Shopster's Dropshippers, eCommerce, and Selling Online Blog

Selling online should be fun

While selling online is supposed to be a serious business, there is no reason why owners and operators of online sites shouldn’t enjoy their work.

The most successful online entrepreneurs know one of the worst-kept secrets of the business; selling online should be fun.

Chances of succeeding drop considerably when one is in a chosen line of work that he or she does not care about. If you’re only in it for the money, you will eventually become miserable.

This is not to say that selling online should be treated as a mere hobby. This kind of attitude will also limit an online businessman’s potential to do well.

Sales orders should still be processed immediately, and the goods or services sold should deliver what is promised.

Selling online also necessarily means keeping records, not only for tax purposes but to see if the business is running efficiently. This part of the business may be a grind to some, but it’s something all entrepreneurs have to live with.

Still, the bulk of the work should have the enjoyment factor. If your online business involves delivering flowers, for example, then it goes without saying that you should have an inherent love for planting, raising, or arranging flowers.

And what if you do not create your own products to sell?

You may be dependent on suppliers, but the choice of what to sell is still yours. As a merchandiser, you should only pick and display items on your site that you believe in, whether they be comic books, antique furniture, or the latest electronic gadgets.

Selling online can be a very rewarding experience, not only financially but emotionally. But only if you enjoy what you’re doing.

 

How to tell if selling online is for you

You want to put up your own website selling a product or service you are familiar with.

You may have been inspired by the countless stories about inexperienced entrepreneurs who have made fortunes by selling online. Many of these stories are true. Selling online can be an extremely rewarding experience, financially. But it takes a certain kind of individual to succeed.

It is not enough to be totally committed to succeeding. Not everyone makes it in the tough environment of selling online.

The key word is selling. You have to be some kind of salesman to succeed, and this means you should have a salesman’s personality.

While selling online is world’s apart from selling in the physical world, there are still similarities worth noting. In the physical world, you would have to be a people person – friendly, outgoing and able to handle rejection – to have a good chance of making the grade.

In the virtual world, an outgoing nature is not necessary since there will be no face-to-face, or belly-to-belly as sale people say,  negotiations before a sale is made. The gentle to hard pressure tactics that all salesmen are taught are not applicable when selling online.

The ability to handle failure is a character trait that not everyone possesses. Selling in the physical world is tough, and selling online can be even tougher. At least in the physical world, salesmen can get together after a hard day’s grind to exchange stories, seek tips, and prepare themselves for the next day’s challenges. Selling online, you’re on your own much of the time.

If you can accept the fact that not everyone will immediately buy your products, and if you can believe that today’s failure will lead to tomorrow’s success, then online sales could well be your path to fame and fortune, or at least owning your own profitable enterprise.

 

Selling Online Made Easy

If you want to set up an online store, what should you sell?

Selling online need not be a difficult task if what you have to sell has a ready market. There are basically two types of stores. The first caters to a niche market and can be referred to as specialty stores. The other caters to a broader market and would be the equivalent of a department store or supermarket.

The second type has a wide variety of products or goods and its advantage is having a wider clientele automatically means more potential customers.

Between the two, however, the first type is easier to set up. You may already have a product or service in mind that you specialize in. If you have a knack for writing and editing, for example, then this skill of yours is what you sell. Selling online becomes second nature to you. With so many companies and sites looking for writers and editors, customers should not be hard to find.

If accounting or artwork or gardening is your skill, same thing. As for products, if you are a good cook, or you can sew children’s clothes, or like to assemble costume jewellery, you have ready products to sell.

For those with higher ambitions, a wide range of products are available for your selling online activity. The numerous drop shippers can be a source of products to sell, with the added advantage of your not having to shell out large sums of money to build up an inventory. The important thing is to pick the products that are close to your heart. Selling online may be a business activity, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have fun while you’re doing it.

There are no magic tricks to success through selling online. Start with a sound marketing plan and you’re on your way.

 

Avoiding the Pitfalls of Ecommerce

Because ecommerce is a relatively new phenomenon, the rules that govern its best practices are still being written.

Consider that a mere 20 years ago, ecommerce as we know it now did not even exist. True, the first steps were already being taken back then but the pioneers were essentially following the same rules as conventional commerce, transposed to the still-new electronic media.

We now know that some of these old rules simply do not work, or worse, are actually counterproductive. The case of advertising a product or service is one example.

