Beyond security is to look at the products or services that you offer.  Do you have competitors?  If you do, how many are there online?  Have you taken the time to visit those web sites to see what they offer?  An effective way to assess the quality of your products and/or services is to do a “best practices” assessment of your competitors and unrelated companies.  Best practices assessments are not complicated and can be done with very little money but it does require that you invest some quality time to visit web sites.  Compare your prices with those of your competitors: are they underselling you or are you competitively priced?  Read their return policies, privacy notices, sales, specials, and promotions and compare them with yours; are there areas where you can improve?  Visit unrelated web sites for “best practices” that you might be able to adapt for your own web site without infringing on copyrights, or “borrowing” images or text.  Rather you can look for models that might inspire you to create or adjust your current or unwritten policies to develop original work and thus making them your own.

Conduct a “best look” assessment of your web site comparing it with your competitors and non-competitors.  Does your web site look sophomoric, cartoonish, and unappealing?  Do you have pop-ups, flashy banners, and/or animated cartoons dancing across your front page?  Ask yourself if you want to portray the serious side of your business or the silly side.  If you choose the serious side then you are on the right track to attract visitors.  If you chose the silly side, then expect a lonely online existence.  I may be wrong but the biggest turn-off for me is to visit web sites that are so visually busy with flashing banners, Google AdSence banners, and other annoyances, that the last thing I want is to spend longer than a second at that site.  Again, look for models that you or your webmaster might use as guideposts for creating original content and consider cleaning up your web site from clutter and make it appealing.

The final issue is to develop an action plan.  Lofty goals are usually unrealistic.  For example, a lofty goal such as “I want to lose weight” is likely not to be realized.  However, if you develop goals that are short-term, realistic, and achievable, then success will follow.  Thus, if you propose to lose weight and develop a daily, weekly, and quarterly exercise and nutrition plan then you are likely to lose weight.  The same applies for developing business goals: make short term goals that are realistic and achievable and only then can you develop a “lofty, but achievable” goal.  For additional details about appealing to potential customers read my first article (To Template or Not to Template: It’s a Matter of Survival, October 2006).

Most e-commerce retailers have stepped up to combat online fraud.  According to an article by Merchant Fraud Squad in About.com (2002) 72 percent of polled merchants reported fraud rates of less than .5 percent of annual revenues, while less than 20 percent reported fraud rates higher than 1 percent.  These numbers are amazingly low despite the increased sophistication and aggressiveness of criminal elements that engage in spamming, phishing, and fraudulent credit card transactions.

If you are considering e-commerce or are in e-commerce, you might consider the following tips to help fight fraud and protect consumers:

1. Be clear about your privacy policy.

Review your privacy policy and if you don’t have one, write one!  Ask yourself the following questions: is my privacy policy as thorough and clear as possible?  Am I committing myself to protecting customer’s information against fraud, unsolicited emails, or the transfer or selling off of customers’ information to third parties?  Have I clearly stated how I will use customers’ information once I have it?

1. Don’t get annoying

Do you want to keep customers and attract new ones?  If you do, consider cleaning up your website by removing annoying pop-up windows, flashy ad banners, and visually painful cartoonish and sophomoric looking animations that make your website look less like legitimate e-commerce sites and more like a bad version of Cartoon Network.

1. Publish an “About Us” page.

Write a short bio about your company, how it got started, and what it stands for.  Write a mission statement which includes your business ethics (which can be tied to your privacy statement).  Include, for example, a subheading such as “Why buy from us” and give persuasive reasons why potential customers should buy from you.  You could include a short summary of warranty and return policy benefits, generous discount offers, security measures you have taken to protect customer’s privacy, and even naming the reputable companies you might be in business with to make your e-commerce possible.  Here’s an example:

Secure Transaction:
We utilize Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption protocol. SSL protects customer information such as credit card numbers, names, and addresses during the exchange between your computer and our server…

Our secure payments are backed by:

·         PayQuake (FDIC insured), one of the premier online Merchant Account providers.

·         Authorize.Net, the leading secure payment management company.

·         Ipowerweb.com, one of the highest rated Internet Service Providers

·         Equifax Secure Inc. (a subsidiary of GeoTrust, Inc., a leader in trust solutions for the Internet security infrastructure).  Simply click on the lock symbol on your browser to view the certificate.

