How Your Ecommerce Website Can Mimic What Makes Amazon Successful

By Derik Mansfield

Amazon

Amazon.com is the largest retail website on the internet. So much so that nobody else even come’s close, having nearly three times as much revenue as second place Staples. Founded just 15 years ago they have a market cap of 52.81 billion, which already surpasses long standing giants like Target (market cap: 37.03B), and many other well known retail chains.

So the question is how did they get where they are today? What are some of the keys to their success, and more importantly how can we incorporate those things into our business? We can make reasonable arguments that it was their large investments in extra warehouses and fulfillment centers that allowed them to handle the busy holiday seasons, and undoubtedly that played a role. But lets take closer look at some of the things they do on their front end that we can emulate.

Here are two key areas that have the greatest impact

1. The first thing that I believe makes them so successful is their review system. They actively encourage people who have purchased from them to leave reviews. These instant testimonials tend to be quite honest, good or bad, and they play a huge part in whether the prospect will make a buying decision. I’m sure most of you like me have decided against buying a product after reading honest reviews of the product. Likewise we’ve probably all bought something after hearing about how great something was from a friend. Seeing positive reviews will put your mind at ease, which helps lower any resistance you might have in making a buying decision. This is a powerful tool that can significantly improve your sales… as long as your selling a quality products of course!

2. The next key to their sales success is the “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” section where they try and to cross sell you. How many people have bought an iPod and then immediately afterwards went ahead and bought the case for it? Or maybe after you decided to buy a car the salesman got you to upgrade for the leather seats, or just after buying a bag of chips you decided to get the dip too. Most sales people will tell you that the easiest sale is the one that happens just after they made the first one. They are striking while the iron is hot. The reason this works is that a person’s actions tend to be consistent their previous action, at least in the short term. So if you get the prospect to make that initial buying decision, they are much more likely to continue to buy from you as long as what you’re trying to cross sell them pairs well with the previous item.

But how do you go about trying to incorporate these selling strategies into your store?

Well you should be able to find a web developer who can build these features into your webstore, or into a Yahoo store. The Shopify platform has a marketplace for apps that fully integrate with the site, such as ExpressRex Recommendation Engine (which mimics the “customers who bought X also bought Y” feature from Amazon), and then there is also the app called Grapevine which allows customers to rate and review products on your website.

Whatever platform you use to sell your product, it’s definitely worth taking a look to find out how you can incorporate these ideas into your store, they are powerful selling tools.

-Derik Mansfield

DropShip – Learn how to start a business using drop shippers.

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When Do You Need a Readymade Ecommerce Solution?

By Mike J Baker

An ecommerce website is a profitable investment for most web savvy businessmen. It is like having a corner of your brick and mortar store in the virtual realm and giving your business an online identity. An ecommerce website facilitates your buyers with a number of tangible benefits.

1. An online storefront eradicates the labor and a major part of overhead cost and subsequently making the products available at reduced price.

2. Purchasing online means reduced human interaction before a product reaches a customer. This eliminates any cost for middleman that might have incurred otherwise.

3. Lesser time in required in preparing invoices

4. Increased option for browsing for alternative products

Needless to mention, the increased benefits of purchasing online have created substantial demand for e-commerce websites and most business owners find it tempting to bank upon the same.

Just as owning an ecommerce website sounds lucrative to most business owners; few can actually afford the idea of owning proprietary software. Not only does it cost more, but it takes a longer time to develop. Scaling up to the expanding range of products again involves more time and requires more money.

In such a case, one of the best options for small and mid-sized firms is to opt for readymade ecommerce website solutions. Open source Magento ecommerce solutions have gained popularity among businesses for its easy to handle features and modules. A readymade e-commerce solution bestows you with a number of benefits. All you need is to select the right framework for your website, choose an open source ecommerce template and hire a web developer to integrate the two.

The benefits of an open source ecommerce platform are

1. Saving Time

A free ecommerce solution makes your website equipped with a ready-to-use shopping cart and decorates your storefront in a matter of seconds. You have a readymade shopping cart in your trousseau where you can make your product available to your customers 24/7.

2. Flexible to needs

The free ecommerce solutions are designed to cater to various website models and structures. Whether you want to showcase a single product business or want to display your multiple products, the ecommerce solution is tailor made to cater to your diversified needs. You can enhance your product gallery by introducing freely available codes, components, add-ons and plug-ins as well.

3. Quick Customization

An ecommerce solution provides you ample opportunities to play with colors. You can experiment with different skins and templates and change the look and feel of your site whenever you wish to without having to wait for a designer make custom themes for you.

An ecommerce website is no longer a fancy; rather it is an imperative need to business owners so as to proclaim their business identity online. And an ecommerce solutions equips you with necessary framework to hardcode your idea into reality.

Mike Baker is a freelance writer and has long been associated with http://www.Needecommerce.com. He is likes to research and write about customized ecommerce templates, affordable magento templates and different ecommerce solutions etc.

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E-Commerce Services – Introduction, Trend and Impact

By Vijaya S

Electronic commerce is said as E-Commerce as it is the platform for doing business over the communication channel i.e. selling and buying movable and unmovable assets through electronic media, Internet is playing a great role in assisting and easy transactions for the e commerce activities. The latest communication gadgets like the cell phone also allows the users to access internet and transact online in terms of buying, selling, paying utility bills etc.Latest market study shows that that the use of E-Commerce services is growing day by day, since the internet users are increasing in mammoth numbers in the developing countries like India, China, Indonesia, Brazil etc.

The main aim of these services is to have hassle free business transaction with out the interaction of human, and this is getting promotion by the animation and graphics. By using better graphics the seller can display the product so well that, it is very easy to select and place order for the potential buyers. The biggest advantage of the online business is that a buyer need not interact in person with the seller and vice versa. Thus saving the precious time and physical infrastructure cost of the stakeholders.

Latest Trends:-

Search engines like Google have entered in the E-commerce by induction of new search solution for E-commerce. Definitely it can give great comfort to the potential buyers to search for online retailer of shopper as per their need and choice and will result in the better shopping experience. Search engines are also supporting e commerce services in terms of Search engine optimization services by which an online shopper can increase the ranking of their respective web site in the search listings.

Presence of e-shopping directories is also making ease for the users to take easy reference of the online vendors or stores as per the specific choice of the users. All the major bank and payment gateways are supporting the e commerce transactions are of great help of concerned parties of business. Almost every banking and financial services institution is giving facility to its customers of online transactions and payments etc. Almost every food chain, Multiplex tickets, Railway tickets, Airline tickets are available via e commerce. This shows that the e commerce sector is on the growth oriented track.

Impact:-

By the growth of Internet and e-commerce the comfort of human life has become more luxurious. In fact in developed countries Internet is free and this resulted more and more use of internet and resulted in the exponential growth of e commerce services. Betterment in logistics and supply chain management has also a great contribution towards the growth and potential of these services.

Everything is having its own pros and cons, the cons of e commerce growth can be viewed in terms of growing number of online frauds, credit card authentication norms theft, banking password theft etc. A better approach in dealing with this cyber crime can overcome the problem. All the online stores must be brought under one regulatory umbrella and identification process of fraud web sites can yield in better results in terms of higher security to the transaction pages and will make the e commerce services more secure and relaxed.

E-Commerce Services & SEO Services

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