In the past, conventional thinking said that massive advertising in all media was the best way to introduce a new product. The more consumers who saw the product on TV, read about it in the newspapers, or heard about it on radio (with their ubiquitous jingles), the better for the product. There was no such thing as overexposure and this “shotgun approach” was king.

Not so where ecommerce is concerned. Blasting a product’s or service’s merits in the form of spam may seem like the electronic counterpart of yesterday’s tri-media advertising, but its effects can have a negative impact. Consumers can actually avoid a product or service if they receive too much spam about it. Worse, complaints can be filed against practitioners of this marketing tactic or they can be banned outright by the target consumers.

In contrast, a viewer of free TV may be exposed to commercials, but he or she has the option of watching it, turning off the sound, getting up for a snack, or switching channels.

Newspaper or magazine readers, meanwhile, have the option of simply ignoring the advertisements in his or her favourite periodical.

For ecommerce, some of the old rules still apply. Targeting your specific or niche market with sales materials is still a smart and cost-efficient way of spending your advertising budget. But forcing your sales materials where they are not wanted or where they’re not welcome can only cause serious harm to your product’s or service’s reputation, something you definitely do not want to happen.

Better marketing with ecommerce

Sooner or later, all business schools will categorize all economic activity into the pre-ecommerce and post-ecommerce eras.

There is hardly any service or product that cannot be marketed  through the use of ecommerce and to deny this is to stick to a system that has become obsolete.  This would be tantamount to a trader insisting on selling his goods via the barter trade system, rather than through the use of cash.

Even “cash” has become electronic, no longer the paper money or coins of decades and centuries past. Whether through the use of credit or debit cards, purchases of anything are much safer now than carrying hard currency including all the germs and microbes they carry.

Any person or company engaged in any kind of business must, therefore, accept the reality that ecommerce is the way to go.

Consider that the single biggest purchases any person will ever make (real property and vehicles) as well as the smallest luxuries and necessities (meat, groceries, make-up, etc.) can now be bought online. While it may be argued that nothing takes the place of paying an actual visit to a house and lot or replace the “new car” smell of a vehicle in a showroom, one can still save time and money by first looking at photos of the intended purchase online. Consider, too, that while the scent and sizzle of a steak can never be experienced online, glowing reviews and glorious pictures of that t-bone or prime rib will be enough to convince the hungry consumer to either order online, or pay a visit to that restaurant pronto.

Nor is it too farfetched to expect that the day will come when touching an item to be bought, even smelling it, can happen in the virtual world. Technology is moving at such a fast pace that what was impossible yesterday will be commonplace tomorrow.

 

How to Get People to Hit that Like Button

In this day and age, liking something means so much more than having a positive emotion towards an object. In most cases, it pertains to the Facebook Like button. This social network has revolutionized the way people share ideas by creating a physical representation of such a simple emotion. In Facebook, you can like photos, videos, links, comments and (something to take note of for businesses,) Pages.

If you’ve done your work, meaning you already have the said Facebook Page and you’ve integrated the Like button in your website, then you’re off to a good start. Keep a close eye on your numbers, particularly the weekly increase in people who Like your page. If you see that there is no steady increase in numbers, it’s time to take action. Here are some ideas to get more people to “like” you:

• Use a clear call to action when telling people about your Facebook page. Simple having the Facebook icon to lead them to your page is not enough. You need to literally tell your target audience to “Like our page on Facebook” before giving out the link.
• Give them incentives for Liking your page – Giving all your Facebook fans special discounts is an irresistible offer, especially if the trade off is only clicking on that Like button.
• Launch a contest – This one of the best ways to get people to interact with your page. In the olden days, merchants forced consumers to register to join contests as a means to collect email addresses. Now, life has become easier for consumers who fill their days with contests and surveys, all they need to do is to Like a page and they get to participate for a chance to win X prize.
• Be a genuinely interesting company to follow – Some companies don’t need to pull all the stops to get people to Like them.  If you provide relevant information to your market, you sell items that are in demand or you use your Facebook page to converse with your audience, then it will all come naturally. The people you are targeting will take an interest in your company and will Like your page simply because they find it important.

Happy selling!

What’s Better than SEO?

We’ve preached about the merits of search engine optimization in this blog countless times, even giving you specific tips on what to do with your online store to ensure that it is well-optimized and can be crawled by search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo.

