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SWeCS NEWSLETTER - 4 April 2005
In this issue...
- The Top 5 Reasons People Won't Buy From You
- This Fortnight's Question
- Catch The Misspellings
- Competitions
- Resources For Small Business
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TOP 5 REASONS PEOPLE WON'T BUY FROM YOU
Do you sell products online via your website? If you're like
most businesses, you'll have a large percentage of people who "drop
out" at the checkout, and don't proceed with the sale. We've
put together 5 of the most common reasons for this.
- Contact details are too difficult to find
Customers are always keen to know who they are dealing with, so
you need to have your contact details prominently displayed on
your site. Even if you want people to deal with you via the shopping
cart, you should still display a phone number and address so that
they know where you are. If they have a question, and can't find
your contact details easily, you can lose them.
- Asking too much information at the checkout
Mother's maiden name, favourite colour, would you recommend us
to friends - most people prefer quick, clean checkout processes.
Think about it: you don't like standing in line at the supermarket
checkout, and you want an online checkout to the be the same.
Just grab the important information and be done with it, or you
may lose them. If you really want to get other information from
your customer, consider contacting them again after the sale to
get it.
- Looking dodgy
This means having a professional looking site so that customers
are convinced they are going to get what they're paying for. If
you're offering payment via credit card, make sure it's a secure
server. Make sure there are no error messages or broken links.
Offer clear money back guarantees. In general, make it a crisp,
clean, and professional experience. Remember that if they can't
talk to you while ordering, your website is your only statement
to your customer about who you are and your reliability.
- Excessive shipping or other costs
Ever found that bargain on the net for $9.95 and then at the checkout
found that shipping costs are $12.50? To avoid this shock, either
display your shipping costs at the very beginning of the process,
or combine them with your item prices (and thereby offer "free
shipping"), or at least get your shipping down as low as
possible. That also goes for any kind of processing or handling
fees.
- Too difficult to use
Your customer needs to be able to pick what they want and pay
for it with a minimum of fuss and a minimum of mouse clicks. They
should be able to complete their sale without having to go searching
too far, and everything should be laid out and explained clearly.
A good way of testing this is to get a friend to make a purchase
on your site, and provide some honest feedback on how easy or
hard it was.
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THIS FORTNIGHT'S QUESTION
This fortnight's question comes from Colin:
"How can firms like yours that provide help with search
engine ranking, assist more than one company to rank higher on the
search engines. Isn't that some kind of conflict?"
Only when you're targetting the same keywords. In fact, when you're
placing paid advertisements on the Internet, the search engines
won't even allow us to place ads for different companies.
We have our own conflict of interest policy that states we won't
assist 2 different businesses target the same keywords in the same
market (unless both businesses agree). This means that once you've
signed up with us for search engine advertising, you know that we
will not be assisting any of your competitors with search engine
marketing.
Some search engine marketing companies don't have a conflict policy,
so you should check with them what they believe about conflict of
interest.
Assisting different businesses is OK though. There is no conflict
in us helping a business sell flowers on the Internet, and another
one sell accommodation. They are in totally different markets.
Got a question? Send it to us at admin@southwestecommerce.com
and we'll do our best to answer it, as well as publish one every
fortnight for everyone to see.
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CATCH THE MIS-SPELLINGS
Do customers sometimes mis-spell your company name? Then they probably
do on the Internet too.
People trying to find your website may incorrectly type in your
name, or may type in .com instead of .com.au (or vice versa) and
so on.
One way to get around this is to purchase common mis-spellings
of your domain name and have them forwarded to your main site. For
example, if your site was www.bobstyres.com.au, you may also want
to purchase www.bobstyres.com, or perhaps even www.bobstires.com.au.
There's no limit on the number of domain names you can purchase.
And at $22 per year for .com domains, and $88 per 2 years for .com.au
domains, it's a cheap way of catching those people who might not
otherwise find you on the Internet.
If you want to have a look at what domain name variations are available
to you, visit http://domains.southwestecommerce.net.
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COMPETITIONS
This one is a little off topic, but there are a number of free competitions
this month on websites that we are affiliated with. We thought we
would list them here. Simply click on the links to visit them:
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RESOURCES FOR SMALL BUSINESS
Ecommerce Library
Browse through the SWeCS Ecommerce Library,
full of FREE information about getting more out
of the Internet. Sections include Web Site
Development, Web Site Promotion & Internet
Marketing, Online Commerce, Computer &
Technical Issues, and Miscellaneous.
Newsletter Archives
The SWeCS Newsletter archives provides a
wealth of FREE information on small business and
the Internet. Browse through the main topics or
search for your particular query.
SWeCS Affiliate Program
Start up another income stream, by earning
commissions for each referral who signs up for
one of our services.
Affiliate Directory
Browse through a list of reviewed Affiliate
programs. Let us do the work of testing it out
for you!
Do you know of a resource that should be added
here? Email us and let us know. There is only one
condition - it must be free.
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OTHER EMAIL NEWSLETTERS
Here's some other email newsletters you might
like:
www.southwestlife.com.au
www.dunsboroughbayvillageresort.com/news/newsindex.htm
www.west-oz.com/newsletter/newsletter.asp
http://derekstockley.com/newsletters/news-index.html
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