What does a successful e-commerce website really need

There are many different options available when it comes to setting up an E-commerce website, but no matter how you go about it, you will need a full array of options when establishing your website in the beginning.

It goes without saying that before you can even begin to think of the setup and design of the ecommerce website, you need to have a business plan drawn up to cater for your product, your marketing plans, and your outline for future growth. Once you have a suitable product and plan to generate traffic and direct it to your website, you can then outline what you want for a fully functioning ecommerce website.

Of the features available, you will need the following, at the very least:

Hosting

Layout and Design

Logo creation (if you don’t already have a company logo)

CMS (content management system) for your products and listing and pricing

Shopping cart integrated into a payment gateway

Order tracking system / database

System reporting

For any ecommerce website that is selling physical (or non-physical) goods, these are the items which you will need to consider when setting up your site.

For hosting, you can either approach a hosting company directly, or approach a decent web designer. The web designer will be able to handle the logo creating for your company logo, and will integrate this into your layout and design for your website as well. They will, usually, also know where the cheaper options are for hosting, and will be able to direct you to a suitable company for this, often being able to set it up for you. Alternatively, often hosting companies provide the same services (by having an in-house developer and designer) as a package, and you will be able to use one of their website templates for your site.

The shopping cart system can either be done by yourself, or by hiring a developer, or by getting a ready-made shopping cart system integrated into your site (your web designer/developer will be able to do this for you). The cart will generally integrate into a payments processing provider, so you’ll need to discuss with a provider about having credit card payments made on your site, and about having the provider take payments and settle with you directly.

Any decent ecommerce website will keep track of its own stock and orders, and will integrate its own stock and sales reports with those that are returned by the payments processing provider. You will then need to do reconciliations with the provider to make sure that all the orders that are processed were paid for, and that the provider settled all payments to you by the required date. The providers are usually quite strict about you maintaining your own records, so keeping track of your own orders is a good idea.

Overall, it is quite simple to do the entire ecommerce website yourself (or with the help of contracted IT professionals), but there are also alternatives out there, where you can purchase an entire, ready-made package. It’s just a matter of looking, and gauging what works best for your situation.

About Webmama

Webmama.co.uk is a leading provider of ecommerce website and shopping cart website solution in the UK. We have packages that suits every budget, with industry leading client centric service and competitive, honest prices, it’s no wonder 1500+ worldwide customers look to Webmama.co.uk for all their ecommerce solution needs.

Were excited to offer you a completely free 14 day trial to evaluate our software with zero risk (no credit card required). Were sure that once you see what our E-commerce website can do, youll know its the right choice for your business and your online success.

Contact: 44 (0) 845 634 4586

Source: webmama.co.uk

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How to Choose the Best Mobile Shopping Application Tool for Your Mobile Website

Are you planning to get a mobile ecommerce website designed for your business anytime soon? Then, you should definitely invest in a state of the art mobile shopping application tool first. Building a mobile ecommerce website is tough enough for developers, and without the proper platform to work on, the problem is bound to be even more serious.

However, you need to be careful when choosing the platform. There are so many mobile ecommerce application platforms out there that you are bound to feel a little overwhelmed when trying to choose one among those. These pointers may help speed up the selection process a bit, though:

1.The mobile ecommerce application tool must be easy to integrate with your new mobile website. Make sure that it is compatible with most major technologies used in mobile website development. Compatibility with Java is a must, but things will be even better if it works properly with PHP as well. Also, make sure that user-friendly interfaces can be designed with the platform. It will ensure that visitors find it easy to look for products in your mcommerce website. In the restrictive environment of a mobile ecommerce website, this functionality is sure to please most visitors, and keep them coming back to your website.

2.The payment module that can be built with the mobile ecommerce application platform needs to be highly secure. Mobile commerce websites have the notorious reputation of being easy to hack. As such, having an encrypted transaction system will inspire confidence in customers to share their credit card information with you. Also, be sure to inform customers that their credit card information will never be stored in the database of your website. This will assure customers that their payment details would remain confidential.

3.The mobile commerce platform should have inbuilt tools for incorporation of additional features within the website. The most important among these is a mass messaging tool. This will help you to send out SMS messages to your customers in bulk, whenever you have a special offer available in your website. It will serve as an excellent marketing tool and will particularly come in handy in situations where you have a special offer available for a few days only.

4.Make sure that the mobile shopping application tool is available at a price that fits your budget. True, you will probably make excellent profits from the mobile ecommerce website being designed, but these days, it makes sense to be a little cautious while making an investment. If the price of the tool of your choice seems to be a little too on the steep side, always try to bring it down a bit through negotiation.