While we are still believers in the power of getting good, relevant links – if not for rankings, for bringing direct traffic to your site – there is an even better solution out there for your traffic issues. Any good SEO would tell you that content is king, and it still is. Providing unique content that your target market would appreciate has an even better value than any of the tactical marketing you’ve been brewing the past couple of months.

Good content has a way of finding itself in front of your audience, whether it is tweeted, retweeted, reposted or linked to, you can easily get people to visit your site via a well-constructed article that is worth sharing.

Remember also that algorithms constantly change. Do not focus all your energies on trying to catch up with the latest from Google. What will stay the same across any industry, any niche is for people’s inherent need for information. This is the very formula that skyrocketed social networks and review sites. People want to know about other people, so they stalk them in social media sites. People what to know what others are saying about a product, so they go to review sites. The constant need for information can be your savior when Google seems to be against every site out there that is focused on creating a million links. People will continue to look for your site to read up on the latest things or to find out more about a particular product. In this manner, you are not just creating a website to be Google’s slave, you are creating an online store that really caters to its audience.

Search engines can bring you traffic, but not necessarily sales. So, write for your audience and provide them with relevant information. The rest will follow.

Growing Your Twitter Following

Today’s world is driven by the social need. With that networks like Twitter and Facebook have grown by leaps and bounds and have surfaces as one of the most effective ways to market brands online. Over the last year, we’ve spent some time talking about the benefits of Twitter for business including what to include in your Twitter business profile page, how to build your brand via twitter and how to measure its effectiveness.

If you’ve heeded our advice and have actually jumped on the bandwagon of social network promotions, then you’re on the right track. Now, it’s time to make sure you are actually in the field of vision of your target audience. Your goal henceforth is to continuously add X number of followers for your account daily.

Like any new account, you will start with zero followers. What we want you to do to begin your journey of growing your network is to add actual people you know. Your friends and family would be glad to know more about your business and how it’s doing, so use them as your springboard to the next level. Then, widen your reach by adding your other acquaintances, business providers and suppliers would be a good start. That should give you a handful of followers to start with.

Next, concentrate on getting your Twitter url to as many legit places as possible. Display your Twitter details in your website, print it in your business card, add it in your Facebook page. The more people know about it, the better your chances of increasing your following.

Then, pay it forward. The social world works in an amusing way. You’ll find that about 10% of people you follow (be they total strangers), will follow you back. When choosing people or profiles to follow, try going for those that have something in common with your brand or even just your niche.

Check out our other articles on Twitter. You’ll soon learn that increasing your followers requires an integrated approach: building a good profile, having value-laden tweets and measuring your success.

A Note About Google Operators

Are you curious about how Google sees your website? Do you want to know if you’ve already been indexed by Google? Do you want to know how many backlinks are pointing to your online store? All these are important factors to help you achieve top website rankings. Gaining insight on them would mean you’d be able to make changes to your website to help your overall online visibility improve.

They say that the Google algorithm is a top-secret formula that is impossible to crack. They may be right about the actual mathematical equations being used to calculate positioning. However, SEOs and even the ordinary Joe can work on their website to make it climb to the top spot for their target keywords.

A way to get to know how Google views your website is to register with Google Webmaster Central. This will give you a sneak peek at how your site is doing. If Google finds some issues with your content, the report is right there to access. Coupled with some Webmaster Guideline reading and you should be on your way to success.

Yet another tool to help you get there are the Google Operators. These are simple syntax commands you can type in the search box to receive some specialized results. These will help you discover a lot of useful tidbits about your site as well as make your ability to search tenfold better.

Here are the most popular Google operators you can try:

• Site: Restricts the results to websites within a given domain. To use, type the keyword you are looking for plus the site operator. Syntax: eBay site:www.shopster.com
• link: Lists webpages that have links pointing to the specified webpage. To use, type in the link operator plus the website. Syntax: link:www.shopster.com
• allintitle: Restricts the results to those with all of the query words in the title. To use, type the allintitle operator plus the keyword. Syntax: allintitle: dropshipping bags
• intitle: Restricts the result to those with the term appearing in the title of the page. Syntax: intitle: dropshippers
• related: List web pages that are “similar” to a specified web page. Syntax: related: www.shopster.com
• allinanchor: Shows pages that has the query word as an anchor text. Syntax: allinanchor: dropshipping bags

You’ll find even more here: http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=136861

Happy searching!