(Source: www.oceanusgifts.com/about.php)

1. Clearly publish your warranty and return policies

Ethical and honest e-commerce sites will clearly publish reasonable return and warranty policies.  Don’t be so restrictive that it becomes a disincentive for potential customers to buy products or services.  Be thorough and direct but not so wordy that people won’t read your policies.  Be mindful of the tone and language that you use to write your guidelines by not coming off as preachy, condescending, or patronizing.  Avoid CAPPING words (rubs off the wrong way and it usually gets interpreted as yelling).  Do not overuse exclamation marks (!) (in fact avoid exclamation marks altogether).

1. Invest in SSL certificates

Take reasonable steps to secure your site with SSL certificates.  There are reasonably priced certificates out there that will not break the bank.  Make sure that SSL certificates are up-to-date.

While these tips might not be all-inclusive, they provide starting points for developing policies and standards that clearly portray your intentions as a retailer.  Your potential for economic success will be improved with these tips because they will help to create a safe and pleasant online environment for your visitors.

References

About.com (2002).  E-merchants are successfully fighting fraud despite rising sophistication of fraudsters.  Retrieved on January 11, 2007 from: http://retailindustry.about.com/library/bl/02q2/bl_mfs061702.htm

CNN. (2003, October 30).  U.S. economic growth sizzles:  Third-quarter growth of 7.2 percent is strongest in nearly two decades; will job growth follow?  Retrieved on January 11, 2006 from:

http://money.cnn.com/2003/10/30/news/economy/gdp/index.htm

U.S. Census.  (2004).  E-Stats.  Retrieved on January 11, 2007 from:  http://www.census.gov/eos/www/papers/help 2004/2004reportfinal.pdf

What I am getting at is that as a courtesy to you for the many years of online friendship, I am letting you know that within the next two months I will be transferring my domain name to a new web site that has successfully synced stock information with the shopping cart software and my distributor’s stock details. This decision is being made for practical and financial reasons. Stock information will be synchronized automatically on a daily basis by the ISP, new and old items will be added and removed automatically, and thus reducing the number of sales that I can’t fill because my current site is inaccurate. I will terminate web hosting with Ipower and with it the expensive SSL fees that are imposed on me by Ipower. I will purchase an SSL certificate that is less expensive and will be able to use it with the new ISP. 

With our web based system users can run wizards and install templates on multiple pages at one time, so our preference would be to have the templates input into our system by your staff or the individual designer. We use a layer type of layout that users can click on and float around the live web page. So inputting the templates would consist of FTPing the images or uploading them individually, adding the images to the template being created with an insert image list, and then floating each image to its correct coordinates. WeБ?Tre not opposed to allowing customers to purchase the raw templates either on or offsite, but obviously templates already setup and tied into the wizard will sell better than those where the user has to upload and arrange the images his/herself. At this point our design team is busy on many other projects, so having our staff input outside templates is not feasible, at least not in the foreseeable future. You could even start off with just raw templates and then add templates individually over time. We are completely flexible on the arrangements as long as it makes sense.

If you are interested in proceeding, please contact me as soon as possible.  Because of time constraints, we are initially going to setup our partnerships on a first come first serve basis. We hope that you will consider being among the first to partner with us on our latest venture and we look forward to a mutually prosperous and beneficial relationship for many years to come.

Visit our site for more info: http://www.netsysinteractive.com

What expect the customers to find on the Web in most - the content or the content itself? Believe it or not, it is the former. That’s definitely true - the world’s best content does not make anyone happy if they can not find it. Besides customers find the content, it must be readable too. Don’t think that’s simple. When Chesterton created 210 Web sites, it established good navigation and legibility an oddity. Worse, it also determined that minor flaws add up to a major problem a lack of trust that the site will deliver what customers want.Senior Analyst Moira Dorsey tells why good navigation is not important for its own sake—it improves the bottom line.

Question: Draw the link for me between an online client experience and the bottom line.
Answer: It is very simple: The two matters do not compete. If you know your customers, their behaviours, and the targets they are trying to complete, and after that plan your website to back those targets, they will be content. Your target is really to replace costs from a call center to website or into a phone-based self-service system, but doing it in a course that delivers a best experience to the client. There is a high correlation between good self-service and client gratification.

Question: It is the used mantra that people do not needs require to speak to another individual—they just require to here their answers. Why is this so hard?
Answer: There is an important change between seeing a client visibility, which you need to commercialize to people, and creating a website for that use—that is, planning what amounts to a product that people have to use.