Choosing the perfect mobile shopping application tool is never easy. However, if you keep the pointers mentioned above in mind, then the task should be simplified quite a bit. So, go ahead, do a little research on the internet, and find the best tool for your mobile ecommerce website now!

Dont Fall Into the Website Split Testing Black Hole

If you believe the hype, then website split testing is the long lost “holy grail” of Internet Marketing and the key to transforming your online dreams into reality. Unfortunately, the hype is wrong because split testing is just a tool and like any tool: Its only as powerful as the person wielding it. In fact, one of the first things people tend to split test is their headlines. Well this is a complete waste of time because headlines dont drive conversions, they merely pull visitors farther into your copy where your other sales tools, like the offer, actually convert prospects.

So in other words: You could use website split testing to try 50 different headlines but if all the other components were held the same, then the net difference in conversion rate between versions would average less than 5%. Headlines dont drive conversions, period. So testing different headlines is a complete waste of time if thats your objective.

Now before you think Im against website split testing, make no mistake: I am not and in fact I believe it to be vital to any successful conversion rate optimisation project. However, a much wiser investment of your time would be to concentrate on setting up split tests on the following sales tools: Your pricing; Your offer details; Post Script or Call-to-Action

Pricing remains one of the biggest drivers of conversions so using website split testing to try out different price points is vital to dialing in the right balance between Price Point and Conversion Rate. After all, you might be able to sell Product X for $50 at a 1% conversion rate but get 1.5% at $39. Your job is to crunch the numbers and figure out the best balance for highest profits and thats where split tests become vital.

Now although pricing is certainly one component of your offer, here are the other components that you should consider website split testing to improve conversion rate: Your features and/or product description; Any bonus products or services; Your Buy Now button.

All of these components of your offer will significantly affect conversion rate so youll want to run separate split tests for each of them. I would not advise multivariate testing unless you have significant experience and have successfully done so in the past. Otherwise, stick to separate split tests for each offer component.

Lastly and believe it or not: Post-scripts or a final CTA really work to the tune of generating upwards of 20% more clicks to the shopping cart when done properly. Now on most Ecommerce sites, this final CTA will typically take the form of “People who liked this product also liked:” and then a row of pictures of related products that link to formal product descriptions.

On other sites, the final CTA may be a prompt to sign up for a free consult, lead gen product, or simply a traditional post-script linking to the shopping cart. Whatever format youre using, be sure to conduct website split-testing on your post-script or closing call-to-action because it can literally boost click-thru-rate to your shopping cart or database by 20% or more.

Make no mistake, split tests are a vital tool for any successful website optimisation project and can help you dial-in your price point, maximise offer effectiveness, and boost click-thru rates to your shopping cart. Just be sure to avoid split-testing “non-converting” sales tools and use them effectively to significantly boost online conversions.

Turbo is Only as Fast as You Make it

Selling a bulk of inventory on eBay takes a lot of time. Having to upload items one by one would take ages, and writing descriptions would take even longer. Thats why eBay offers turbo lister: a listing manager that allows you to list large quantities of inventory on eBay quickly and efficiently. You can organize your items, create templates, and save tons of time. Turbo lister is a great feature on eBay, but you (as the ecommerce businessperson) still have to do all the work.

Sure, you can read the 243 page user guide for turbo lister and start listing items in bulk. But with Infigra Ecommerce, well do all the listing for you. If you arent computer savvy, turbo lister can be difficult to master. Some features are simple, others are more complicated. If youre more of a business person and less of a computer whiz, Infigra can take care of all your listings without you having to lift a finger. Infigra Ecommerce is dedicated to serving your ecommerce needs. We target online marketing channels, like eBay, and make sure your products are the ones that customers are attracted to.

With the Infigra Ecommerce server, we create multiple titles for your products to increase the “searchability” of your items. We also create temples to market your products with professional looking graphics and high quality colors. Making templates on eBay costs money; finding high quality graphics and fonts for your products can be costly, and it also takes some knowledge about computers. With Infigra, you dont have to worry about graphics or titles for your products. We create unique templates for your products as part of our ecommerce site services. Have confidence that well market your products in the best way possible.

Infigra not only helps ecommerce business owners list large numbers of items on eBay, but we also post listings on other sites to increase your sales opportunities. We post on Amazon, Newegg, Google, Buy.com, and many others. We also create our own ecommerce sites to specifically promote your ecommerce products. Listings for your inventory will appear on a variety of online marketing channels with professionally designed templates and high quality photos. While turbo lister requires work from the ecommerce business owner, Infigra will take care of listings while you can focus on running your business.

Getting an ecommerce business started can be a daunting task. Dont hesitate to contact Infigra for help with online marketing channel listings and other ecommerce needs.