Beat the Heat with a Summer Sale

  The scorching summer days are approaching. While most of the world will cringe at the thought of the heat, retailers should welcome it with open arms. Summer usually means an increase in sales for seasonal items like bathing suits, picnic items and more.

Here are some summer sale ideas to try for your online store:

1. Do a progressive stock release and price according to timeline. As soon as the first months of summer hits, people will start snapping up those items, so price your items a little bit higher at the beginning of the season and discount towards the end. In essence, pricing should follow demand.
2. Package related items. If you’re selling swimwear and sun block, put them together and a beach ball and you’ve got a Summer Special. Price it less than the total of the three items such that potential customers would see value in the purchase.
3. Hype up the summer sale months before it actually comes. If your target country’s summer begins in June, start hinting at an upcoming summer sale as early as April. Use banners, text ads and maybe even paid ads to generate buzz for it.
4. Check out the trends. Google Trends can clue you in on what’s in demand when it comes to searches for summer. But other than that, it would also be best to read up on your fashion magazines. If you’re into retail, know what the latest bikini styles are so you can do your purchasing decision confidently.

Happy selling!

The 4 P’s of Marketing

A lot of today’s online retailers did not learn what they know now in school. Some of them are familiar with a certain product and have geared their careers towards the sales of the said product. Others are natural-born sales people and have made a living doing just that. These entrepreneurs and self-starters may not be aware of the basic principles of marketing that would help them create a winning strategy.

So here we present the 4 P’s of Marketing:

• Product – The item you will be selling – your products and services. When creating your business plan, detail what your product or service is and how it is manufactured. Later on, you’ll see the importance of documenting these as calculating costs and feasibility to market would be much easier.
• Price – What you will be charging the customer to purchase your product. If you have different prices for each product line, jot these down. You don’t have to start off with the exact price for each item, just the price range is enough to begin with. When creating your marketing plan, you can also thing about your profit margins and how far down you can go before you start losing money on the sale.
• Promotion – How you will create awareness for your brand. Write down the tactics that you want to you for each goal. Here you can consider both offline and online marketing efforts. For instance, you can advertise in print media, distribute free samples, organize parties to introduce the product, launch a PR campaign, start advertising via Pay-Per-Click and more.
• Placement - Getting the product to market or distribution. Once you know what you want to sell, how much you want to sell it for and how you will be selling, it’s time to actually get the product out there. In this part of your marketing plan, you can detail the distribution system that you intend to you as well as your overall sales strategy. Do you intend to sell the items in your own store or do you consign it? Will you be employing a sales force or hiring a third party to do it for you?

When  creating  your first business or marketing plan, the 4 P’s can guide you in setting your objectives and actually meeting them. These concepts will keep you grounded in the field of sales and marketing.

Happy selling!  

Creating SEO-friendly Blog URLs

Google’s recent Farmer update has a lot of people worried about their rankings and the number of visitors they get on a daily basis. While Google is really out to get those content and link farms that serve up nothing but junk to the general public, we’re sure you’ll be safe if you’ve been heeding our SEO and online marketing advice on this blog.

The main point is to create unique, relevant content for your customers. One way to do this is to write your own copy for your online store. Create a welcome message on your index page, target broad keywords in your category pages and re-write what you get from manufacturers and suppliers on the product pages.

As we’ve said several times before, it is always a good idea to run a blog. Here, you can talk about anything from industry trends to the products that you sell. If you have specific care instructions, you should also do posts about that. Open it up as a forum for your existing and potential customers to communicate with you.

Aside from all that content work, we’d also like to introduce a new concept to you: creating SEO-friendly URLs. This can be easily done by changing the permalink structure of your blog. How you go about it would depend on your blog platform. We find it easy to do with WordPress.

To do this:

1. Get the latest version of Wordpress
2. Log-in to the Dashboard
3. On the left side, click on Settings>Permalinks
4. Your default would usually be just a page number. Click on the radio button next to “Custom Structure” and type in: /%category%/%postname%/

Depending on your template’s write access, once you hit save this should automatically change your URL structure. In some instances, you will be required to change the .htaccess file of your blog. You can get this from the root of your blog folder. The code that will need to go in there will be generated by WordPress once you type in your preferred permalink structure.