Question: When they are stressing to better this merchandise, as you see it, what should companies be thinking about?
Answer: I consider you need a portfolio of tools to see how good your lines are. You need direction groups, surveys, Web analytics, and usability laboratory tests. Ultimately, you are searching at four matters: rate, navigation, demonstration, and confidence.

For rate, we search at whether the important content and the functionality for getting it are there. Navigation covers the practices that give to getting what clients are searching for, like search capabilities and menu design. Demonstration means that, assuming the content and functionality are available, can the client take it—is it formatted legibly? Confidence covers whether contextual help is available, and whether privacy and security policies are demonstrated.

Question: Any visible examples of this?
Answer: We get companies doing well in some of the categories, but not in others. Across our past 200 evaluations, I can show you that some of the biggest failures were in matters that have known solutions. For example, all of our brains are to some level wired the same way, and we know that text wants contrast in terms of the foreground and ground, and it should be no smaller than 10-point type. But 80 percent of the sites failed the legibility examination. In existing privacy and protection notices, 85 percent failed.

Sometimes the answer depends on the website, like in good menu design. The menu categories should be free and clear, so that people do not slow down or get down the wrong way. We know that is a difficulty, but the answer depends on the specific website. We discover incompatible reciprocal factors, or menu items that had different names on different parts of the website.

Nobody spends on all cylinders 100% of the time, particularly when you are running to get those two other attributes I mentioned: how good it supports the brand, and how good it supports the client’s targets.

Question: From a tactical standpoint, what causes the difficulties you site about Web sites within corporations? Is it an imperfect architecture, a lack of consistent design, or a governance issue?
Answer: All those matters are interrelated. If you do not consider that you need to design the website to back the people who are meant to use it, so it would not look like a bad idea to simply follow the structure of the corporation. As an answer, we find companies organize their home page based on the organizational structure of the company, unlikely that will make sense to the people outside the company who have to use the website.  Either they do not have the skills to see this or they do not have a process in place to have certain they design a website right in the first place.

The moderate prices can’t start to cover eBay’s costs for running a program such as this, but after that eBay’s agenda here is to promote the site, and the eBay University program does merely that. In addition to the “eBay Basics” course — which is aimed to segue eBay purchasers and non-users into the trader mode — the two advanced courses strongly promote PayPal, selective features, egg on International trading, and propose strategies designed to propel puny volume and occasional eBay traders into Power Trader status.
This reporter caught up with eBay University at the Jacob Javit’s Convention Center in New York City in late October and sat in on the “eBay For Business” and “Beyond The Basics” courses. Though trading on the site starting from 1998, I expected to find cues and tips that were effective in future trading. These I found, along with much basic business and mail order data and insights that would be helpful for anyone trading online.
Each course is accompanied by a 100-plus page guidance covering in detail what the presenters discuss. Some course experts can be exuberant, by using demonstrations sprinkled with such adjectives as “awesome” and “very awesome” (whatever that might be), but they are all skilled speakers, and the offer problems are demonstrated by a 20 foot projection screen, emphasizing and summarizing each point.

eBay for Business
In comparison with the other two courses, eBay for Business is presented once rather than twice over the three-day program, possibly because of the schedule of its tax/legal issue expert, attorney Cliff Ennico, a nationally syndicated columnist and author on the subject. Issues include selecting from the different types of business entities, that which suit’s the individual situation — such as sole proprietorship, partnerships, “C” and “S” corporations, and limited liability companies — each presented by using the pros and cons in a clear, concise manner.
The demonstration moves on to legal liabilities for trading on eBay — warranties, express and implied, legal disclaimers, refund and return policies, etc. Under dealing with deadbeat bidders, you can call and threaten to sue, but it’s advised that you can’t imply that the debtor has committed a crime, call in the midnight, or threaten to attach a debtor’s wages or property — unless you really intend to do it!
The final suggestion is to consult an attorney before calling a deadbeat bidder.

