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eCommerce - A Plan
Planning an ecommerce website is like building a house -architecture and budget need to be agreed before the decoration.
AN AGREED REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATION MUST BE DRAWN UP AS THEFIRST STAGE BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE IS DONE - ANY OTHER APPROACHWILL ONLY LEAD TO CONFUSION AND WORSE.
Once an AGREED REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATION has been agreed thensolutions need to be evaluated and costed against thatspecification are:
- Project management - Hardware - Web design and software - Sitemarketing - Project management:
All aspects of the project need to be managed. Decide who isgoing to do it and properly plan the requirements, activities,outcomes, milestones and timings.
Hardware:
Your choices here are a managed service or your own server. Thesecurity and disaster recovery aspect that is achieved byhosting with a major provider is very important. Only go withyour own server if you have the experience and facilities.
Design and Software:
Site design
Develop site templates and test them with real people. They haveto be easy to use and navigate. Don't let "design" drive thesite; let ease of use and sales drive the "design". Think howthe customer thinks.
Software
At least 5 solutions need to be considered.
- Updating - Shopping cart - Forum - Email - Statistics
Updating
There are 2 realistic routes here. Either an online or anoffline, PC based content management system (CMS). The onlineCMS can be either an Open Source CMS (Open Source means anyapplication that has been made available, generally free, todevelopers to view and modify freely. Examples of Open Sourceapplications are MySQL and PHP) or commercial.
There are pros and cons to both routes. An online system isavailable to anyone with relevant security clearance anywhereany time. A PC based system is, obviously, limited to the PCsrunning the licenses. An example of a PC based system isMacromedia Contribute which integrates with Dreamweaver. Thereare a whole range of online Commercial and Open Source optionssuch as SuiteWise?, Drupal, Joomla, and Website Baker etc.However, even this is complicated by the fact that some of theshopping cart solutions also contain CMS that may be sufficientfor many companies' requirements.
Shopping cart and CRM
There are also 2 realistic routes for the shopping cart - OpenSource or commercial.
There are excellent Open Source shopping carts such asOSCommerce and Zen, but also excellent commercial solutions suchas Actinic and Customer Focus Quick Order Portal (which comeswith a complete CMS).
There are other factors to consider with the shopping cart:
- Does it have its own or does it easily integrate with yourexiting stock control systems?
- Does it integrate easily with
accounting systems (e.g. Sage,QuickBooks)?
- Does it have or integrate easily with Customer RelationshipManagement (CRM) systems that may be proposed in future?
Forum
Many CMS have good integrated forums but if they do not ourrecommendation would be to use a good Open Source package suchas PunBB or phpBB. They are free, robust and easy to integrateand customise into any site.
Email
Most CMS, shopping carts and forums have email solutions.However, some solutions are very basic. If the chosen shoppingcart solution that best meets the ecommerce and otherrequirements does not have an effective integrated emailsolution and if the same be true of the CMS and forum solutionsthen stand alone Open Source applications such as PHPlist areone alternative solution and the other is an online solutionsuch as Constant Contact or many others.
Statistics
This is arguably the most important part of the package. If youdo not know how visitors to your website and in the shop arebehaving, what turns them on and what turns them off then it isfar, far harder to improve sales and site profitability.Commercial applications such as WebTrends and ClickTracks needto be evaluated for best fit.
SITE MARKETING
There are 4 major areas to consider here.
- Offline marketing - e.g. in-store. What works most costeffectively to drive traffic and orders via the web from non-webactivities.
- Site optimisation - how to make sure technical structure,copy, content, back-links and a range of other factors areinitially and remain optimised so that as many high searchengine placements on relevant searches are obtained.
- Pay per click and other online marketing - how to get trafficfrom advertising against key words and phrases used in searchengines and from adverts on other sites.
- Email - how to grow the email list and use it to growprofitable sales.
In summary:
- Manage the project - Think how the customer thinks - Getexcellent software to make finding product and price easy - Maketerms clear and payment simple - Ensure you are in stock and andhave achievable delivery timescales - Make sure you have a goodCRM system and clear communications - mail, phone, emai - Marketthe site appropriately - Know what's going on - use your statsto test, track and try
Cost ............ well how long is a pice of string, but youcould be up and running for far less than the cost of newpremises!!!
About the author:
Richard Hill is a director of E-CRM Solutions and has spent manyyears in senior direct and interactive marketing roles. E-CRM -http://www.e-crm.co.uk - helps you to grow by getting you morecustomers that stay with you longer. We provide practicalsolutions that pay for themselves. We help you to make sure thatyour marketing works.
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