For other blogging platforms that do not have the admin panel for changing the permalinks, you can do so directly using the .htaccess file or via a mod_rewrite function, both would require a little bit of coding knowledge.

Changing the permalink is just half the battle. If you want your URLs to be optimized for your target keywords, you need to add those to your categories. The new structure presented about will pull out details from your categories.

Even more important than that, you also need to optimize your post titles. Doing so won’t just be good SEO for your URLs but also for the post itself.

Happy blogging!

Preparing Early for Mother’s Day 2011

The uptrend in searches for jewelry, flowers and gift ideas for Mother’s Day 2011 have started to show once again.  This year, the retailer-friendly event is happening on May 8. Whether you sell shoes, apparel or even food, you can take advantage of the growing searches and purchases for that special woman.

We suggest you start catching the wave early by setting up a special category for Mother’s Day gift ideas – here, you can include anything for women young and old alike. Have banners that depict mothers in a kindly way to entice potential buyers to purchase from you knowing you understand how they feel. But much more than that, be prepared to offer special rates on products or discounts for items that you know will sell in good volume given the right price.

For the advertising aspect, we suggest you start targeting holiday-related keywords as early as now. If you’re doing pay per click advertising in Google AdWords, Bing or Yahoo, you can target these keywords and even create new campaigns for particular holidays and promotions only.

 

If you want to score even more brownie points with your potential buyers, come up with shipping promotions. Holidays are often rush purchases and consumers today prefer to purchase items over the internet than suffer the heat, long lines and bad traffic that come with these events. Give yourself that competitive edge over other retailers who are also preparing for Mother’s Day by coming up with bulk shipping or better yet, free shipping for products for moms.

You might also want to feature some cool add-on products like gift wrapping or gift cards as these are a no-brainer for holidays that encourage the giving spirit.

That holiday peak in your sales is all about preparation.

Happy selling!

Understanding Remarketing Campaigns

We’ve recently noticed some strange ad behavior and you probably have, too. I think most users of the internet today would, at some point, feel that some ads are following them. This is due to the latest advertising genius brought to you by the likes of Google. When ads seem to stalk you, chances are, the remarketing campaign has been triggered for those.

A big percentage of today’s abandoned carts are due to 1) Distraction or; 2) Intent to purchase at a later time. This is the ad platform’s way of letting the advertiser remind potential buyers of where they left off. For instance, you go to a certain store and go as far as adding a pair of Nike cross-trainers to your shopping cart. Then the phone rings and you click out of the site. By the end of the day you’re logged into your Facebook account and you see ads for cross-trainers appearing on that left panel. This is remarketing at work.

For Google in particular, this works well in the content network and is based on cookies. Google calls it “a simple way to connect with users, based on their past interactions with your website.” It is available in AdWords, under the Audiences tab. Combined with search advertising, it can be a powerful tool to target the right kind of audience for your online store, at a time when they are really ready to buy.

It doesn’t just serve as a reminder of an abandoned cart. It does so much more than that actually. You can use it to sell packages, special promotions or discount offers to an audience who may have a better potential to convert due to past interest. This is part of Google’s interest-based advertising campaigns.

Measuring Social Media

If you’re active in the social media space like we’ve advised in past blog posts, take a minute to congratulate yourself. Not all businesses take the time to explore social networking channels for their sales and marketing efforts. If you’ve done it, you must have seen the drastic effect it had on your overall traffic. But is this enough gains for your business to be spending so much time on sites like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook?

Today, we’ll discuss what you can measure with social media. It’s not really in the number of posts you make but rather how engaged your audience is with your brand. It may seem vague at the moment, but engagement can be measured with the right set of metrics.

Let’s start with the very basic metrics that you can easily have access to. First, are your direct (and more obvious) metrics:  Facebook Fans, Twitter Followers – here, we’re looking at impressions to your social medial efforts; and referral traffic from social media websites, this reflects the actual clickthroughs to your online store. Then, you also have your indirect effects such as your SEO rankings and increasing business reviews and high customer satisfaction scores.

Now we go down to the level of engagement and measuring it. What you need to look at is the level of interaction with your chosen media – leaving likes or comments in your Facebook posts or your blogs or tagging you with your company hash tag means you’ve started generating interest.