Tax difficulties are complex and covered in detail, starting by using the basics of tax compliance such as Federal and local tax ID’s, filing on time, tax payment schedules, requirements for trade tax collection, and the same. Deducting home office space used to automatically trigger an audit, but this is no longer the case, though home office space must be precisely measured, and a baby’s stroller or any other non-business item in the space kills the deduction.
Accounting and bookkeeping difficulties are also covered at length, including what to look for in an accountant or bookkeeper. Also covered are the legal aspects and responsibilities of hiring and firing employees. Under the delicate topic of firing a worker, it is advised to lock he or her out of the computer before the meeting, fire on a Monday, instead a Friday, have a viewer present, keep emotions out of it, and, strongly emphasized — the less said, the better.
In all, Ennico’s demonstration should provide highly useful data to all but the most experienced and savvy entrepreneurs.
The Business course after that transits into operating an eBay business, beginning with creating objectives, and the first of several pitches touting Power Trader status and why and how to accomplish it. (Power Trader status starts at ‘Bronze’ with trade of at least 1,500 USD a month, and extends into the stratosphere to ‘Titanium,’ at 200,000 USD a month.)
There are common sense suggestions, like avoiding the use of music in listings and keeping image sizes reasonable (since 50% of the U.S.A. still uses low-speed dial-up connections,) taking in account your competition, avoiding spelling errors and combative trader terms, and, in general, doing an attractive demonstration in your trade.
The section on Analysis Tools should be useful to many eBay traders. Trading something without making analysis the past performance of item is a way for wasting time and, often, losing or leaving money on the table. eBay presents several services that provide insight into what moves on the place by using a link in it’s Marketplace Research page, accessed via web browser at http://solutions.ebay.com
The first of these is the “What’s Hot” page linked through Trader Central. By clicking on “Trade By Category,” then “In Demand,” a trader can resolve prevailingly popular items in most categories.
Relatively new to the area is the “Want It Now” page linked through the eBay home page. There, purchasers post items they would like but can’t find on the site.

For those who wish to tie his or her trade to eBay’s promotions, there is the “Merchandising Calendar” linked through Trader Central that gives advance notice of offers — one tool particularly effective to Store traders.
The course segues into common sense solutions for finding merchandise to trade on eBay, suggesting the usual suspects — garage and estate trade, flea marketplaces, thrift shops, auctions and the like, as well as cueing traders into the “Whole Sale Lots” category on the site, then using search words such as ‘bulk,’ ‘pallet,’ ‘case,’ ‘lot.’ The problem with this strategy is that many traders are wholesaling goods for some reason and it is basically because the item can’t be sold individually on the site. In the “Beyond The Basics” course, finding independent eBay certified wholesalers is dealt by using in detail.
The afternoon sessions offers micro detail cues on how to begin, create and expand an eBay business in the auction and Stores formats — from pricing, listing, keyword strategies to shipping advice and virtually every issue in within. Interspersed throughout are touts for eBay product or services such as PayPal, payments that are offered by a huge majority of eBay traders. eBay claims that traders who demonstrate PayPal average 5-6% higher trade-through costs than those who don’t.

eBay — Beyond the Basics
There’s a particular amount of redundancy between the ‘Business’ and ‘Beyond the Basics’ courses, but deeper detail and additional demonstrations, such as International Trading, add to the worth of this course.
International Trading covers an untapped source of income for many eBay traders. The truth is, eBay claims that 48% of his or her trade are now international, and that cross-border trade average 6.5 % higher than domestic trade-through payments. The demonstration whets the appetite of the audience by using the fact that someone in Germany was willing to pay 79 USD for a 3.99 USD five-pack of Oreo cookies. Whether anyone else will ever again pay 79 USD for the same cookies on eBay is another matter, but the point that many products in USA can do well overseas, is reality.
The demonstration covers the basics of how to fill out a customs form, legal issues including accurate and honest declarations, the most price efficient shipping (ordinarily USPS), language and money conversions, and foreign purchaser- friendly ways to list. And, again, pushing traders to use PayPal. eBay claims that foreign traders who use PayPal payments average 16.5% higher trade-through prices. This makes sense because transferring funds from overseas can be costly and troublesome for international purchasers who don’t have an expedient such as PayPal, Bidpay or Western Union checks payable on banks of U.S.A. For anyone who trades principally or exclusively to overseas purchasers, PayPal is a necessity.
In the “Beyond the Basics” course, eBay screams the following: Grant the purchasers what they expect to have! To this effect, huge number complicated search and marketing report tools that help in nailing down what is hot and when, are covered. One such pay-for, eBay certified site is Terapeak, which demonstrates sophisticated data on category results, key ratios, listing features and successful duration times, among other features. Free and choicely eBay features like “Trade Report Plus,” are also covered in considerable detail.

