What does an eCommerce site need?

Here is an interesting post, I list it in full with a link back to the site it came from...

Wozcreative 

The problem with e-commerce websites is they generally take a lot more work than a stand alone brochure website, which means the budget needs to be there. Most small businesses will not invest 10+K on a website designer so they usually try to go with the cheapest possible solutions available.

Sometimes they will buy a template and get a developer to design it based on what the client thinks looks good, which is why you see so many bad e-commerce websites. The site then generally looks like a botched up template, and it shouldnt look like a template at all.

In an ideal world you need to hire one person who is great at design & development, but these people are usually very pricey, and it's difficult to find. Some clients may choose to get a designer to design the website and then have a developer put it together, however.. the developer is often color, spacially and font-blind. So the key here is to have the designer manage the developer's progress and follow through with any corrections that need to be made. The designer needs to be involved at every step of the way. Clients often fail to do this as well because it also costs more.

A worse scenario is when a client finishes a website that a developer botched up aesthetically, or even in the programming because they didn't choose the right developer or have the right amount of cash to put into the site.. and the client then decides to hire a designer to "fix it up". I see huge issues here. How do you tell a client, that their new online business is built with old technology, isn't mobile ready, design is broken, and everything is a complete mess? I recently had a client who knows nothing about the internet and marketing, decided to have a website built really cheaply using a template the developer had. He then asked me how he can market it. When I saw it.. my heart sank for the poor guy. He had wasted 6 months on a half assed website with a lot of technical issues. There was many design flaws, the branding was all off and wouldn't work on smaller scales, too many elements and too many colors. Not to mention the font on the logo wasn't legible at all. The other issue is that the website was NOT AT ALL put together to work on mobile! His concept would have mainly worked on mobile... but because he hired someone on the cheap.. the developer wasn't going to waste time educating the client what is best to do, what hes missing, they just want the money quick and run. How do you tell a guy he just wasted time, money, resources etc on something so garbage?

In any case.. what makes a good design... that is all subjective but I will put a list:

• Branding is #1. Have all the elements, fonts, colors, any design flairs, even the style of messaging/tone—down BEFORE anything else.

• Be consistent with navigation.. top navigation is standard now.

• Footers need to have a lot more information to make it easier

• Website NEEDS to be mobile friendly!

• Typography... typography... typography! A bad design is clear when proper typographic rules haven't been followed

• Pick 2 - 3 colors and stick to them!

• Photography — Don't use boxed photos.. those are hideous! Spend the money to properly photoshop each product

• Don't use photoshop effects that date back to early 2000's (a good designer would know which ones to use and which ones not to.)

• Buttons need to be consistent, important ones can be larger than the not so important ones.

• The products in a shopping cart need to be big and clear. I want to know all the details of this product being sold.

• Searches.. proper hierarchy of products

• I also personally don't like black text on sites (personal preference).. black text makes things look too stark and unfinished

• 16pt font! Don't make me squint.

• Use visual hierarchy on every page. What's the most important thing? Don't let my eye fly around the screen.

And there is a ton more.. but I think that is enough for now.

http://www.small-business-forum.net/ecommerce/7325-what-things-good-e-commerce-site-needs.html

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eBay is going the way of the dinosaur?

Is Ebay adapting to the marketplace and the new eCommerce threat?

I like the idea of eBay going out of business. I've tried three times to sell something on eBay, unsuccessfully. Yet each time, I had to pay eBay, and the listing expired.

NOT SO WITH ECOMMERCE!

You don't pay eBay anything, your site stays up for as long as you want it too, and you can as long as you need to sell an expensive item! What's not to love about eCommerce?

Community Commerce Sites Are the New eBay

By Ina Steiner EcommerceBytes.com October 07, 2012 Thanks Ina, I'm glad others are beginning to see the light.