The most difficult thing to measure in social media, and perhaps the most important one as well, is social sentiment. These are ways to classify what people are saying about your brand –whether it is positive, neutral or negative. A lot of apps are offering a way to do this today using natural language processing, although as a note of caution, this is not 100 percent foolproof. It would be better to use an application that lets you manually update the classifications.

 

Blogging for eCommerce

If you own an online store that just doesn’t seem to be getting the quality traffic you need, try blogging for a change. And not just blogging to tell people why they should buy your product, but writing about things that matter to your consumers. Consistency is the key to building and running a successful blog, but most merchants find that they run out of topics when they try to write every day.

As a tip, focus on your industry instead of what you are selling. If your store is focusing on shoes, write about the different kinds of shoes. Whether you sell them or not won’t really matter to your audience. They would visit your blog to read articles that they would find useful. For  instance, write about rubber shoes, how to clean them, where to keep them, how to remove the smell after an activity and other topics that any rubber shoe-user would appreciate.

It may surprise you that some people still don’t know the things you consider most basic of a product. Just think about it this way, you’re the expert at what you are selling. This is your opportunity to share your knowledge. Tell them how to use the product better – not all user manuals are effective at doing this, so strive to keep it natural and use layman’s terms.

Also consider taking a look at the product from a different perspective. Is there a feature that isn’t explored yet. One of the best articles I’ve ever written is one on removing ink stains from a shirt. It was for a company that sells ballpoint pens. There, I was able to discuss the different types of inks used in pens and how to remove it from articles of clothing. It was a huge success and the article went viral overnight. It’s that simple. I wasn’t talking about the product directly but a component of it.

Another awesome way to draw traffic to your specific products is to create lists like “Top 10 X for 2010”. Here, you can feature and link to products directly without looking like you’re using your blog to advertise the product.

Happy selling!

Group Buying Sites 101

When Groupon turned down Google’s $6 billion offer, group buying sites became all the rage.  At first, they barely made a dent in the retail industry, but now the sites that take advantage of the power of many are everywhere. They’ve turned around what the world of coupons and discounts and are now taking a big chuck of marketing budgets in every industry.

But how exactly does a group buying site work?  Off the bat, group buying sites can increase revenue and introduce a fairly unknown brand to customers. But remember, not all group buying sites are alike and it isn’t for everyone.

Group buying sites will bring in volume, but it also means marking down products just enough to make it appealing but not pushing you to a loss. It generates buzz for your business. Most group buying sites deal with merchants for a pre-determined amount of customers to buy the deal, if it is not reached, no one gets the deal. With that, those who are interested in your offer spread the news to friends and family, encouraging word-of-mouth discussion about your products.

If you’re a new merchant, with barely any profit margin there, tread carefully. It would be difficult to gain buyer volume at the onset only to end up diluting your own brand value and marking yourself as a merchant offering only low-cost products/services.

It is also essential that you understand the pricing structure of these group buying sites. Most of them require a percentage of all your sales – generally around 50%. On top of that, they also have a minimum discount percentage. This would depend on the industry and the type of product being sold, but the popular group buying sites won’t hesitate to tell you that offering a service of a product at 50% off and above would definitely sell better than other deals. Now take that into consideration versus your cost of acquisition or manufacture for the items you want to sell via group buying sites.

Clearly, group buying sites are not for profit-making but is more for marketing. They have massively popular sites and do a lot of the creative work for your deals to ensure it sells well. However, you should really do the math before you even consider selling via group buying sites and weigh the benefits against the disadvantages.

Happy selling!

Facebook Moves from FBML to iFrames: Are You Ready?

We’ve said it a countless times in this blog: Social media is important. Particularly, Facebook. With over 500 million subscribers, this leader in the social network game simply isn’t something a marketer should ignore. Facebook has generated leads and sales for different industries, and retail is no stranger to phenomenon.

Remember that post we had on FBML? It’s now time to upgrade what you know about Facebook. FBML was the way to create custom Facebook Pages (then know as Fan Pages) for businesses. There have been several case studies on how to succeed in marketing within this space simply by customizing one’s Page. And FBML or Facebook Mark Up Language was the way to do this. It’s pretty similar to html and is easy to learn, except that it has additional Facebook-specific functions.

However, times are changing yet again. FBML will be deprecated soon. While existing FBML pages will still work, new ones can no longer be created by March 11. iFrame is not new technology. It stands for Inline Frame and its history is traced as far back as 1997. The goal is to embed or frame one page in another. This means that custom tabs will no longer be hosted in Facebook’s server but will be pulled from the page owner’s own server.