Under the topic of search engine marketing, there’s also an interesting demonstration on the necessity of having a ‘top-30′ search result placing on Google and Yahoo!, as well as ways of achieving the top five results, or “before the fold,” which yields the greatest results in search engine queries. This is achieved by bidding on a pay per click (PPC) basis for top placement on the search engines. Bids or costs paid per click-through range from a few pennies to 100 USD. Also covered in detail are important keyword cues for linking with purchasers and many other aspects of search engine marketing. This should be a fascinating demonstration for all those, who like myself, are semi- to totally clueless on the process and its worth.
While many aspects of the “Beyond The Basics” course are covered elsewhere, here they’re covered in marvelous detail. Under finding merchandise to trade, for example, eBay certified but independent wholesalers who don’t trade on the site (and thus don’t, theoretically, compete against you) are offered, as are others. (The rub here’s that basically you have to buy BIG: one speaker contacted wholesaler on the minimum order for an item and was told it was five shipping containers — for 150,000 USD.)
eBay claims that it takes 20 minutes to manually list a trade, and if you list one-of-a-kind-items as I do, this can precisely be the case. eBay demonstrates a variety of absolutely free and selective charge automation tools like Turbo Lister, which can be useful for any trader who deals in bulk listings. File Exchange, a new eBay tool that’s platform independent, allows medium to high volume traders to record o eBay auctions, fixed-price or Stores by using a single application from an MS Excel spreadsheet, MS Access or other software.
Cross-merchandising and offers are covered, as well as linking to stores and external web pages by using free and selective eBay tools.
The rest of the course demonstrations advanced suggestions and solutions for virtually every other aspect of eBay trading — from photography, headers and descriptions through packing and shipping to feedbacks and trade and inventory management. It is mentioned that the dreaded task of packaging isn’t thankless: well-packed goods give a sense of professionalism, and do lead to more positive feedback — not to mention that the item doesn’t spin back because it broke in transit.

The demonstrations are lively and upbeat, interspersed by using anecdotes and eBay success stories by using examples that would incite greed in a hermit, like the absolutely free box at a garage trade which contained a fish lure that sold for 33,000 USD. (On the screen we see a rather silly looking lure, in our hearts we feel money passion.)
eBay University is also offered online, but the live demonstrations are recommended. For most people, the impact of the live demonstrations accompanied by a 20-foot square projection screen and frequent question and answer periods should enhance and ease the teach yourself experience over just reading a downloaded guidance or PC screen.
Overall, eBay University by using its moderate prices constitutes a bargain in today’s ecommerce solutions marketplace, and should prove itself valuable for many, if not most, eBay traders.

In July 2004, Nielsen//NetRatings new MegaView Search service stated that 24.5 percent of searchers on major search engines conducted searches that were local in scope, averaging 4.5 searches per searcher. In November 2004, a Kelsey Group-BizRate.com study stated that more than 75 percent of respondents said they had conducted local searches and confirmed that 21 percent of all searches among respondents were local. Using the Internet to find local businesses is now actual tool and can only grow in frequency.

Some of the businesses that can be helped by local Internet marketing include: chiropractor, computer retailer, travel agent, locksmith, massage therapist, insurance agent, real estate agent, mortgage broker, maid service hardware retailer, plumber, auto repair, physician, dentist, florist, limousine service, accountant, auto dealer, lawyer, restaurant, and movers, among others.
Fortunately, for a local business you do not need a big, complex, and expensive website to be helpful. You are not competing with the best of the best nationally; you just need to submit yourself well to local residents and those within driving distance.
This guidance will explain how to use the internet to market a local or regional business. It’s not, however, created to be a dumped down guide for people who know nothing. I shall assume some understanding of how the Internet works (what a domain name is, etc.) and that you’re willing to teach yourself. There is much guidance that’ll explain the basics, so I would not cover all the basics here, but center on the exact Internet marketing methods that are helpful for local businesses.

Nor will this guidance describe all the traditional off-line ways to market your business. You will need to use many of these to market successfully locally — since the Internet is merely one piece (though a growing piece) of the local marketing puzzle. If you need a wonderful guidance on traditional local marketing I heartily recommend Jay Conrad Levinson’s Guerrilla marketing (third edition, Houghton Mifflin, 1999).
But little guidance approaches the Internet from a local marketing viewpoint. The guidance you are reading is created to be a brief, focused, no-hype how-to-do-it guide to marketing a local business on the Internet. It’s meant to be suggestive rather than comprehensive, since every aspect of the internet is changing — especially local Internet advertising — because expect to use this guidance as a jumping off point for the spots that interest you.
My hope for yourself is that you will teach yourself how to do effective Internet marketing for yourself local business and so increase many of new and returning customers 25 percent or like. How is that for a modest, but realistic target?