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San Diego eCommerce meeting

eCommerce in San Diego

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anaZana sell more online. Have a glass of wine, and start sales online. Get a Nordstrom quality eCommerce website at a target price. Sunday, October 7, 2012 7:00pm - 9:00pm. Come to the free workshop in San Deigo Down Town! Start e-commerce in minutes at the Co-merge business center, 330 A Street, San Diego, CA, 92101 Provided by anaZana co-owners: Lidija Skolnija & Mick Malkemus Contact: 619-729-8386 e-mail: lidija@anazana.com www.anaZana.com

Don't complain about a lack of online sales. Do something about it!

Lack of online sales?

Take responsibility for this, just as you would any other portion of your life. There is no magic bullet to making online sales with eCommerce, any more than there is one for sales on Main Street. A proactive stance is necessary to grow sales online.

Take a look at your content, your meta tags and keywords. Make sure they all work together. If you don't know what meta tags or keywords are, you'd better find out. 

Make sure your content has enough keywords sprinkled throughout, but not too many. Too few or too many are a cue to Google to rank your site lower in the search results. 

Make two pages saying almost the same thing, but with iterative changes. Find out which one brings in more views, and delete the other one. Start the process again. Keep improving over time until you are happy with the results. No one can do this for you, unless you have a large budget to work with. Even then, I doubt they will do as good a job as you can yourself, with a little initiative. 

Competition for customers exists everywhere, even on the Net. Especially on the Net. Compete wisely. Do the work, and get the sales. There is a lot to know, and effective information changes all the time. Keep up to date with new developments, and stay ahead of the curve.

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New landing page and payment options online

Check out our new landing page and payment options online

Still too early for me to blog about our new affiliate system, and I know many of you are waiting to hear about. Will update as soon as I get the okay from the team!

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Our anaZana office in downtown San Diego

Come by and visit sometime...

anaZana, Inc.

330 A Street

San Diego, CA

92101

619-729-8386

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Monthly anaZana event in San Diego

Our monthly FREE meeting to learn anaZana is held at 330 A Street, San Diego, CA, 92101 on the 7th of each month at 7pm. 

RSVP is recommended. 

Be sure to bring your laptop, this is a hands-on learning experience.

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We help you to sell more online

anaZana User Benefits:

By offering a suite of e-commerce tools and a network anaZana solves a major small business problem: orchestrating different providers for e-commerce website design, hosting, e -mails, and business networks. With anaZana users have control of all processes from their computer so they can focus on increasing online sales. Sellers, buyers, providers, and suppliers inside the anaZana system are also connected so they can discover and utilize many uses of online cooperation. 

anaZana’ s "e-commerce solution" delivers the following user benefits:

All-in-one:

Website, e -commerce, hosting, e -mails, domains, databases, analytics, and more. Save time:design an e-commerce website using an anaZana template or hire an anaZana webmaster for it. Either way it is convenient, fast and cost effective.

Customized:

Order a fully customized e-commerce solution from anaZana.
Save money:services are scaled from free to pricing matched to your business needs. Since we customize, you can upgrade if you want, how you want and when you want.

Support:

Help is available 24/7 from anaZana Support Service or more by networking with experienced anaZana users.

Sell:

Accelerate your sales by marketing goods and services internationally in any language with 
the anaZana Marketplace Shop and the anaZana.com e-commerce network.

OUR TECHNOLOGY ALLOWS YOU TO LOWER YOUR COST 

FOR AN E-COMMERCE SOLUTION FROM $29 OR MORE... DOWN TO ONLY $7 MONTHLY.

anaZana helps small business owners to quickly build and run exciting, 
intuitive and cost effective e-commerce solutions. anaZana also provides 
clients the opportunity to network, commercially or socially , with other 
anaZana users.

Begin using anaZana's e -commerce tools and network today!
Sign up at www.anazana.com

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Zimbabwe and eCommerce

Zimbabwe is more than ready for e-commerce and online shopping

Within five years, I foresee all of Africa being ready for eCommerce. 

This will be a great boon to local merchants and farmers.

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How to increase sales online?

