http://www.inafind.com/ Articles at Free Article Directory | Submit your Article for Free on Inafind en-us http://www.inafind.com/business/e-commerce/essential-principles-of-ecommerce-website-design.html http://www.inafind.com/business/e-commerce/essential-principles-of-ecommerce-website-design.html Tue, 27 Jan 2009 06:14:47 -0600
The ecommerce websites are designed in a manner that it can pursue the visitors to make online purchase by establishing positive reputation with the customers. Although it might seem simpler but to design an ecommerce website, web designer has to follow a number of selling principles.

Designing ecommerce site is different from regular website designing, as the color selection, design layout, etc has to be kept in consideration. Make it appealing, eye-catching and well-organized. You can also take a look at other successful ecommerce websites of your field and take idea about what features have contributed towards the online achievement.

When a prospective customer lands on the website, he/she should be able to navigate on the site easily. All internal links has to be well intact, else visitors going to another website increases. The overall shopping experience should be pleasing. Put adequate and satisfactory information on your website to establish long lasting trust.

These facts are not new and are known to all marketing experts but the challenge lies in converting those techniques into online marketing ones.

The same problem lies in web stores is to create the same drama, suspense and interest as in a physical store. The entire ecommerce website has to be in format that has a specific online links or paths to lead them to the final product of desire. But many times visitors may find a short cut to another page rather than what you intend to show them.

Selling any product or service through a web store is much more difficult in comparison to a physical shop or store. Well-designed ecommerce website can lead a customer to the desired page in maximum or one to two links. Having a sales letter in the website helps, here the link is generally the order form. The unique property of sales letter is they sell one product at a given point of time. Here the visitor would find all required information about the product in a presentable manner, with the facility to click on the order form at any given point of time. If not convinced completely the visitor may carry on reading more product details.

There are plenty of principles surrounding ecommerce website designing and creation, affected largely by the type of products/services you are dealing into.

Copyright © 2009 ]]> http://www.inafind.com/business/e-commerce/benefits-of-online-presence.html http://www.inafind.com/business/e-commerce/benefits-of-online-presence.html Thu, 15 Jan 2009 03:18:44 -0600 The first and most important benefit of online presence is that you can reach a global audience within a short span of time. It reaches potential clients locally, nation wide and also world wide. It will enable you to deal with thousands of customer at the same time everyday. It not only gives you the provision to deal with your present customers but also attracts new customers. It is an easier way to take order from your customers.
Online presence has a number of advantages. Other than availing any service or buying any products the customers will be able to see the company profile and get to know about the company. This is a great way in which you can earn the trust of your customers. Online presence offers end number of services under the same roof. You don’t need to spend a lot of money to make a brochure to reach your customers.
Unlike media advertising online advertising will give your customers a chance to interact with you. They can go through the details of a product or a service. Unlike media an online advertisement easily reaches the target audience or the people who are particularly looking for your products or service. This means that you are going to get a good return on your investment.
The advantages of online presence do not end here. If you want to change the price or do a little modification of your product or service you can do that in no time on the internet. Whereas if you want to introduce the new price via media you will have to make a new advertisement and this will be quite expensive.
Web space is becoming cheaper day by day. So promoting your company won’t cost you much. Online presence will give you the opportunity to avoid the costs of real estate, insurance, business rates, water, heating, maintenance and so on. Your website can be run from home. So you can save all these unnecessary costs.
Online presence of your business will save your time, energy and money. At the same time it maximizes your exposure as your business adapts faster with the Internet. The ongoing popularity of online business reflects its numerous advantages. ]]> http://www.inafind.com/business/e-commerce/the-boom-of-b2b-evergreen-or-a-flash-in-the-pan.html http://www.inafind.com/business/e-commerce/the-boom-of-b2b-evergreen-or-a-flash-in-the-pan.html Wed, 31 Dec 2008 03:39:34 -0600
Even so, for B2B companies, it is not time to open the celebration, because this prosperity is also hidden behind a huge crisis. The increasingly suppliers on B2B means an increase in the purchase cost for buyers, since they need to "needle in a haystack"-like search for products. The unhappy purchasing experience may cause some buyers to give up B2B platforms. If B2B sales are poor, it can only be a dead end for suppliers and B2B market in this prosperity can only be a flash in the pan.

