Ecommerce Expertise

5 Manufacturing Priorities and How Web Innovation Can Help

lori@brillianceweb.com — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 19:52:38 GMT

Manufacturers need to use the web to compete effectively in today’s economy. Websites aren’t just for consumer (B2C) sales anymore. Web technology has an important place in small and medium sized manufacturing companies.

Web technology can play an important role in these five common manufacturing priorities

Do more with existing customer service team
Everyone is trying to do more with less. As your manufacturing company grows, how can you take more orders with your existing team? Innovative manufacturers are using online ordering to allow their customer service team to focus on higher value added activities and give their customers tools they appreciate.
Speed up turnaround time
We have helped customers go from 72 hours from an order placed to shipped to 24 hours through eCommerce that is integrated with their ERP software.
Reduce shipping errors
By integrating your website with your back office software, you eliminate costly errors caused when customers fax in their orders and have hard to read handwriting or when a customer service rep makes a typo when entering the order.
Expand globally
Businesses need to compete globally, and the web can be an important part of that transition. Last year Brilliance Business Solutions built a Spanish version of the Alto-Shaam website, allowing their marketing team to maintain the site in both languages in the DotNetNuke 6 Professional Content Management System.
Improve customer communication
Allow customers to access important files, their specific pricing, reports on shipments and more through a web portal with information that makes their lives easier and reduces their calls to your customer service desk.

Check out our recent YouTube video posting showing how a manufacturer can use the web to allow customers to view important reports, allow customers to order at their specific pricing and more.

<\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/div>";" alt="">

See a quick demo on how manufacturers can use a web portal to share reports, allow online ordering at specific customer pricing, share files, and more!

More ...

E-commerce E-mail Marketing: Increase Your Returns

lori@brillianceweb.com — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:21:38 GMT

On average, Business-to-Business (B2B) marketers plan to allocate approximately 12% of their budget on e-mail marketing, according to MarketingSherpa. Our experience shows us that e-mail is a powerful way to increase your customer lifetime value and maximize the return on investment of your overall marketing programs. However, we often see that most B2B companies are not using e-mail marketing and if they are using it, they are not using it in a way that delivers consistent results.

Why Do Most E-mail Marketing Efforts Fail to Produce Results?

There are three key reasons e-mail marketing campaigns fail to produce results.

Lack of Marketing Strategy
Many companies are unsure what to say or how to best use their e-mail newsletter list. They may know what products they want to promote, or what events they want to build off of, but don’t have the internal resources to build that into a marketing strategy.
Lack of Integration
In many cases, companies are signing customers up on an e-mail list but failing to integrate that list into an e-mail management service. Customers may check a box that says “I am interested in receiving e-mails.” but a manual process is required to export these customers and then import them into the e-mail management service. These additional steps cause the e-mail list to be out of sync and cause a delay in customers receiving e-mails. You lose the opportunity to respond to customers at the moment they indicate their interest.
Lack of Time
Our clients are small and medium sized manufacturing firms who are strategic about using web technology and e-commerce to grow their business and increase their efficiency. In these environments they rarely have someone who can spend 8-16 hours a month strategizing, crafting, sending one or two email campaigns. As a result, they either don’t get sent – or an e-mail gets sent once and not again for 3 months. To see results and develop interest in your e-mail newsletter, you need to provide consistent value through your e-mails.

To help solve these problems, we have partnered with KW Advertising to offer our EcommerceElert service.

Providing Marketing Strategy

As a full-service advertising agency, KW provides the brand strategies and marketing ideas to make your e-mail marketing program a success.

Integrating E-commerce and E-mail Management

At Brilliance Business Solutions, we will integrate your e-commerce software or website with high-quality managed e-mail services ensuring that customers that place orders on your site and express interest in receiving e-mails,immediately receive an e-mail welcome message. In addition, Brilliance eliminates common time wasters like exporting customers from e-commerce software to import them into your e-mail management tool.

Saving You Time

Pulling it all together, KW Advertising manages and executes the ongoing campaigns, allowing you to minimize your time investment. A few phone calls with KW Advertising is all that is needed on a monthly basis to keep this program going strong.

If our EcommerceElert program sounds interesting to you, contact us today to learn more!

More ...

5 Tips for Running a Successful Ecommerce Business

lori@brillianceweb.com — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 19:35:00 GMT

Running a successful ecommerce business is hard work, and one of the hardest tasks of all is choosing which things to do first.

