Stephen D. Gross

Lots of Capital but not a lot of Technical

This is a good place to be, you have money to fund the creation of your ecommerce site but also a bit dangerous since you don’t have the technical knowledge to understand when people aren’t telling you the truth.

The truth is that there are quite a few companies out there that can help you create a very robust, SEO friendly, and highly scalable ecommerce site including Volusion, MondeVertInc, ShopVisible, Zoovy, Datafeedr, PopShops, and of course Google Checkout and Amazon Stores, etc.

Each of these companies have experience in building the ecommerce store, helping you understand the implications of the technology and in general handling most of the business from the technical side…but for a price.

The kicker here is that each of these companies specializes in helping you run your business but seldom do they actually make sure you know how to run it without them. They are in business to gain recurring revenue from your interaction with them and not in the business to show you how to code the system, or create great features without someone paying for them.

With that said if you are an existing business and have an existing brick and mortar world that you are already managing then these are the folks for you because they take a majority of the work off your hands.

Keep in mind they help design, build and deploy your new ecommerce presence but they do NOT run it for you. That is up to you and your staff…you do have staff to run your ecommerce business don’t you? You might want to think about that, there are hundreds of ecommerce sites languishing in despair for lack of someone within the company that is charged with the sites’s success and understands how to run an online business.

So in the Capital but no Technical world your main problems will be:

1) Understand what you are asking for and find vendor that does it

2) If you don’t have the ecommerce or technology background hire someone to manage the process designs, development and deployment of the site for you or you WILL get bitten, this is simple reality.

3) Be sure whomever is designing then look and feel of the site KNOWS what that means. You well wishing marketing and art departments need to understand usability, interface design, and any number of other aspects of this business to be useful. If they don’t HIRE someone that does and have them do the designing.

4) Throughly understand the features of the system you are buying and keep asking for training till you do. Most of the features of these high end ecommerce systems aren’t used by most customers. You need to be engaged in the your own business and understand how the platform can make you money.

5) Remember, and this applies to all ecommerce websites, traffic to your site doesn’t not mean sales (conversions), yes you need to drive traffic to your site but that means qualified traffic and traffic that is there to buy not to look. Remember the retail model, window shoppers don’t buy and buyers seldom window shop.

So in the next entry we’ll cover the middle ground, We’ve got the Technical but funds are tight, this is an exciting area but requires you know how the plumbing of your new ecommerce site really works!

Dan Horn & Noh Limits is a member and contributor to StephenDGross.com and BrookstoneMarketingGroup.com

7VDX3X94HTSH

The world of ecommerce is exciting, painful and sometimes down right foolish, but we all want the independence that running our own store “could” bring.

Being independent of “the man” and being able to work from anywhere in the world is quite an appealing prospect but most of us have no idea how to do it or the innumerable problems in our path.

One of the primary things to think about when opening an ecommerce store is how much time you have to actually spend working on the store operations.

Keep in mind all the things you would do if you owned a brick and mortar storefront apply to the ecommerce site.

Even though you don’t have to deal with a lease and hard furnishing you still have all the equivalent issues with the ecommerce site lease equals hosting, hard furnishing equal pay per click and SEO marketing costs.

Over the course of this series I’ll be helping you understand not only the various ways to create a successful ecommerce store but also how to do it to fit into your lifestyle.

Lots of Capital but not a lot of Technical

As an example if you have time and financing you could certainly build the site from scratch, rent a warehouse, buy and store products and ship them from your warehouse. You certainly can buy these website development from any number of companies at any price range and they will happily hand you a fully operational ecommerce site that is fully customizable, at a fee, and you are in business…if you know how to run an ecommerce business.

We’ve got the Technical but funds are tight

In the middle of the spectrum if you only have time but not much capital to run the business you might want to consider using one of a number of ecommerce shopping carts, find a few drop shippers to do your fulfillment and use your sweat equity to design, develop, and deliver the ecommerce site to the web using organic SEO techniques and some of a number of shopping cart systems.

No Money and No Technical no problem

At the far end of the spectrum a recent trend has come about that is called an affiliate ecommerce site which is all about putting together a website that you drive traffic to and then as people buy products they are sent to the company website that actually sells the products and do the transaction there. This process alleviates a number of the onerous tasks associated with running an ecommerce store because you don’t have to deal with inventory, credit card processing, customer service and returns since they company one the other ends deals with that and give you a commission on each sale.

In my next article I’ll be taking each of the three methods, and all the variants and discussing the pros and cons of each. Over the next few weeks we will look into what can be done and how much time, effort, and expense if involved in each method and how you can be successful running an ecommerce business yourself.

