E-Commerce Strategy & Solutions
E-Commerce is a wide open topic. Technically, any purchasing that happens on a website is e-commerce. Typically e-commerce involves a customer purchasing a product on-line. It can also include subscription based websites, on-line payments for services and more. Link 2 has built some very successful e-commerce websites. We built a classic truck parts business in Akron, Ohio around an e-commerce website (using SEO). Of course, the really cool thing about e-commerce is that the orders can just show up. Our truck parts company in Akron takes minimal effort. The site does the selling. We're mostly filling orders.
What Kind of E-commerce Site Do You Need?
There are many e-commerce options to consider. We have run off the shelf open source e-commerce programs such as: O.S. Commerce, CRE Loaded, Zen Cart and more recently, Magento. We have even set up Paypal e-commerce buy buttons and Mals E-Commerce carts in simple situations. If one of those solutions will not fit your needs, there is always the possibility of a custom Ruby on Rails e-commerce site. While custom solutions are more expensive, you do receive the website that works the best for you.
E-commerce Considerations
1. Number of Products – If you have a few products, you can probably use a simple system. Buy Now buttons can be added to a website to make one of the simpler e-commerce solutions. On the other hand. If you have thousands of products and some of those products are customizable (alternative colors or sizes for example), you probably need a higher end e-commerce solution.
2. Usability - This is always a focus regardless of the type of website. An e-commerce site that is poorly conceived, will produce less sales. E-commerce sites that organize information well and make the sales process easy will usually perform better. Usability is sometimes about getting rid of the obstacles to EASY. E-commerce customers appreciate easy!
3. Payment Processing – You have a number of options here. Processing credit cards online can be done a number of ways. Security is the most IMPORTANT aspect here. SSL Certificates (Secure Sockets Layer) are important if you have clients inputting sensitive personal data including credit card information on your website. An SSL certificate basically identifies the site owner and encrypts the sensitive information being sent. This is a security measure so that if anyone intercepts the info., they will not be able to unscramble the encrypted data without the key.
A simple method of payment processing is to use Paypal to process cards. Their Standard payment solution allows your customers to go to your Paypal hosted page and complete credit card information. In that case, Paypal handles the security. Taking credit cards on an e-commerce site generally requires an SSL certificate to be installed to scramble the important credit card info. so it is not stolen. Paypal hosts the payment page, so they handle the security. You can also collect credit card information to run in your standard credit card machine that you use in a retail setting. Because you would be transferring sensitive data from your site, you would need an SSL certificate. Collecting the CC info. and processing it by hand is fine if you have a few transactions per day. The easiest solution for a busy e-commerce store is to process the transaction on-line automatically upon customer checkout. This requires an SSL certificate on your website to provide a secure transaction.
4. Order Admin – When orders occur, you may require a good order admin area on the site. This is typically an admin area where you can look at the order for fulfillment and mark it as completed or pending. It will allow orders to flow through and be managed by a staff. It also helps avoid orders being sent twice. Some of our off the shelf e-commerce systems allow an invoice to be generated and printed along with a packing slip. There can be other functions available in the admin order area that are helpful to run an e-commerce store.
5. E-Commerce & SEO – Most of the principles of SEO apply to e-commerce stores. You still have to provide good information and focus on keywords. A lot of times the keywords can be added into the product listings to pick up traffic. For example: Akron E-commerce might be an important keyword for us or Akron SEO. With a large database backed e-commerce site, written in PHP for example, the URL structure is important. For example: If you have a URL like this: http://www.f100central.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=214_69_27_169 - This URL is not search engine friendly. SE's have a difficult time figuring out what that garbled mess is. That web page may not be indexed by the search engines. A better way to form the URL would be: http://www.f100central.com/truck-bed-parts-34/53-56-F100-bed-kit-19.php --> This URL is search friendly and contains keywords that are important to the example site. Search Engines have an easier time finding that page and indexing it. This is an important factor in determining what e-commerce software to use for your site. E-commerce pages that are not indexed will not be found in the search results on the search engines. If SEO is important to sales, then choose a search friendly e-commmerce cart.
Please contact us if you are interested in an e-commerce solution for your company. Link 2 mostly works with companies in Akron, Canton, North Canton and surrounding communities. We have built several websites for companies outside of Ohio.