So many of the most important tasks are also the most time consuming: clarifying your businesses niche, understanding your target customer, building a community with email and social media, and developing a great customer service team. For starters, it’s far more productive to begin by picking the low hanging fruit. Here are five straightforward things you can do to make a big immediate impact, while also laying down a foundation to build on.

1. Add Great Product Photography

Customers want to know as much as possible about the product they are buying. cxPartners, a UK firm specializing in usability testing, carried out eye-tracking studies that showed product images were the first thing a customer looks for on an ecommerce page. Say two different stores sell the same product -- one with multiple, attractive images and the other with a single snapshot. Which do you think the customer will buy from? This simple step is often overlooked, and easily addressed by following a few simple guidelines:

Take multiple photos of the same product from different angles.
Collect images that are at least 500 pixels wide by 500 pixels tall at a minimum of 300 dpi / ppi.
Be biased toward square images (pictures as wide as they are tall.) This will help make all your site’s photos a consistent size and shape. Add an object of known size (a penny, for example) to a photo of a product. By providing a sense of scale, buyers will instantly know the actual size of the product.
Consider using a white background. This minimizes distractions and provides a clean look.
Use lighting tools specifically designed for product photography.
Add extra shopping aids to your photo selection. Include a zoom button, color swatches and an easy interface for browsing of product photos

See examples on GetElastics “How Top Retailers Show Product Images”

2. Create Multiple Methods of Product Navigation

As Jakob Nielsen says in Usability 101, “The first law of e-commerce is that if users cannot find the product, they cannot buy it.” Your job is to make things as easy as possible to find, in a way that is equally easy for focused shoppers and casual browsers to use.

Here are some practical steps to begin with:

Place your product in every category to which it could possibly apply. For example, a thumb drive is a storage device. It’s also a computer peripheral.
Allow customers to quickly refine search results by different product attributes – color, size, price range, brand, etc.
Allow customers to fine tune their search by selecting a specific category
Display a set of related products on each product page
Enable customers to see “Customers Who Purchased This Also Purchased"

3. Quick and Easy Checkout

In 2010, Forrester Research and Shop.org found that 55% of customers that put products in their shopping cart never complete the purchase. This is known as shopping cart abandonment and it’s a major frustration for whom? Write it out. The best first step toward minimizing cart abandonment is to make the checkout process and quick and easy as possible.

Remove any questions that are not completely necessary.
Provide inline validation for users when filling out the forms. If a field is required or invalid information was entered, give the user feedback before they press submit. The sooner you can alert them to a problem, the easier it is to fix…and the less frustration for the customer.
Allow customers to fill their shopping cart without registering, requiring them to create an account only after you’ve given them a positive shopping experience
Reduce the number of steps in the checkout process. Many online stores are moving to a one-page checkout to make the process clear and simple. Even if you have a multi-step process, keeping it is as simple as possible will go a long way towards improving conversion rates.

4. Secure Site Assurance

According to a PayPal study, 21% of customers have abandoned a shopping cart due to concerns about site security. One simple step: use a service like McAfee SECURE or buySAFE to display a secure badge and reassure customers that your site is safe. One more line about the importance of the customer feeling safe.

5. Be Clear From the Start

One of the top reasons customers abandon their shopping carts is that the “total cost of the purchase is more than was expected.” Many ecommerce sites make it difficult for customers to get the true cost… including taxes and shipping and handling …until they are deep within your checkout process. Instead, provide this information as soon as possible. While you run the risk of causing sticker shock, the trust you build is worth the risk.

Plus: A Bonus Step

Once you have finished the five basics above, you are well on your way to tackling the more daunting (and expensive) tasks of branding, marketing and customer service. Before you start scaling these mountains, you may want to lay some important groundwork by automating your website’s order entry into your accounting and order fulfillment software. It isn’t necessarily inexpensive or simple to do so, (especially if you don’t currently have an accounting or order processing software package) but it introduces efficiencies that are far easier to implement at the beginning stages than they are further down the line. Someday, when your successful brand identity, savvy marketing and loyalty-inducing customer service brings the orders pouring in, you’ll be glad you have the accounting, inventory and shipping wherewithal to make the most of it.

More ...

