Today’s blog post was originally published on January 21st, 2010, and is our most popular to date. As a special gift to you, we are presenting the post again with a few extra updates. Enjoy, and don’t forget to leave your feedback in the comment space below the post. Happy New Year!
By definition, ecommerce or electronic commerce, is the buying and selling of products or services via the Internet. For many Americans, ecommerce is something we participate in on a daily basis, like online bill payment or purchasing from an e-tailer.
Nowadays the thought of living without ecommerce seems unfathomable, complicated and an inconvenience to many. It wasn’t until only a few decades ago that the idea of ecommerce had even appeared.
Ecommerce was introduced 40 years ago and, to this day, continues to grow with new technologies, innovations, and thousands of businesses entering the online market each year. The convenience, safety, and user experience of ecommerce has improved exponentially since its inception in the 1970’s. This article will address some of the key players and milestones of ecommerce.
Did You Know…?
You can show an MSRP price and your discounted price for any product.
Focus: Custom Product Fields
Goal: Show the full price of a product, cross it out, then show your lower price.
Level: Beginner - New to Store Morph
If you run an online discount store, you may want to compare the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) to your discounted price. Or, if you put items on sale, you may want to show both the original price and the sale price.
This is easy to do in Miva Merchant 5. You simply create a custom product field for the higher price, and use the built-in price field for the lower price. Then you can edit the Page templates for the Product and Category pages (and maybe even the Search page) to show the higher price (with a strikethrough) next to the lower price.
Every once in a while a tool comes along that is so awesome you can’t help but share with everyone. Today that tool is Crazy Egg because it gives you a visual heat map of what matters to your website’s visitors. This helps you to quickly identify the most important content, allowing you to rearrange your store for increased sales.
Everyone wants more traffic to their online store. Here are 5 simple ways you can get more potential customers to visit, and with luck, they’ll stay to browse and buy.
Every blog, ezine and newspaper needs content; the big boys even pay good money for content. Spend time transferring your knowledge into a simple article, something YOU would enjoy reading, then give it to a blogger. The blogger is happy because they get free content and inbound links from others who pick up your article on their site. You get an inbound link to your site because it was included in your byline at the end of your article and people who want to know more about the author (you) will click on the link to your site. Truly a win-win for both parties. Get started guest blogging with the help of My Blog Guest, a community of bloggers looking for guest bloggers.
You have probably heard that the first rule of investing is “Don’t lose money!” The same applies to an e-commerce site.
A common mistake in e-commerce is not making 100% sure you have collected money before shipping an order. Non-delivery or non-payment for goods was the top internet fraud category referred to law enforcement in 2009 at 19.9% according to the Internet Crime Complaint Center. Never ship product before collecting payment.
This is a guest post by Ted Hust, Project Manager at AarcMediaGroup, a Miva Merchant partner. The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Miva Merchant.
For the past 10 years, my life has been mostly dedicated to developing ecommerce websites using Miva Merchant. In that time, I have come into contact with online retailers from all over the world, and from all walks of life. I’ve built websites for small town fabric shops, big city laptop accessory manufacturers as well as one of the largest sunglasses retailers in the US. I’ve provided SEO consulting services for a couple of Top-200 E-Tailers, a famous beauty product manufacturer all the way down to local gift shops and bakeries.
I mention none of this to boost my own ego (believe me when I say, it needs no assistance).
1. It’s Easy. Undoubtedly, there are infomercials on after I go to bed that tout how easy e-commerce is for anyone. But in reality, there will be obstacles to overcome: customer service fires that need to be put out, charge backs that will require attention, and technical issues you need to get help to solve. So it’s not easy but is doable with persistence.
2. It’s Free. You get what you pay for and nothing is free. You may be able to save money doing many of the tasks yourself, such as writing product descriptions, taking product photos, and marketing. You will still have a hosting bill, cost of goods, and fees for processing credit cards.
3. No Experience needed. You may not need e-commerce experience; however, experience in starting a business, marketing, merchandising and branding will all help you succeed.
Do you have mad HTML5 skills?
Tuts+ and Code Canyon are holding an HTML5 Competition with $7,000 in prizes. Miva Merchant is sponsoring the competition with two prizes: 1 year of Miva Merchant e-commerce hosting and a free pass to the upcoming Miva Merchant Developer Training in 2011.
Step your game up, go enter and win!
Econsultancy released their latest report on “Habits and Motivations of Consumers” yesterday with some interesting findings on influencers of the purchase decision.
Below is a summary of “How We Shop in 2010 (US)” with some insights:
More than half (55%) of consumers report that a product with a high rating will increase their likelihood of purchasing.
Customer reviews boost buyer motivation and lead to a higher conversion rate, so it’s wise to encourage reviews and feature the highest rated products on your home page and key category pages.
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