GoECart.com’s 10 Tips for E-Commerce Success

By Allan Pulga

In the limitless expanses of the Worldwide Web, doing retail business is competitive to say the least.

Tens of millions of distractions are a click away from pulling potential customers away from your website, from buying your product. And even if you get noticed, and visitors peruse your site, your ‘eyeball time’ is limited – Clickz.com says the average time an Internet user spends on a website is only 46 seconds.

The folks at GoECart.com understand that closing a sale in under 46 seconds can be tough, so they devised a list of “10 Tips for Online Business Success.” Differentiation is crucial, as you need to separate yourself from the competition. Here are the tips:

1. “Target the Un-Targeted” – You need to offer customers something your competitors don’t offer. Research your prospective customers to find what they need and target that need specifically, in a unique way.

2. “Strong Business Planning” – Sufficient e-commerce planning ensures maximum success and adaptability before launching. Know your revenue source, break-even duration, inventory strategy and customer service approach and keep things flexible.

3. “Business Friendly E-Commerce” – Your e-commerce software must be easy to manage and focused on core business tasks. Seek high levels of scalability, security and customization. The software should also be capable of growing with your business.

4. “Create a Web Store with a Difference” – Branding is vital because “visual memory is more enduring than textual memory,” say the GoECart.com experts. Keep your branding strategy aligned with your target customers’ preferences and style. Trigger interest with the right colour scheme, layout and logo.

5. “Make your ‘Hot Sellers’ most Visible” – Visitors should leave your online store knowing what your specialty is, even if they have no intentions of buying. Set it up so that when they actually think of buying that product, your website comes to mind.

6. “Do not let your Customers forget you” – CRM is invaluable. Inform past customers of new products and promotions in your online store. Provide top-notch service to keep customers coming back.

7. “Increase your Web Presence” – Make an impact over the Internet with intelligent marketing strategies. Perform search engine optimization (SEO) to assure your site pops up in pages of search engine results. Associate yourself with complementary products or services and feed off each other’s search results.

8. “Build Robust Backend Operations” – Keeping backend operations fast and easy is a top priority in e-commerce. Features such as inventory management processing, credit card processing, reporting systems ensure positive customer experiences.

9. “Learn Faster and Better” – In the dog-eat-dog world of e-commerce, you must learn from mistakes quickly and prevent competitors from gaining advantages. Stay flexible and carefully scrutinize your business practices.

10. “Surprise your Customers” – Keep customers interested with frequent changes and promotions. Surprise offers, price discounts and prizes can draw interest. Keep your website fresh with new looks and ideas, but don’t detract from your established brand image.

The 10 above concepts can be therefore summarized in three steps: Be innovative. Stay focused on your business goals. Make sure customers know you and keep coming back. Can you accomplish those things in 46 seconds?