Mobile Commerce (mCommerce): 6 Design Strategies for the Transition

lori@brillianceweb.com — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 04:11:00 GMT

Not long ago, online marketers wondered whether mobile phones might someday become the preferred platform for ecommerce. Today the question isn't if but when, and the answer is coming sooner than you think.

According to Gartner Research, mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common Web access device worldwide by 2013. According to Forrester Research, 40% of the interactive marketing professions they surveyed are using some form of mobile marketing with an additional 35% planning to target mobile users within the next year.

All this urgency begs a question in most emarketers: how can I be ready when the transition takes place in earnest? I believe that the best way is to seek revolution rather than transition. The new world of mobile ecommerce demands a clean slate. The parameters of a mobile ecommerce (mCommerce) site are different enough that it's best to start fresh with a new user interface designed specifically for mobile visitors. It's good to use your regular ecommerce site as a source of inspiration and continuity in visual style, but if you want to succeed it's best to start fresh.

After you've accomplished the first step and established a clean slate, the next order of business is adding the attributes that make the most of mobile marketing's strengths. Here are a few guidelines to get you started:

Plan a Simple Design.
In my experience, the best way to achieve design simplicity is to start with a wireframe. It is the first step of every web design our firm undertakes, and it's even more important when screen size is limited. It is crucial to have the information customers want most in the position they can find it most easily. I recommend using wireframe software tools like MockFlow or Balsamiq, though it is also possible to sketch your wireframes by hand.
Design to the Correct Resolution.
There is nothing more frustrating to a mobile user than endlessly scrolling, or than missing critical information because the screen was too busy or small to locate it. Eliminate surprises by creating your wireframe using the screen resolution of your targeted mobile devices. The most common screen resolution for new mobile devices is 320x480 . You can see a list of different screen resolutions in this UXBooth article.
Let Users Choose Your Standard Site.
Visitors with a high resolution, large-screened device may prefer to access your standard website rather than the mobile version. Make sure they have a clickable pathway to the standard site that's easy to find.
Use Mobile Commerce Plug-ins for your Shopping Cart
Many of the top ecommerce software platforms offer add-on products to make the creation of a mobile store much simpler. Some mobile add-ons include AspDotNetStorefront Mobile Commerce and Magento Mobile Commerce . These tools draw on the same content and store you now use to serve desktop customers, repurposing and reformatting it to suit mobile devices.
Develop Using XHTML MP, and Validate Your Markup.
Past mobile development was performed with Wireless Markup Language (WML). WML had a range of "issues," requiring different development tools than those used for standard sites. XHTML MP allows you to use the same development tools for desktop and mobile applications. As a bonus, your mobile site will be visible to ordinary internet browsers throughout the development process. XHTML MP is a subset of XHTML. Learn more information about the advantages of XHTML MP and test your XHTML MP skills.
Test Your Design
Testing a mobile site is critical, especially with so many devices using such a wide variety of software. Luckily there are several online tools available to make the testing process easier for you. Try DeviceAnywhere, PerfectoMobile and device emulators.

Check out these related articles that include examples of good mobile design:

More ...

Accepting Credit Cards Online

lori@brillianceweb.com — Thu, 19 May 2011 20:02:00 GMT

Online credit card transactions can be a fabulous way of providing a 24/7 storefront -- both making it easier for your customers to purchase from you, as well as reducing your work for each purchase. Online credit card transactions can even be of benefit to non-retail businesses and organizations. You can allow clients to pay invoices online or members of your organization to register for events or make donations online.

There are four key things you need to know about accepting credit cards online.

Basics of Accepting Credit Cards

Merchant Account
This is an account that allows merchants to process credit cards. In order to accept credit card transactions online, you need to have a merchant account that is authorized to use Card Not Present transactions or Mail Order/Telephone Order (MOTO) transactions. Your web developer should be able to assist you in setting up a proper merchant account if you do not already have one. Many times if you have a merchant account for offline transactions already set up you can work with that provider to prepare your account for Card Not Present transactions.
Internet Gateway
This encrypts your customer's transactions from your website, submits them for authorization and settlement to your merchant account and holds the numbers securely.
Shopping Cart
This is software on your site that allows customers to put your products in a "cart" as they prepare to purchase it. Visitors can change the quantity of items they want to order, and when they are ready they can check out.
Secure Server
A secure server encrypts and decrypts data sent to and from the server to prevent a hacker from getting the credit card numbers. In order to do this, your website host or designer will need to set up your server to handle the secure transactions. You will also need to get an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate. This is a certificate that verifies that you are who you say you are – so that people can trust that when they give you their credit card number you will not abuse it.
You can see an example of a site that is secure and has a certificate at: https://www.designhousestockholmusa.com/ When you look at this page you will see a lock on your browser. If you double click on the lock you should be able to read info about the certificate. The server uses the secure mode when you enter https:// . Your web developer should only use this for pages that require it because it causes the browsing to be slower. For example, you can go to http://www.designhousestockholmusa.com/ (the only difference is that the "s" in the "https://" is missing) and it is the same site, but it is not in secure mode (it will load faster this way).