Internet experts believe that the labor surplus and supply exceeding demand also exist in the B2B market behind the 10% increase. The buyers market lags far behind the speed and range of expanding number suppliers, which makes the competition on B2B platform fierce. The pressure of suppliers grows with the lowing prices of the similar products. Boston Consulting Group survey, based on the depth of the interview of 260 on-line traders, indicates 25% of the suppliers have felt the heavy pressure resulted from the price comparison while another 50% of the respondents claiming such a price comparison bringing great pressure to them.

The resulting pressure even reduces the quality of service. For example, in a B2B platform, if it was 3 suppliers to share a trade lead in the past, it is now 30 enterprises in the snatch. The quality of service suppliers enjoy is bound to drop. What's worse, it may lead to suppliers trap in the endless price war. How to solve this problem is vital to avoid the B2B platforms to be a flash in the pan.

Internet expert regard that quantity of suppliers on an ideal B2B platform is about 100,000 under current situation. It seems that the growing number of suppliers means lower price and more choice for buyers, but that is not the case. As more suppliers emerge on-line, buyers will have more and more difficult for the right to select their own products. Everyone knows that the result of needle in a haystack-like search is not ideal, or even unable to pin. Any industry has its own capacity. Once excesses it, it will be counter-productive. For example, when searching on Baidu, very few people will look up the 30, 40 pages. In this case, searchers will give up without result, even if they may find the information they need on the page of 45. The same reason can also be applicable in B2B for purchasing products.

]]> http://www.inafind.com/business/e-commerce/social-networking-service-war-fights.html http://www.inafind.com/business/e-commerce/social-networking-service-war-fights.html Wed, 31 Dec 2008 03:38:37 -0600
As it stated, Yahoo Koubei schedules to provide a life service platform for consumers and hopes to construct a framework of three big life service circles in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to meet people's public and diverse needs. Compared to the news from China Economy Times ( a comprehensive economy newspaper in China) that on October 13, 2008 Alibaba Group subsidiary Yahoo China released a social networking product names as Yahoo Guanxi (Yahoo Relationships), Alibaba's SNS program is progressing. Early in 2006, ECVV.com, an aggressive B2B competitor against Alibaba.com and the first B2B platform who adopts the term of pay for performance in the world, established its SNS website (www.6sns.com) for business friends-making. The competition starts unveiling.

Meanwhile, Tencent.com, one of the biggest internet service website in China who owns the biggest portal website (www.QQ.com) in China, released its xiaoyou.qq.com (a social networking website for campus users) in 2008 in a move that defeats the widespread campus SNS website (www.xiaonei.com) in China.

Myspace.com and Facebook.com, two of the Three Big among social networks, have been watchfully fighting for the number of unique visitors for a long time. Myspace.com has kept moving ahead. Unfortunately, data released by Comscore showed that Facebook.com caught up to Myspece.com in terms of unique worldwide visitors in April, 2008. Myspace.com won't sit still waiting for judgment. News from the Leb Web conference held in Paris, France on Monday on December 7, 2008, proofed it that Myspace.com will work with Google.com to launch their MspaceID through which visitors can login in other sites without registering again on the internet. It is said that Myspace.com will synchronize users' feed activity, just like Facebook Conncet which was released previous days, and enable users to visit the third-party sites with their MyspaceID.

In March this year, $850.000.000.00 was pumped by AOL into Bebo.com, the third biggest socil-media Website, to regain its marketshare in the U.S after it was defeated in its strongest market, Britain, by rival Facebook.com. Afterwards, on December 11, the newly Bebo.com come to our eyes with three function adding for a new round competition.

Rivals remain restless. If we say SNS war has broken out, now it is white-heating. Although we can't make sure who the winner will be, we can witness their newly-launched tools from this moment on and users are benefited.

]]> http://www.inafind.com/business/e-commerce/opportunity-in-the-financial-crisis.html http://www.inafind.com/business/e-commerce/opportunity-in-the-financial-crisis.html Wed, 31 Dec 2008 03:34:47 -0600
The financial crisis, which has shown us its tremendous collapsing force, also contains possible opportunities on the other hand. Especially for electronic commerce, the global financial crisis might be an activator for its evolution at the moment.

Most people believe that the financial crisis which comes from local America will affect its domestic big enterprises and purchasers much more than small and medium ones in China, some e-commerce expert points out, because of the high fixed cost of big enterprises, they are likely to be in the red or even collapse when orders decrease, while smaller companies could change itself and avoid troubles more easily, which means a good opportunity to small and medium suppliers and purchasers as some orders would leave big enterprises for them. And online market will be a port for them to escape from financial storm.

