How will your online shop generate leads ?

The world of online commerce is thriving despite the current recession. In July 2009 the amount spent online buying consumer products had increased by 17% compared to the previous year whereas it had dropped significantly in the offline world (source : www.imrg.org) .

Online Shops - marketing your products online is currently lucrative

Successful ecommerce sites have a few general principles which must be adhered to :

• Customer Confidence The days when people didn’t trust websites with their precious credit card details have gone. However that doesn’t mean that every effort does not need to be spent convincing a prospect that your site is the one he should buy from. Potential buyers will still expect to see security certification such as Verisign, but mostly they will be heavily influenced but the usability, look, feel, and professionalism of the site.
• · Product Navigation. If your SEO is done correctly then your potential lead will land on the right page they are looking for. However, many prospects jus come to browse and look at purchasing ‘on the spur of the moment’. If they can’t find what they want quickly, another site is waiting a click away.
• Presentation. The presentation and description of individual products is key to convincing a prospect to buy. Optimised images and an authoritative, persuasive advertisement for the product are essential, and at this stage there is also the opportunity to allow the user to share this in social media such as Twitter.
• Buying process. The single biggest loss of a potential buyer is at the purchase stage. If your shopping cart process is unwieldy, or takes too long, or has bugs causing it to end unexpectedly, you lose your customer. The process should be quick and as painless as possible for the visitor.
• Shipping costs. The cost of delivering the product should be clearly made apparent to a visitor at all times. It is too easy for a buyer to shop elsewhere to hit them with unexpectedly nasty charges late in the shopping cart process.
• Discounts and special offers. Web shoppers respond especially to special offers, deals of the day and to bulk discounts so an effective site needs to offer this functionality.

At CF Partnership we don’t tie ourselves to any particular technology for creating an online shopping solution. We do however, ensure that your site is built with core success principles in mind to ensure the maximum chance of generating a buyer lead.

Click here to find out more about how your company could take advantage of the rapidly growing online commerce market.