As Hanke told, wireless owners and advertisers can unleash a stream of money if they adapt their products development aroung cunsumers mobiles. He also issued the fact that’s ads markets is worth 100 billion dollars.Most of it is going to influence on mobiles phones.

Main requirements:

Front end/Home page

• Customisable welcome content, special offers, news and featured items on home page
  
• Self managed content pages i.e. news, about us, articles, delivery info etc. to form navigation
• Product category navigation which allows sub-categories
• Log-in and shopping cart links
  
• Add to favourites link
  
• Bread-crumb trail so customers can link back to where they came from
  
• Product search by item number, name or keyword
  
• Some kind of animation to catch the eye – definitely animated logo but perhaps a showcase for the boxes?
  
• Gift Finder – simple tool to be devised – possibly organised by age/sex/price
  

Categories Navigation

• Each category can have subcategories shown perhaps as a rollover
  
• Products to crossover into different categories
  

Product pages

• Product personalisation field
  
• Optional second personalisation field (include personalised date or message on certain items too)
  
• Customisable product options in drop down format (or something better) i.e. colour, style, wording, size…
  
• 2 levels of product information (i.e. More info)
  
• Buy now button on level 1 info as well as level 2
  
• Quantity option
  
• thumbnail, larger and zoom-in images
  
• Landscape or even wider format images if required
  
• Ability to show colour alternatives images – best option would be colour swatches with rollovers that change the image???
  
• Ability to show usual price and special offer price
  
• Products can be attributed to numerous categories to allow cross over
  
• Show 3-4 related products unique to each item
  
• Options for wish-list and email a friend
  
• Show the number of pages in the category (i.e. not have to scroll down on each page)
• Show items that are out of stock so users can seek be informed when item is available?
• Ability to turn products ‘on’ and ‘off’
  

Shopping cart

• View Basket and Check out option links available throughout site
  
• Show check out process and whereabouts you are in the trail
  
• Customer registration as standard using Find Address tool
• Basic data capture in Registration i.e. Ages and birthdays of children/relatives to be stored for later use i.e. birthday reminder emails.
• Standard ability to update quantities, clear cart, continue shopping etc..
• Visually seamless integrated payment system using Protx or possibly Worldpay that allows for major credit cards and Switch
• Ability to defer payment to ensure that items are stocked before a transaction goes through
• Various shipping options i.e. 1st class, standard or next day – not actually required at this stage but should be an option
• Option of gift wrapping according to weight at checkout
• Gift sending and message as standard option in checkout
• Shipping according to predefined combined product weight parameters
• Related products during check out process
  
• System emails to customer and store owner relating to order confirmation and failure (see below)
  
• Customer questionnaire at end of transaction process
  
• Promotional codes options  

User experience flow TBC1.     Customer confirms order and completes transaction at checkout section of site and is prompted to fill in simple feedback questionnaire.
2.     Customer automatically receives Order Pending email that confirms items purchased and postage and payment method and let’s customer know that they will be emailed once the item has been dispatched.
3.     Back End sends email to Site Owner confirming payment received and detailing customer info, items purchased, gift options, other comments
4.     Double check payment and that stock is available.
5.     If item unavailable or payment declined contact customer either by phone/email to rectify the matter.
6.     We fulfil order as soon as possible and update status of item to Dispatched on the system.
7.     Customer automatically receives Order Dispatched email confirming that the item has been dispatched and the transaction has been approved.
8.     Customer can view order history in the account section of the web site.
9.     Customer receives quarterly (?) email detailing new products, special offers and asking about feedback

Admin area

• Simple and clear user interface
  
• Different administrator levels
  
• Easy to add, amend and update products, categories and options
  
• Ability to view settings, administrators, customer info, orders, products
  
• View transaction information
  
• Customisable printable invoice/delivery note/labels (to be used as a gift message tool?)
  
• Customer newsletter??
  
• Reporting on site stats and as much as possible on product sales – i.e. monthly best sellers etc.
  