1. Online market requires much less sales cost. During the period of financial crisis, many companies would face the problem of capital shortage, therefore difficult to hold on the existing business to run smoothly. However, if suppliers turn to the online market instead, it can reduce a lot of human and material resource cost, as they would need less staff to operate and certainly less cost of salary and rent of show rooms or stores or large offices, and so on.

2. For buyers, it cost them less to purchase online too. As survey shows, global expenditure on business travel and negotiation reaches 370 billion US dollars every year. While purchasing online could save most of these expenses, especially at this serious moment, cutting cost is really essential. If purchasers make full use of the advantages of e-commerce, it would save them a lot of time and money on traveling and trade shows. Also, there is usually discount for buyers when shopping online.

3. Meanwhile, management cost can be reduced for companies by e-commerce. Obviously, online business is helpful for cutting down cost of transaction, data managing, human resource, volume of stock, and so on. What a large sum can be saved and used in some other imperative fields! So you can imagine how many buyers will turn to online markets as well as suppliers.

It is therefore a good chance for small and medium enterprises in the financial crisis, because most of them have abundant experience in online markets, and now, it becomes a great advantage for them in this increasing fiercely competing environment. As a majority of online market participants comes from small and medium enterprises, financial crisis is not a whole disaster, it also brings hope to e-commerce.

]]> http://www.inafind.com/business/e-commerce/mobilize-your-business.html http://www.inafind.com/business/e-commerce/mobilize-your-business.html Wed, 31 Dec 2008 03:33:04 -0600
12 enterprises including Motorola, Inc. and Beijing University of Post and Telecommunication are the first members working cooperatively for this lab where researches and innovations on commercialization of mobile applications, mobile payment and security, and enterprise mobile commerce application are expected.
According to IDC, a research center, by the year 2011, mobile internet users will have outstripped computer internet surfers. Unlike the traditional e-commerce in China, m-commerce application is almost a virgin land. At present, WAP web surfing, ringtone/image downloading, instant messaging and mobile games are the commonest applications of mobile internet. Mobile internet service appliers can cooperate collaborate with phone makers to make their products known by mobile phone users. Amazon mp3, Amazon's online music downloading store, was chosen to be his partner when Google launched his first G1 phone.

Compared to traditional e-commerce, m-commerce has the following advantages:

1. It's pervasive. M-commerce is based on wireless internet. Service is available for almost anyone at any time anywhere. The instance and convenience are what traditional e-commerce can not offer to consumers.

2. M-commerce enjoys a large scale of potential clients. The number of mobile phone users is larger than that of PC users. And more consumers with higher consuming power are to be found among mobile phone users.

3. M-commerce can provide customers really personalized services. As mobile phone itself is a personal stuff, there is a unique individual behind every single cell phone. M-commerce providers can study users' interests and personalize services for these users.

The establishment of the lab is just the first step. The maturity of m-commerce in China will need lots of technical backups. Innovation of mobile payments is expected. Technical breakthroughs in mobile internet and mobile phone applications are also in need. Limited input methods, small screens, short duration of phone batteries, unsatisfactory operating system are the main reasons why still not many people are used to online surfing with their portable phones.

]]> http://www.inafind.com/business/e-commerce/iresearch-iusertracker-online-shopping-attention-increasing-steadily-netizens-more-concerns-on-practicality-in-economy-crisis.html http://www.inafind.com/business/e-commerce/iresearch-iusertracker-online-shopping-attention-increasing-steadily-netizens-more-concerns-on-practicality-in-economy-crisis.html Wed, 31 Dec 2008 03:32:10 -0600
Why economy crisis has not withheld netizens' favor. The following reasons, iResearch believes, are what keep C2C platform attracting netizens' persistent concerns under the continuing spread of the economy crisis.

1. Consuming desires released after Beijing Olympic Games: security was the focus during Beijing Olympic Games which greatly astricted logistics, and at the same time Olympic Games, as a global focus, to a large extent transferred the public's concerns, which led to slow growth of the online shopping. Therefore, the close of the Olympic Games releases consuming desires, and more people begin to divert their attention to C2C platform.

2. Holiday economy stimulating: traveling is not the only choice of this National Holiday, and "online shopping" became prevailing. The coming of Christmas and New Year will no doubt stimulate netizens' consumming desires.