Next up we’ll cover the process where you or your business has money to invest in the ecommerce business but not the technical chops so you hire a company to do your ecommerce site: Lots of Capital but not a lot of Technical next!

Spending the same amount of money, and yes more time, on data mining and analysis might just benefit your revenue and profits in a far greater and more sustainable way.  How would you like to actually decrease your traffic and, at the same time, double or triple your online business?  Making more out of less is always a strong part of any good business plan.

Dan Horn & Noh Limits is a member and contributor to StephenDGross.com and BrookstoneMarketingGroup.com

One of the little known but highly recognized facts concerning a quality online presence is the effect on employee or staff attitudes and loyalty.

Did you know that the average age of an Internet searcher is over 35 years of age?  Did you also know that the age cycle is growing in both age directions?

To first analyze this phenomena you should first ask yourself these questions.  How good is the website presence of the company you work for or own?  Are they using the most up-to-date practices?  Would you promote the presence of your company to your friends?

In our experience, regarding small businesses, we have found that over 90% of small businesses have an online presence so poor that their staff is either not positively impressed enough to promote their own company website or are so unimpressed that it makes a negative impact on their impression and workplace attitudes.

The fact is that the average age of staffing for small business is under the age (less than 30) of the non-internet world.  In other words, the staff doesn’t remember or hasn’t been alive on this planet long enough to experience life without the use of the internet.

Most small business owners are older than their staff and therefore have trouble relating to an age group that depends on the Internet almost exclusively for information and knowledge.  Conversely, the staff looks upon the small business owner as a fossil and somewhat outdated if the business has a poor online presence.

In conclusion, over 90% of small businesses fail to make a good impression on their staff, can potentially foster a negative attitude, and fail to reap the benefits of word of mouth trust and marketing factors when they ignore their own online presence.

What is your opinion?  Leave a comment.

Please visit Brookstone Marketing Group for more information.

While it is very common for online businesses to neglect the opportunity for additional revenue by simply providing an 800# on their website, these same companies further neglect to understand the real power in this simple but sometime difficult to implement strategy.

Our experiences have proven that a visible telephone number shown on the header of a website can not only increase revenue by as much as 100%, it can also provide a tremendous positive effect on authority and trust values.  Many online researchers and consumers alike believe that an 800# provides a sense of security with their decision to purchase.

Obviously providing an 800# alone will not reach the intended goals of doing so.  A business must then implement a system to answer and take the appropriate action as requested and shown in the eyes of the caller. Developing proper telephany expertise in sales and customer service is a must.

Telephone Systems must be researched and implemented.   The following questions must, at a bare minimum, be addressed:

- Does the system provide ACD, Multiple Voicemail, Transfer, Groups, multiple methods of Call Distribution, and DID numbers?

- Does the system have CRM capabilities and what systems will it integrate with?

- Does the system provide variable methods of reporting; by employee, phone number, time and day, group, area code, and department?

- Does the system provide import/export and data support to integrate with outside reporting systems?

Finally, it is wise to understand what type of business you are involved in.  Do you sell a need based product or service?  Or, maybe you sell a more emotional or decision based product or service?  The payback and profitability for purchasing a system and hiring a staff for support may well rest on the answer to these questions.

Do you have a telephone sales story?  Leave a comment.

Provided on behalf of Brookstone Marketing Group

Success starts with a beginning!

One of the most common questions we receive from prospects is how to use the Internet to get new customer leads flowing without exhausting their valuable time. The answer is very simple; let the Internet perform the heavy lifting by setting up an online automated lead capture campaign.

A lot of the prospect hesitancy apparent with this approach is the “need for greed” or “control everything” old style of sales tactics. The need to have ones hands in everything worked a lot better when the Internet wasn’t yet mature and money was flowing like a fire hoes.

In today’s competitive environment the ultimate goal is make every possible use of your available time.  Outsourcing the common daily and weekly tasks associated with lead nurturing not only frees up valuable time but actually increases closing ratios by as much as 4-10 times.

An automated lead capture campaign is the beginning of this valuable sales funnel tool.  Our email drip marketing campaigns are designed to use the leads obtained from online marketing and nurture them into a future customer buying decision.  No muss, no fuss.  You are free to run your business or take some vacation time…

It really is as simple as it sounds.  Devote as little as 1 hour per month with the Brookstone team and let our system do the rest. The best part comes when your website jingles, your phone rings, and your door swings with new customers.

Our online campaigns are designed to combine the tremendous powers of the Internet with your existing or new website, online sales page, telephone, and many other forms of traditional advertising.  Our sales representatives are ready to assist you today to determine the right campaign to rapidly increase your sales leads.

Visit Brookstone Marketing Group for help today!