Here's a link to an interesting article

If you own an e commerce website, one of your primary concerns is always going to be how to increase sales. Though the amount of traffic that you can direct to your site is obviously going to play a major role, how your e commerce site is actually designed is equally important.

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SEO is your responsibility

Why SEO matters

Search Engine Optimization is critical for eCommerce sites. Think of this: if you are not will to learn about this, but your online competitor is, who do you think will get the lion's share of the business? 

SEO for eCommerce is a complex topic. Just tackle it one step at a time. A little done each day will work wonders for your incomes.

Here's a professional that uses anaZana, who specializes in SEO. 

Mark Shapiro of SRS Tech PR.

One book I'm reading right now is called "Convert: designing websites to increase traffic and conversion". Probably required reading for anyone that wants to be the best of the best.


Think of it this way: The good news is that most do not want to do the work of SEO, so competitive advantage is yours for the taking... at least at this early stage of eCommerce in the history of the Internet.

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Websites that support growing our eCommerce store

65 Indispensable Websites 

for Business Owners

You won't need all of these site, but chances are, you do need a few of them. Think of an online business as any other business: you must compete for market share. Those that treat their eCommerce store as such, generally do much better than the competition.

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Virtual discounts for our services

Discount coupons handed out in San Diego

This is the coupon we hand out to businesses in San Diego. Even so, if you find this discount on the Internet, you can use it virtually from where ever you are in the world. 

(for now, I'm uploading images taken from my iPhone. Later, I'll replace with the original artwork for clarity)

(click on image for larger view)

This discount will last for as long as we wish it to. Obviously,if we are overwhelmed with work, the discount will either vanish, or be good for those that want to wait in line. Enjoy.

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The Z affiliate program

Marketing Partners in anaZana

While some marketing partners (MPs) are using anaZana to create passive incomes. It can and does create passive incomes, provided one is willing to do the work required to generate incomes.

Think of the anaZana affiliate program as being similar to owning shares that pay dividends, without owning shares!  

We define an MP as an anaZana partner that actively invites others to use the system. Our two top MPs have made over $2000 usd and $900 usd in a year. This might not sound like a lot, but remember, they will continue to earn $1 dollar each month for every person they invited into anaZana that publishes their site. While it might take 15 minutes or more to find and invite one partner, and even longer for them to publish their site, if someone in their organization publishes for a year, you earn $12. And you earn this every year they continue to publish.

Examples

• The first year they earn only $12 dollars an hour.
• The second year, they earn $24 dollars for that initial hour of work.
• The third year, $36 dollars...
• The fourth year, add another $12 dollars, which makes $48 dollars for an hour of work done four years ago. 

Not only that, but many people that publish one website, will go on to publish another one, or multiple sites. 

Now the numbers increase!

• The first year they earn $12.
• In the second year, this person publishes another site.Now this MP earns the original $12 for their hour of work, plus $24 dollars for two sites published, making $36 dollars the second year!
• in the third year, add another $24 to equal $60 total, for an hour of work that was done three years ago. 

Plan: 

• Year 1: 100 paying customers in your organization (through invitations, and another method I will reveal in a new blog), you could earn $1,200 dollars the first year  
• Year 2: 100 more paying customers
  $2,400 for the year, $3,600 total
• Year 3: 100 more paying customers
  $3,600 for the year, $4,800 total
• Year 4: 100 more paying customers
  $4,800 for the year, $9,600 total
• Year 5: 100 more paying customers
  $6,000 for the year, $15,600 total, etc.... 

If you choose to become an anaZana web-developer, you can charge $300 dollars or more for each site, depending upon the work load involved. That's more than $150,000 in additional incomes in five years. .

It is not difficult to become an  anaZana web-developer, it just takes time to learn. Most people in business (90%+) do not want to make their own site: they want it made for them! Some of the sites we make are $500, $1,000 or more. Don't worry if you cannot handle advanced web programming: you can hire a programmer or HTML designer on Elance.

Keep in mind, these numbers DO NOT include the additional incomes from the percentage of users that will publish multiple websites.   

