Robert Blaise

How to judge success of your ecommerce website

Ecommerce is the exchange of products or services through the internet.  It works the same as a regular store, except in the ecommerce arena, you do not see your customers eye-to-eye, you do not see their body language, all you see is their click and their purchase if ever.  Wait, yes, you see them abandon your page as well.  You think it is a lost sale, may be not.  It may be an untargeted or wrong click.

Anyway, if you are an ecommerce website owner, you surely want to know how you can judge the success of your ecommerce website.  Read this article to have an idea of how ecommerce success is usually measured and how you can improve the numbers as it appears.

To give you a clear understanding of how you can judge the success of your ecommerce website, it may help you to know what the going rate is.  Knowing the going rate will help you gage your performance.

For sales conversion, 1% to 2% sales over unique visitors is an acceptable rate.

For page abandonment rate, 10% is the most acceptable.

Now, how to you measure your sales conversion rate and your page abandonment rate.  Your website design should include a site’s analytic package, this is the only way you can measure your success.  Sales of course are another measure but then, your conversion rate may not be measured if we look at sales alone.

Before I move on, you may also want to look at the site’s analytical package because stickiness of your website may also be a gage of your ecommerce site’s success.

What is stickiness?  Stickiness is the ability of your website contents to keep visitors from staying or reading the sites contents.

If a visitor stays and returns often, the stickiness works well.  Your contents are effective and you only need a little more tweaks to make a sale out of those browsers.

How to improve conversion rate?

As mentioned, 1% to 2% conversion rate is already good but other business make as high as 9% conversion rate and I am sure this is what you want.

To improve your conversion rate and lessen the page abandonment rate; you may need to do the following:

•    Keep visitors browsing your website by including helpful tips on how they can use your products and service more advantageously.  You may publish a regular how-to article helping them improve the performance of the products they purchase from you.  It will keep them coming back for more information.
•    Dependability - If purchasers know they can depend on you for assistance about the product you sell to them, they will trust you and would try other products in your portfolio.

Knowing how to judge success of your ecommerce website should not stop by knowing your conversion rate, you should also know what page visitors abandon.  If they have stayed in one or more pages, chances are the visitor is a targeted audience.  You should improve that page and ensure you answer some of the possible questions they have.

Do not just improve conversion rate, improve your site and sales will surely follow.

Tags: eCommerce, Marketing, Planning

Finding a provider for the development of your site

A website, ecommerce site, or storefront may define the success of your products and services on the internet.  It is therefore necessary that you find a provider for the development of your site that will help you succeed.

In here, I will give you some of the useful tips in finding a provider for the development of your successful ecommerce site.

Before you do however, you will need to prepare.  Know what you need like templates, links, catalog, newsletter, affiliate program, mailing list contents and payment processes.

Browse the internet.  Look for ecommerce sites that sells products similar to yours or products that compliment your own products.  The insight you will get will help you design your ecommerce website and therefore be able to find the provider that will help develop your site.

It may also help if you can contact people from ecommerce websites themselves.  If you have questions you want answered, you may look for forums that will clear some things in your mind.

Additionally, if you find an ecommerce site that you think is very good, you may contact the webmaster or the website owner and ask for recommendations.  Some people would be glad to assist you, some may ignore you outright but do not despair.  The World Wide Web is a treasure throb of information, you will be able to learn all the tricks you just give it time.

Finally, look for an ecommerce service provider that will both design and host your site.  If you have a designed template, it may be hard for you to find a hosting website for that.  If the ecommerce service provider both host and design your site, they may have all the services that you need.

Again, you need to refer to the plan you have designed based on your research.  Your quest in finding a provider for the development of your site armed with the plan will put you at an advantage.

Your ecommerce site is your storefront.  What goes in the website should lead to make sales for your products.  This is your foremost goal.  You hire providers for your ecommerce site to help you succeed; do not waste your money to unprofessional and limited service providers.

To end, please note that your website is your store, if people do not know your store exist buyers will not find you.  To succeed in the ecommerce era, you need to invite people to your ecommerce site, do this buy submitting articles to articles directories.  You may also link to other websites to invite their subscribers to yours.

Tags: Planning