3. Cost advantage of online shopping appears: the global economic crisis has great effect on Chinese economy that most Chinese businesses and individuals set their confidence back on the future revenue. Then consumption retrenchment will become a trend.Under such circumstance, with the perfection of the online payment,credit systems, quality assurance and other aspects,the cost advantage of online shopping become more significant.

The boom of SNS draw the common concern of market and netizens in 2008. Social networks present an enormous opportunity creating a thriving ecosystem of small program for people to interact and make friends through games, greetings,and video clips. At the same time, making-friends websites, as proper platforms to build social relationships, have become a good complementary channel for job chances when the recruitment number is decreasing in economy crisis and to a certain extent increase internet-users' concerns. However, iResearch iUserTracker monitoring data reveals netizens' dependence on pan-entertainment network services such as literary fiction,vedios was withdraw. This is because people,effected by the downturn of economy,pay more attention to their real life and economy developing tendency.

What this means? iResearch consider the netizens' behaviors under economy crisis reflect the economy crisis' effect on network economy and the trend of various field. This will make impact on e-commence from three aspects:

First,positive stimulation: compared to the traditional way of shopping, advantages of online shopping like cost-effectiveness,convenience become more significant in economic crisis, which gain more consummers' favor. As a result, this will greatly promote the development of various fields such as electronic payment, C2C, network services, online games market,etc.

Second, negative impact: global economic crisis led to the sharp drop in demand in overseas markets,which have a great impact on foreign trade enterprises, putting B2B e-commerce development to the test.

Third, online advertising remains optimistic: datas show that the scale of Chinese online ads market has reached 5.16 billion Yuan in 2008 Q3, with 12.9% period-on-period growth rate and 78.0% year-on-year growth.This means online advertising increases steady. And B2B advertisers tend to interest in SNS advertising, which keep e-commence business developing diversified.

]]> http://www.inafind.com/business/e-commerce/financial-turmoil--another-opportunity-to-e-commerce.html http://www.inafind.com/business/e-commerce/financial-turmoil--another-opportunity-to-e-commerce.html Wed, 31 Dec 2008 03:26:52 -0600
After analysis of the new e-commerce sites' providers, CNZZ data center has found that more and more integrated e-commerce systems' providers see these opportunities and they are developing down stream applications by technological progress. We can include that from the fact that they have been developing dozens of versions of new system since September. There are more than 37 new versions of systems in 12 integrated systems which they cooperated with the CNZZ. The updating speed And frequency of the global economy is 80% more than that before the crisis. And the overall coverage rate of e-commerce website users has One type of e-commerce users upgrade from 90,000,000 to 98,000,000. The attendance of Baidu "You'a" in the field of mainland C2C makes domestic C2C sites' overall flow between May to October increase 20% and the number of users in October have covered 250,000,000 among 95,000,000 netizens.

What dose these data mean to the domestic e-commerce?

First of all, it means e-commerce is gradually replacing the traditional mode of selling and buying, or at least a powerful complement of traditional patterns. E-commerce is not limited by space and time. It can offer customers an overall view of goods and an excellent experience. Then it can gain a number of customers in a shorter time. C2C started in a early time as well as taobao five years' free trade and attendance of baidu, Yiqu has made this mode step into a more mature period.

Second, the financial turmoil has deeply affected the daily lives of ordinary people, As a result of the decrease or compression of their consumption ability, the consumers are in an urgent need to find a new cost-effective channel to satisfy them. E-commerce is their first choice.

Zhang Zhiqiang, CEO of CNZZ said that financial turmoil has a enormous impact on the global economy. While to the Internet industry, the most affected level is investment. In other words, the enterprises which rely on the investment of venture capital will face a number of crises, people who work in the field of Internet will be feel the pressure of unemployment. However, to the netizens, they will not reduce their time on Internet due to financial turmoil. According to the data of CNZZ, the impact of financial turmoil on small and medium-sized websites is less due to their lower operating costs and their not relying on venture capital for a living. The number of e-commerce website is not reducing, on the contrary e-commerce websites are in a bright future. They are in a period of prosperity as the result of economical crisis. Because of the impact of financial turmoil, many people turn to cost-effective e-commerce to reduce their cost of consumption.

