletter continuously keeps you in front of the people that matter most: those who have already demonstrated an interest in your products or services. Popular hosting providers include: ConstantContact, MailChimp and JangoMail.

Read more: 3 Steps to Create an Online Presence For Your Business

One of the most difficult things to do when you’re just starting out as an ecommerce site owner is to build your credibility. In the beginning stages of your ecommerce venture, most people haven’t heard of you. And when people haven’t heard of you, they’re less likely to trust you. There are a lot of scam artists on the Internet, and it’d be pretty silly for someone to just give their credit card information to a random website in the hopes of receiving a good quality product in return. If you’re an ecommerce website owner, it’s your job to build your credibility and people’s trust in you. If you don’t do that, you can’t expect to ever really make the kind of profit you desire. Here are five tips to help you build your credibility:

1.  Work on your website layout and design.

You may even want to hire a graphic designer to help you with this. A polished website can work wonders in terms of helping you build your credibility. Your website should be simple without seeming rudimentary. Stick with black text and attractive images strategically placed on your homepage. Make sure all of the images of the products you sell are attractive and large. You want people to be able to get a good look at what they’re purchasing from you.

2. Get a seal from VeriSign.

If you have a VeriSign certificate seal on each of your product pages, people will feel safer about providing you with their credit card information. Many people know and trust VeriSign and look for it before they make any online purchases. There’s no reason to skip getting this kind of seal for your site and product pages. It can make a huge difference.

Read more: 5 Ways to Build the Credibility of Your Ecommerce Site

It’s not hard to see why so many businesses and private individuals are keen to jump on the ecommerce bandwagon. However, with so many competing ecommerce websites out there, it really is survival of the fittest. Don’t become the runt of the litter by avoiding these common mistakes developers make with ecommerce websites.

It’s a battlefield out there and only the strongest will survive. The evermore crowded world of ecommerce websites is becoming a real fight for survival, Darwin’s theory of evolution in practice, as competing websites battle it out for sales. Melodrama aside, the last thing you need is to disadvantage yourself with confusing design and sloppy development. To help you create a competitive advantage, or at least compete on a level playing field, here are some of the most common mistakes made with ecommerce websites. Avoid them like the plague!

1) Complicated or inconsistent navigation

Confuse the customer and they’ll not buy, nor will they ever come back!

2.) Convoluted URL strings

Longwinded and confusing URL strings like - www.mysite.com/myproducts/page.html?id=1&cat=2&option=5 is hard to recall. Simplify things wherever possible, so something like - www.mysite.com/remote-control/helicopter

3) Products with poor images and descriptions

Product focus is absolutely paramount on ecommerce websites; it’s usually all your customers care about! They haven’t come to admire your website, they want to buy a product. Make the product description clear and the price even clearer.

4) Slow loading ecommerce websites containing flash and large images

Slow ecommerce websites are a sign of poor construction. Users prefer high performing websites, as do the search engines. Page load time is becoming increasingly important in website indexing so make sure you get it right.

5) Ambiguous keyword focus

You need to understand exactly what the target market is searching for and place these keywords within your pages. Test your site, use analytics and find out what works and what doesn’t.

6) Duplicated content

Sometime it’s easy to copy the title and description for similar products; however, this can prove to be a costly mistake. You need to keep your products unique otherwise the major search engines will not index them.

7) Advertising above the fold

This is not beneficial to the usability of ecommerce websites and often means lots of scrolling. In fact Google have just introduced a penalty system for such tactics, so beware.

8) A confusing or long winded checkout process

You’ve managed to secure an order so make sure the payment process is as simplistic as possible. If customers don’t feel the process offers enough security they will soon look elsewhere.

9) Poor design

You really need to get the design right, don’t over complicate it. Customers don’t come to admire your design so marry good looks with functionality. Plan the buying journey and make sure you keep it simple!

10) Planning SEO as an afterthought

This is one of the biggest mistakes you can make, and certainly the most costly. The SEO of ecommerce websites needs to be considered during the design and development of your site and specifically during the planning of the product layout pages. Put this off until later and you are likely to need a complete site rebuild, which will prove costly.

And as if that wasn’t enough, here are some extra tips

Read more: Common Mistakes Developers Make With Ecommerce Websites

All small and medium sized enterprises have an option to delegate more staff to look after the work related to sending e-mails to prospective customers, follow-ups and so on. But how about an automated full time secretary who will handle this, all alone?  Be assured that this secretary will never miss an email, execute the duties efficiently and will do all of this only on a dime!! Well, I am talking about Autoresponders, who have now become an integral aspect of each and every business. This service is available on your email service through an additional subscription. Sometimes, it’s already a part of your package to save you from paying any extra bucks for it.

Autoresponder emails are different from email newsletters as the latter is an ongoing communication with the customers which is ideally preset. The autoresponder campaign will have a series of template email missives which will be set by you and at a specific time. You can thank a customer for a latest purchase, propose a special deal to entice a customer or suggest a product that will surely interest him/her.

The Structure of Autoresponder campaign

An autpresponder campaign has a three-fold process. It will first thank the customer for the involvement and even give a download link as a special incentive. It will reconfirm with the customer the value of the proposition and even inform them the process by which a product or service can be evaluated. The mail must all the channels through which the business can be contacted such as Live Chat, Email, Response Form, Fax and Toll-Free Phone Number.

The first follow-up is usually after a gap of 4 days. In this follow-up letter you can include testimonials from customers who vouch for your products and services. Through this campaign you can explain the different policies that you have in order to win the confidence and trust of the consumers. You can directly ask a customer for a sale or you can at least ask a customer to check a certain product or service.

The second follow-up usually comes after a gap of another 4 days. You can provide answers to the most common questions that you customer can ask you. The best course of action would be to include a FAQ that will address all issues related to your business, products and services. You can promote any package deals or offer any special offers to the first time customers. You may ask for a sale again but this time provides an extra incentive so that the customer has an added desire to proceed to the check-out section of the business.

Read more: Autoresponders for Ecommerce: Better than a Secretary!

Social commerce has grown in leaps and bounds from a nascent industry in 2010 to projected $9 billion this year, and expected to reach to $14 billion in 2013, according to Booze Alan.  The team at Awareness, Inc. set out to discover the secrets behind this success and the lessons that social marketers can learn to make their programs and initiatives more successful.  We are excited to bring to you our next free white paper, “Social Commerce Lessons: The 6 Social Principles that Increase Sales.”

Success stories in social commerce, defined by Altimeter's Lora Cecere as the use of social technologies to listen, understand and engage in order to improve the shopping experience, range from big brands like the Gap, bringing in sales of $11 million in one day, to tiny brands like Orabrush tongue cleaners, whose YouTube videos and Facebook ads landed them shelf space at Wal-Mart. The biggest lesson learned is that social commerce is thriving by influencing human behavior employing the Six Social Principles - Social Proof, Authority, Liking, Reciprocity, Scarcity, and Consistency. These principles were originally defined by Robert Cialdini in his book, “Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion.” Paul Marsden also reviewed these concepts as the backbone of social commerce in his article, “How Social Commerce Works: The Social Psychology of the Social Shopper,” illustrating their function in social media.

Did you know that 90 percent of all purchases are subject to social influence and 75 percent of Facebook users “like” a brand? Are you aware that adding a “Like” button to your online product description can increase product awareness by 246 percent? As consumers become increasingly surrounded by social technology, marketers need to understand the new ways of engaging customers and prospects at the various stages of their decision-making process using the Six Social Principles.

Read more: Social Marketers Take Note – 6 Lessons from Social Commerce