Costs of Accepting Credit Cards

Now that you understand the basic elements of online credit card transactions, how much will it cost you to set this up?

Merchant Account
There are many different costs associated with a merchant account. Usually there is an initial application / setup fee, which can range from $0 - $500, although sometimes this is waived. Your monthly costs are dependent upon the following fees: customer service fee, discount rate, and transaction fee. A discount rate is the percentage of bank card sale amounts that you are charged for the transaction. A transaction fee is a set amount that you are charged for each transaction in addition to the discount rate. Often times there is a minimum monthly transaction fee that you will need to pay, even if you didn't have any credit card transactions that month. The monthly minimum transaction fee can range from $15 - $30 a month (calculated by your total discount rate plus transaction fees).
Internet Gateway
Gateways can range in price from $20 - $60 per month, depending upon the services provided by the gateway. In addition, gateways may have setup costs and you may need to pay your web developer to set up your server to work with your gateway. Some common internet gateways include Authorize.Net and PayPal’s PayFlow Pro.
Shopping Cart
Your web developer will work with you to determine a shopping cart that best meets your needs. Many high quality shopping carts have licensing costs that range from $500 - $3,000. In addition, your web developer will have service costs to set up the software for your website, design the look and feel to match your corporate brand, and complete various configuration steps including loading your products, configuration shipping options, configuring payment methods, setting up your SSL certificate, and training you on how to use the website. There may be customizations that would enable your shopping cart to work more effectively for your business and your customers. You may also want to consider how to integrate your shopping cart into other software systems that you use – like QuickBooks or your back office / ERP software. There are many possibilities, but you will need to talk to your web developer regarding the costs.
Secure Server
You will pay a yearly fee for your SSL certificate from an SSL Certificate Authority such as Thawte or Verisign. In addition, you will typically pay for labor or hosting charges to setup this SSL certificate on your website.

I believe the above method describes the best way to implement online credit card transactions, providing a professional look and easy ordering. As with many things there are less expensive ways to accept credit cards, but they can cause confusion or cause a loss of credibility with customers.

If you are interested in setting up an online store or have questions or comments – feel free to contact me at lori(at)brillianceweb.com or at 414-425-4069.

More ...

Shipping for Web Stores

lori@brillianceweb.com — Thu, 12 May 2011 19:42:00 GMT

Determining your shipping strategy for your web store can be difficult, to say the least. Your objectives to not lose money on shipping, to be fair to your customer, to easily administrate your web store, and to provide a shipping strategy that is easy to understand for you and your customer make this a hard job for anyone. Today, we will look at how online companies are dealing with this shipping dilemma, and what research has to say about the best practices for shipping.

Common Shipping Pricing Strategies

Three of the most common methods for assessing shipping charges are (1) by order size, (2) by order amount, and (3) by order weight.

By Order Size
Pricing your shipping by order size has the advantage of being simple for you to setup and simple for your customer to understand. However, you run the risk of either overcharging your customer, or losing money on your shipping.

For example, if you set your shipping rates at $5.00 per shipment and an additional $1.49 per item, you may lose money if you are shipping physically heavy items that your shipping vendor charges you more to ship. However, someone that purchases a small item from you, may be overcharged because it only actually cost you $3.49 to ship it.

Back in 2003, when we did some preliminary research on e-commerce shipping, Amazon.com was charging shipping by order size with a price of $3.00 per shipment and $0.99 per item for books to be shipped domestically. Today Amazon’s shipping rates are still structured similarly with a per shipment and per item fee – although now they also offer free shipping for orders over $25 and Amazon Prime – which offers free shipping for a yearly fee.
By Order Amount
Pricing your shipping by order amount again has the advantage of being simple for you to setup and easy for your customer to understand. Again you run the risk of overcharging your customer, or losing money for your shipping.