Keep working this plan for five years, and you will have a nice residual income for many years to come. $15,600 divided by 500 customers equals $31.20 an hour for work done. Not bad incomes in today's economy. Very good in fact.

Future implementations: There are other avenues of income for MPs in the works, that will be added to the anaZana platform, that I cannot reveal at this time. It will increase your incomes immensely.

All of the above numbers are conservative.

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Erase poverty, one website at a time

How can poverty be erased in poor countries?

Generally speaking, poor people in developing countries cannot afford an internet connection, let alone a computer. So how can people that need to make money the most, benefit from the online eCommerce revolution? By using anaZana.

Here's the plan. 

A group of people, group together to form a small business. They pool their money to gain internet access (a library or an Internet cafe is fine). If they don't have enough money, they might be able to get a micro loan in some areas of the world. They create an anaZana account, and make their eCommerce site. A group of 25 people could each sell many items each, for only $7 US dollars a month. Money earned for each product could be apportioned to each farmer that sold something. In this way, their group could eventually earn enough to purchase a computer and a high speed Internet access of their own. 

Wouldn't you rather purchase your coffee direct from the farmer? Or soap? Or clothing? This would be a win-win for everyone. Eliminate the middle men, purchase coffee direct from the growing online, get a better price for local items, and give the producers sustainable incomes that are fair.

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Amazon eCommerce? Or anaZana eCommerce?

Why choose anaZana over Amazon for your eCommerce needs? 

Consider this choice between eCommerce stores:

Amazon can be thought of like Costco. 

If you sell you products on Amazon, be prepared to sell a huge amount of inventory, for a very small profit margin. Amazon is great for what it is.

Costco revenues in green

Costco profit margin in blue

  

Think of anaZana like your own store.

Keep control of your inventory and your profit margin. Choose anaZana instead.

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NOTE: There are other reasons you want to use anaZana instead of Amazon, although I cannot tell you what they are yet... stay tuned.

Visit our Facebook page

anaZana on Facebook

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"Sell more online"

"Sell more online" and "anaZana, sell more online" is copyrighted by anaZana, Inc. 

No one is allowed to use this slogan without express permission of anaZana, Inc.

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Another beautiful website in anaZana

Check out this eCommerce website. Beautiful. 

http://thepalmsbanquethall.com/

The Palms Banquet hall is a fantastic place to hold your next event. Parties, corporate events, weddings, you name it. Perfectly yummy food! 

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Is eCommerce here to stay?

eCommerce is here to stay 

Report: Ecommerce tops $43b in Q2 2012

Online and offline commerce may not be burning up the old charts - yet - in 2012, but steady growth is being seen in the online realm. The latest numbers from comScore find ecommerce totals reached $43.2 billion in Q2 2012, a 15% increase Year over Year

(This information in full at the link above)

The next time someone tries to tell you that eCommerce is a passing fad, or will never take off... you can confidently tell them that eCommerce has not only left the launchpad, it is already orbiting Earth, and on it's way to the outer solar system and beyond.

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How multiple websites can boost your eCommerce efforts and increase sales

Multiple websites can increase sales

One strategy I've learned from having a bird's eye view of the anaZana solution (because I'm an owner, and have access to proprietary statistics), is that as a company grows, they tend to publish more websites.

Why would they create more eCommerce sites?

Niche marketing can bring more sales. Say for instance, you sell real estate. Are you depending upon you site provided by your Realtor? If so, I can assure you, you are losing a LOT of money! Here's why... you have a 'vanilla' site which all the other agents in your company also have. The only way to get ranked higher in Google is through your own networking efforts. This is not bad, it is just limited. 

Now consider this: you now have two more sites (using anaZana of course!), and they say roughly the same thing as your vanilla site does, only they are more focused on particular areas of your business, and they have different keywords and meta tags. You could have one site covering styles of homes you offer. Another for a particular market segment. You get the idea. 

The result? Your market exposure now increases many fold. If you sell only one extra home a year using this technique, isn't the seven dollar a month cost per website worth it? You bet. 

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