Design

• Animated logo
• Customised animated header for different seasons i.e. Christmas, Easter, Sale season
• Twinkling flower gifs
•  Any other new design elements that might work 
  

1. Limited design templates and customization: depending on how large the template base is, your current or intended ISP might not offer a large enough template selection to ensure, somewhat, that your web site will be unique. Sure you can customize certain aspects of the templates with a banner or icon and most don’t require HTML knowledge, but for all intents and purposes, templates tend not to be designed to be changed (this is why they are templates). Imagine being one among dozens of other like-minded e-commerce entreprenuers who chose the same template. While the Internet might be big enough to obscure your template from your competitors’ own copy, this rationale might undermine the whole basis for having a web site in the first place: greater exposure and uniqueness. If you are selling similar products then what’s to distinguish your site from theirs?
2. Limited e-commerce capacity: Most e-commerce ISP packages try to “wow” potential customers with offers such as complementary Paypal integration. However, not everyone is a Paypal fan or customer (although your customers no longer need to be Paypal members to process payments) and if this is the only option for payment, you might turn away potential customers who are wary about Paypal. Almost since its creation, Paypal has also been plagued by a reputation of being unfriendly with its own Paypal account holders. Without getting into details which might prejudice your consideration of Paypal, consider doing your homework before deciding. Not to be too harsh on Paypal, this service does offer attractive incentives for entrepreneurs who have a tight budget by offering low-cost transaction fees and a free payment gateway that does not require a merchant account.  A safer and cost-effective route is to seek out “pay-for-play” merchant account companies that will charge slightly higher transaction fees and nominal payment gateways in return for processing limited transactions. As your e-commerce business grows and begin to process a higher volume of orders, you can upgrade to higher tiers that charge less expensive fees per transaction. Your money will be deposited into your bank account within 48 hours.
3. More comprehensive ISP’s will offer shopping cart software such as OsCommerce (OsC) that have the potential for being designed uniquely, but unless you are a programmer or you contract a programmer, you might not be able to move away from the typical one-dimensional “OsCommerce look.” OsCommerce is robust, dynamic, and most importantly FREE. However, it lacks dedicated customer support (there is no 800 number to call for help) and most users must rely on blog sites to get technical support from peer OsCommerce users. Most ISP’s that I have seen will offer OsCommerce “as is” but will not provide technical support if you get into a snag. OsCommerce is compatible with major payment gateways which allow site owners increased flexibility in changing payment gateways whenever they want.
4. Bottom line, consider all viable options and do your research before deciding to go with any payment or shopping cart options offered by your ISP.

For those of you who can afford to invest in an e-commerce venture, you might still consider the above observations as a matter of cost-feasibility (affordability) but it might not be cost-effective (worth your money for a slightly higher investment for a longer term benefit). If you can afford to hire a web site designer, then this is the most cost-effective route compared to settling on cookie cutter templates. If you want to stand out and not be afraid of being typical, then going custom is the way to go. Consider web searching for sites that sell similar products. Look at their sites, do they look like professional designs or do they look sophomoric? How many of your potential competitors use cartoonish .gif designs, flashy banners, and visually painful advertisement banners or pop-ups? Would you buy from places like these? I wouldn’t.

Being in control over whom you hire to design a web site to your specifications will definitely boost your chances of standing out among your competitors. If you go with OsCommerce then don’t settle on the standard OsC template either, inject creativity into it and demand this from your web designer. A web designer worth a dime might ask some general questions, be hard to track down, be unresponsive, and maybe do an OK job. A professional web designer worth a dollar will ask pointed questions about what you have in mind, what kind of products or services you intend to sell, what kind of “feeling” you want to convey through your web site (really, I’m not kidding), and what kind of transactions, if any, need to be processed. S/he will be efficient, responsive, trustworthy, and creative. If you build rapport with your professional web designer then this might be the beginning of a long-term professional relationship, thus becoming the technical support you’re your web site needs.

Your web site is a reflection of his/her work, thus s/he has an invested interest in keeping you happy and your site running. Remember that “word of mouth” marketing is the best advertisement for your professional designer. If your designer is proud of his/her work, he/she will want to display it prominently on his/her web site, thus exposing your site to a larger audience as an added bonus. If s/he deserves recognition, reward him/her with positive referrals and reviews whenever you get emails from potential customers who contact you about the web designer.

Not to template is a matter of survival. Stand out, be unique, go with what’s right in your mind and heart, and be proud of what is ultimately created. Make your web site YOUR web site and not your ISP’s.