Analysts believe that the atypical pneumonia in 2003 has created a period of prosperity of domestic e-commerce for the first time, people experienced the advantages of online shopping. Now the impact of the global financial turmoil also will offer e-commerce industry with a new growth opportunity

]]> http://www.inafind.com/business/e-commerce/financial-crisis-a-great-opportunity-for-e-commerce.html http://www.inafind.com/business/e-commerce/financial-crisis-a-great-opportunity-for-e-commerce.html Wed, 31 Dec 2008 03:18:22 -0600
Vice Minister Jiang Yaoping pointed out that e-commerce electronizes and digitizes the traditional business, which significantly reduce manpower, material and cost. At the same time, e-commerce breaks through time and space, which makes transactions more convenient and efficient. In addition, e-commerce also has the characteristics of globalization and open, which may create more trade opportunities for enterprises. It is one of the most reliable means for SMEs to get out of the plight.

Domestic e-commerce companies, daring not to be sloppy, one after another start the "winter" program to reduce the cost of service delivery, improve the quality of service and innovate the forms of services. At this time of SMEs should further increase the use and popularity of e-commerce to improve the efficiency of access to information and further reduce transaction costs. SMEs accelerate the pace of e-commerce, not only for response to the current financial crisis, but upgrade its long-term competitiveness. The number of Chinese SMEs reached more than 3400 million, and the lack of access to the Internet 11,000,000; 70% of the exports is done by SMEs, while exports in the form of e-commerce accounted for only 4%. As a result, there is huge potential for e-commerce to SMEs.

CNZZ data center through the new e-commerce site, type of statistical analysis system providers found that the more integrated e-commerce systems provider to see the business opportunities and have traveled more than technological progress to promote the development of downstream applications, specifically for the performance, they are in the Jiushi Yue on the inter-launched as many as dozens of versions of the new system. One type of e-commerce site has been covered by the general user upgrade from 90,000,000 to 98,000,000, Baidu as the "ah" join the camp Mainland C2C, making domestic C2C site's overall traffic in the May-October intergovernmental increased 20%, of which 10 The user is on the cover of the National 250,000,000 users of 95,000,000.

Internet analyst Andrew Collier believes that these changes mean that e-commerce is gradually replacing the traditional mode of selling and buying, or at least the traditional consumption patterns become a powerful complement. E-commerce has not the time and space limitations, network products at a glance a good user experience, to quickly get a large number of audiences.

Zhang Zhiqiang, president of the Executive CNZZ told reporters, the impact financial crisis on the global economy is enormous, but to Internet industry, the influence is more on the level of investment, that is to say, live in the past to rely on venture capital companies will face a number of crises, Practitioners in the field of the Internet will face the pressure of employment or unemployment. But for users, the Internet has not diminished demand, Internet users will not reduce the financial crisis, the arrival of Internet access time. According to the monitoring, small and medium-sized sites due to lower operating costs, and not rely on venture capital for a living, a very small impact on its crisis and therefore did not reduce the number, type of e-commerce site was on the contrary there will be prosperity, mainly because of the crisis prompted many Internet users Cost-effective option actively trying to improve the Internet e-commerce to reduce the cost of consumption.

China International Electronic Commerce Center Director Liu Junsheng also said, "The financial crisis, has posed a challenge to e-commerce. At the same time, it also brings new opportunities."

]]> http://www.inafind.com/business/e-commerce/ecommerce-tips-on-christmas.html http://www.inafind.com/business/e-commerce/ecommerce-tips-on-christmas.html Wed, 31 Dec 2008 03:17:02 -0600
Start planning for the Christmas season by October at latest.

Check your computer and network. You won't risk these technical errors at the busiest time of year for online retail.

Don't make major site changes on your website.

Your customers should be able to use the same navigational method. If you change a website's layout at this time, you can confuse those potential buyers and lose their money.

Make it as easy as possible to shop.

Choosing the perfect gift takes time. Many consumers do not like to spend much time in looking for what they want online. It might be a good idea to create a Christmas gifts recommended section. Think about these catagories:

Daughter
Son
Mother
Father
Grandmother
Grandfather
Wife
Husband

Show delivery dates and shipping options

People always like to leave their purchasing at the very last minute. Everyone wants to make sure their package will arrive before Christmas. You should clearly show delivery times and emphasize the urgency.

Offer gift wrapping

Gift wrapping is not just a profitable additional service. Most customers would rather ship items direct to the recipient rather than receive, wrap and then forward them. You'd better allow the buyer to choose not to have the receipt included in the package in case it's being delivered to another address.

Offer gift cards

Even if you have a great recommended gift section, there will always someone who don't know what to buy. Offering gift cards is a great way to have the undecided audience buy from your store.

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