In this case you are presuming that orders that cost a certain amount will have a similar shipping rate. For example, you might charge $6.00 to ship all orders totaling $0 - $19.99, $12.00 to ship all orders totaling $20.00 - $49.99 and, and $18.00 to ship all orders totaling $49.99 - $99.99. However, if you have a physically small item that costs $84.99, you will likely be overcharging for the shipping. And vice-versa, if you have a physically large item that only costs $19.99, you may be losing money on the shipping.

Williams-Sonoma.com bases their shipping price on the total amount of the order. They display a chart of their shipping fees corresponding to different order amounts on their site. It is interesting to note that they also offer free shipping for a year for a yearly fee of $30.
By Order Weight
Since shipping services (USPS, UPS, FedEx) charge you for shipping a product by weight, it can make sense to charge your customers based on those weight-based prices. This has the advantage of being fair to your customer, and it eliminates the risk of you losing money on your shipping. However, the disadvantage is that this is more difficult for you to administrate for your store. You will need to know (or measure) the weight of each of your products, and figure in any products that might have additional charges due to their nonstandard size.

Research shows that customers actually prefer to be assessed shipping charges according to the product's weight. Weight-based shipping is seen as more truthful and less likely to be inflated.

Sears.com currently prices their shipping according to weight. Sears also runs promotions that offer free shipping to customers with a discount code.

What We Can Learn From Consumers

Because this is a difficult issue for all online merchants, there is some good research available that we can learn from.

Be clear and upfront about your shipping pricing.
It is important to develop trust with your customer. Consumers are aware of the actual cost of shipping items and they will take their business elsewhere to make their purchase if they feel that you are overcharging for shipping.
Consider using shipping discounts or promotions.
A recent comScore report showed that 41% of all online retail transactions involved free shipping. However, proceed with caution before offering free shipping to your customers. Research has shown that the prevalence of free shipping offers in the past has caused consumers to expect them and that retailers are having difficulty offering this and making profits.

If you consider offering free shipping, you can create a minimum order threshold (Orders over $XX amount receive free shipping.) and make this minimum order threshold at a point that will keep you from losing money.

It is also a good idea to provide a constant reminder that if the customer purchases a few more items, they will receive free shipping. This can be a great incentive. At Drugstore.com they currently offer free shipping on orders over $25. In the shopping cart (on every page of the site) they have a message that "You are $XX.00 away from Free Standard Shipping!" It is interesting to note that back in 2003, we found in research we were doing at that time that Drugstore.com offered free shipping on orders over $49. Customers desire for free shipping had increased over time and retailers have responded.

Typically free shipping offers are limited to a specific level of service – like UPS Ground.

If you don't want to offer free shipping, consider offering a shipping promotion that offers a certain dollar amount off of their shipping price (i.e. $5.00 off shipping for orders of $50 or more).

In the end, there are no easy answers for how to setup your shipping price structure on your site. You will need to evaluate your product offerings, your business and your consumers to determine the right method for you.

Feel free to contact me at lori(at)brillianceweb.com or 414-425-4069 with any questions or ideas about how this can be put to use for your business.

More ...

How to Achieve a Better Website ROI

lori@brillianceweb.com — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 02:31:00 GMT

Would you be surprised to know that most business owners don’t know how to measure the return on investment (ROI) they get from their website? Discover the five steps you can use to calculate and improve your website ROI.

How to Get 10,000 Products on Your E-commerce Site

lori@brillianceweb.com — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 02:31:00 GMT

One common dilemma that we have seen companies struggle with is how to get a large number of products setup on their e-commerce site. For companies who are just starting an online store, this endeavor can set back the entire project by months. In the interest of helping businesses get their e-commerce site launched and having online sales coming in sooner, I offer these suggestions for getting products listed quickly on your e-commerce site.

ECommerce Content Tip #3: Use Product Reviews Effectively

lori@brillianceweb.com — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 18:16:00 GMT

Product reviews can assist an ecommerce site in building credibility, increasing customer confidence, and providing valuable information for the development of product descriptions.

ECommerce Content Tip #2: Use Your Statistics

lori@brillianceweb.com — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:13:00 GMT

In addition to tracking KPIs for evaluating your website, you should also be using your statistics to decide on what future content to develop.