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People
are finding the internet more valuable than a newspaper, TV,
radio or the phone book. It's the most important thing to happen
to human evolution since the invention of fire. By developing
an internet presence for your enterprise, you gain a valuable
link to those that are connected to the world wide web. Across
town or world wide, your product or service can be presented
to a the growing world of internet users. Your presence can even
help you control and evolve your business.
ON-LINE
ADVANTAGES
·
Perpetual Presentation - your products can be presented "24/7"
·
Product Comparison - visitors can leisurely browse your product
line, comparing features, benefits and prices. Advanced users
can bookmark the pages, visit your competitors, and make educated
decisions.
·
Many Commerce Options - think "outside the box", web
based commerce is more than product sales. · Knowledge
Base Presentation.
·
Customer Service · Scheduling · Request for Proposal,
Information or Quote
Thousands of new web sites are created daily by businesses and
inspired entrepreneurs. The majority of these sites will contain
serious design flaws, yet the domain is "In- Production"
and on the web. These flaws are costing visitors, reputations
and profits. Some of those flaws are:
1) Slow
Loading Pages
I conducted
a survey of 50 different web sites chosen at random. I have a
broadband connection for really fast downloads. Twenty-six (28)
of those site's home page took longer than one minute to load.
The longest wait took over three (3) minutes to fully load. Only
eight of these sites loaded in ten seconds or less. Design your
site considering the average web surfer is not a very patient
sort. If your page takes longer than 20 seconds to load then
your visitors have probably left before all your graphics have
appeared. Some statistics indicate that "wait-willingness"
might be as little as 16 seconds at most sites. What causes a
slow loading web site? · Too many words for a single screen
· Too many pictures, fonts, effects, poorly packaged features
· Too many scripts and too much complicated code
2) Broken
Links and Missing Information
Out of those
50 pages visited, half had an error. When a visitor is confronted
with a page that has a broken or missing image, lacks important
navigation aids, or makes the phone number, email address or
location of the company impossible to find, they probably will
leave and find someone they can have more confidence in. Funny
"empty" boxes you see on a web page is bad code, a
graphic that is lost or a page that is missing something. Making
a strong statement with a web site is vital, because you don't
want a visitor to your site think maybe you are just as sloppy
with your product or customer service. It's amazing that a firm
that may have spent decades building a loyal customer base, has
an impressive facility, and qualified people, will forget to
mention these most important business ingredients on their web
site.
3) Web
Commerce "Never Mind"
It's a commonly
reported fact that over 60 percent of all e-commerce quits before
completing a sales transaction. Here's the reason :
· Are you willing to give out credit card information
over the web yet ?
·
Are you happy with the results if you've purchased products over
the web ?
·
Are you comfortable with the sites handling of vital personal
information ?
·
Are you always responding to alerts when you're online ?
·
Do you know what that means ? Know what a "cookie"
is ?
Most business
with physical locations have enough problems with credit card
transactions, it could be a while before everyone is totally
"sold" on e-commerce. What if your product doesn't
fit in a shopping cart ? If you're selling steel, you can't use
the same approach as jelly. Disney© pumped $20 million into
eToys©.com, which failed. Billions have been ventured and
lost. Could it be it was a hair-brained idea to try to sell widgets
world-wide when people can go to the mall ? A critical mind should
weight the advantages and costs associated with migrating existing
sales on-line. There are strong benefits and real opportunities
getting sales on-line, and thousands of horror stories!
How do
you correct web site errors ?
1) DO SOME RESEARCH - visit at least a dozen sites, randomly
found domains. You could do a search on no particular subject,
pick a few from the first 3 pages, some from the 10th page of
possibilities, and some from the very last page. Make notes about:
length of time to load, number of graphics per page, navigation
style (how do you move about the site), redundant info, and unique
approaches to a similar need you have. List the likes and don't
likes, and even if you found the colors pleasing.
2) ANALYZE
THE COMPETITION -
With random web site information gathered, then do the same thing
on a search engine, only look for your specific idea, product
or service. What does your competition do on their web presence
? Are they all doing exactly the same type of web site ? Do they
make mistakes you've noted ? Does their site have the "likes"
you came up with in your research ? Determine what do you need
to do to remain equal with your competitor, but, more importantly,
what will you have to do to offer better for your visitors ?
3) DESIGN
TO A SPECIFICATION - The results of what you have gathered so far
and what you plan to offer is your design specification. Draw
it up on paper, build from the top down. Decide early if you
are building a Fortune 500 site, letting your brother do it "for
free", just need some informational pages, a static site,
or if you're serious about offering your product, skill or service
online (there are lots of ways to complete a sale, the ultimate
objective). With a budget and researched objective, you can begin.