At this point, it would be best for merchants who keep a Page in Facebook to market their online stores to learn the iFrames technology. It may take some getting used to but it offers a better branding option for you in the end. iFrames can help make your pages more interactive and it will eventually interface better with your online store.

 

 

Online Store: Redesign versus Testing

One of the biggest mistakes an online merchant can make is to haphazardly decide to redesign his or her online store if something seems like it’s not working. First of all, you may be missing out on a lot of potential revenue for your website by not testing what works and what doesn’t. You may be surprised to find out that even the smallest tweak in your online store can generate a lot of sales.

Before you even think about redesigning your website, make sure you have clear goals. The main purpose of any website redesign is to make it easier for your customers to use your site and eventually to increase conversions

Second, a sitewide revamp is costly. Just like it would be to hire a designer or a web developer to do a custom website for you, it will cost you money to deploy a supposedly better version of your existing website.

Third, a major redesign is a big gamble if you already have customer following or a known brand. Customers who are already used to the way your site looks and functions and often come back for return purchases may not be too happy to find a big change in your website. Your customers will most likely associate the look of your website to your brand, as such it will be a big adjustment for them to see the difference for the first time.

What we suggest is to take things one step at a time. Test the elements that have a big effect on conversions. You can start with your call to action. Followed by your navigation. You can even test page layout. There are a lot of tools on the internet to help you conduct A/B split tests or multi-variate tests. A popular tool is Google’s Website Optimizer, which is free and easy to use.

If you’ve already taken the leap and hired a web developer to do your new online store, then your best recourse is to measure its impact on your conversion. If the site has already been launched, do a historical analysis of data from the time you made the change. If you see a drastic drop in conversions, then you should consider reverting back to the old version of your online store.

A redesign can make your site look fresh, but it can have dangerous effects to your bottom line. So decide carefully.

 

 

Top 5 Cost-Cutting Tips for eCommerce

In our last blog post, we talked about how stopping revenue leakage can help increase your bottom line. Another strategy to take is to cut costs where you can. These money-saving tips for ecommerce merchants can help you reduce your overall costs to run operations. By nature, ecommerce should not be an expensive enterprise. Especially compared to traditional retail, there is much room for reducing your business spending. There is no need for office space or even a physical store to run an ecommerce business. Manpower hiring is also not an immediate must-have for thrifty merchants. What you do have to invest on are your marketing efforts, order fulfillment, your online storefront and your inventory of items to sell. But even those can be shaved down to the bare minimum.  

Here are some tips you can follow to save money on running your online store:

• Start with a ready-made website for your online store. Whether it’s your first or your third online store, testing the waters for a new product is a must. To save you money on customizing a store that may not even work in the long run, we suggest you start selling via a free web store. There are hundreds of templates available on the internet and some (like those available in Shopster) even come with free hosting and a subdomain.
• Do things yourself. As a beginner online merchant, it is tempting to start hiring people or outsourcing some tasks, but hold yourself back and you’ll see that you’re saving a bundle on labor costs by doing it yourself. One example would be managing your website’s inventory. Since you’re starting out small, it would be best to be hands-on with this task. It may seem trivial, but the more time you spend on different aspects of running your own store, the more you’d understand everything about the business.
• Use your connections to market your online store. Marketing can easily become the most expensive aspect of running your ecommerce business. While paid options like PPC campaigns definitely have a good showing of return on investment, you can try alternative means to get the word out about your site. Social media marketing has started to gain good footing in the field of online advertising, and it’s relatively easy to use and is free.
• Consider dropshipping for your order fulfillment. One of today’s most useful innovations in online retail is dropshipping. This supply chain management method does not only save on upfront costs for inventory (no need to have products physically on-hand to sell), it also saves you big on shipping and handling as the items you order from dropshippers are sent directly to your end-buyer.
• Focus on retaining old customers. Customer retention is always the cheaper way to go versus acquiring new customers. Marketing to existing customers is less expensive as they do not need to be reoriented about your site or the products you sell. One way to achieve this goal is to provide a product that has a recurring demand and of course, to offer world-class customer service that your customers would not soon forget.

Paring down the cost is not easy, but if you’re really determined to do it, you’ll soon find yourself saving more and more each passing month.

Happy selling!