During the gestation of your site, both in building initially,
and maintaining it, remember: Time Is Money. How many hundreds
of thousands does it take to run Amazon.com© monthly ? How
much does Ford©, Sony© or Wal-Mart© spend a day
on their sites ? If you want to build something big and spectacular,
you better be well funded. HBO© paid 1 million, The Gap©
paid $250K, some bigger auto dealers spend $25k to $50k, even
more! But a basic web site can be built that provides entry level
web commerce in the $750 to $2,500 range.
4) KEEP
YOUR PRESENTED MATERIAL SPECIFIC - Consider the the visitors information
path, make them click deeper into your site. Provide small packages
of information, that has to be followed to another page. Provide
the visitor on every page with an easy Request / Order / Next
/ Home links to manage the travel. Try hard to keep graphics,
pictures, and effects to a minimum. Provide plenty of Contact
/ Information / Maps / About, etc. Generally speaking you should
keep your web site as black or dark colored type, with a white
or pastel background, using the default type. You want to use
both hyper links and graphics to steer customer navigation. Stay
away from complicated code and scripts. Always provide options
to leave the page under your control, but easy to the visitor.
If they have to leave, keep them on your site. Everybody talks
about "hits", you are looking for pages viewed by one
visitor to be high (a user), not just visits. Everybody likes
some animations, fun stuff and unique content or effects, if
not overdone.
5) SHOW
YOUR CREDIBILITY - In theory the beauty of the electronic commerce
is that the marketing process can be completely automated, allowing
the owner to sit at home and simply collect payments for their
products and services. In reality, people still like a personal
touch. They want to know who they are working with. Without it
they will question the integrity of products and services. How
can you improve people's perceptions of your integrity? Provide:
·
Your Name · Your Emil Address and Snail Mail Address ·
Your Phone Number · Your Fax Number · Your State
of Incorporation or other owner information · Images of
your physical location, staff, vehicles · All credentials,
licenses and professional organizations.
Ensure there
is content that the visitor expects or important information
that the viewer would definitely want to see (like the phone
number with the area code)
Are
you sure you need real web e-commerce ?
Not everyone needs totally automated electronic commerce. Some
products are almost impossible to sell without a tour or inspection,
and not all businesses need to be able to offer their wares to
people in Montana. Considering that the majority of all established
retail sales likely have been from within a ten mile radius of
their location, a firm must consider if their product line warrants
being placed for sale on-line. If you are a distributor of electric
products you have over 250,000 products to offer. Even a pizza
shop would have dozens of combinations of pizza, not including
the sub's and salads ! And a clothing store sells socks and underwear
besides fine sweaters and suits. Which are you going to spend
money on to place on-line ? Unless you have the best price in
the world, nobody is going to buy something over the web that
they can get at the shopping center. Unless your item is so unique
that no one else in the world offers anything like it, it's still
going to take marketing, advertising and an effort to move products
world wide. But, it is the stuff dreams are made of . . .
Assuming you are going beyond a static, company presentation
of services only site, some of the options available for web
commerce are:
·
ELECTRONIC PRODUCT CATALOGS
· ELECTRONIC SHOPPING CARTS
· ELECTRONIC COMMERCE APPLICATIONS
ELECTRONIC PRODUCT CATALOG
( showcase
your product or service )
The design
and implementation of non-commerce enabled pages for your business
can get your product line "on-line" easily. Your existing
product catalog and marketing literature is formatted for the
web, presented in a logical manner, and typically developed with
REQUEST INFO / QUOTE applications. Lowest cost option to build
and maintain. Good "no-threat" technique to showcase
your product or service.
ELECTRONIC SHOPPING CART
( credit
card based sales of your products )
Enables visitors
to select items and check-out. Some are not secure, some make
errors in math, but necessary in some commerce applications.
Higher start-up costs and monthly fees. Special registration
and origination fees often apply. Requires secure credit card
processing. FACT: The majority of users will exit before the
sale is complete.
ELECTRONIC
COMMERCE APPLICATIONS
( tailored
for your specific products and customers )
Can be as
simple as downloadable order forms, or complexe customised order
applications. Especially useful for static products. Also ideal
for repetitive orders with existing customers. If your customer
has your product catalog now, this is the ticket. Can also be
used to supplement physical location retail sales operations,
seasonal items, and employed in remote services applications.
More expensive to set up initially, but less expensive monthly.
May not require credit card info on-line, transaction can be
completed by existing staff, and can also lead to impulse buying
at a retail location. Can turn visitors into repetitive customers,
and simplify existing customers ordering, possibly increasing
sales.
Dollar
for Dollar - electronic commerce applications are the best form
of e-commerce, the safest, and most likely model to succeed for
the average business or entrepreneur looking to migrate their
products, whether they have existing operations in a physical
location or are a start-up with a unique product or service.
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