Business Article - Internet Purchasing and your Company
More and more companies today are making the transition to handle either some or all of their sales over the internet. Why is the internet such a popular option today for selling all kinds of products? For starters, selling on the internet makes it possible in most cases to sell your products directly to the consumer. By doing so you can cut out the costs of middlemen, and greatly decrease the amount of money spent on distribution. Even if your web sales are only a fraction of your total sales at first, they can provide a significant amount of your total profits because each sale will have a greater profit margin. Selling on the internet is also convenient because you can bring new products to the consumer immediately, without having to set a lot of gears in motion with retailers; once a product is ready for sale you can simply put it up on the web site directly. Having an internet face for your company's sales gives you a closer connection to the consumer, which helps you to stay abreast of what your customers have the greatest demand for, and it also improves your public image. These are just a few of the reasons that people choose to sell online.
What kind of options does your company have for selling its products on the World Wide Web? While some people decide to take care of everything in house, many companies now partner with companies that specialize in marketing other companies' products online on large catalog sites. A partnership agreement with one of these companies will cost you a certain percentage of every sale, but can be the fastest way to get your company started selling online without going through the process of setting up an internet sales division.
If you decide to build your own web site and sell your products yourself, you will need to assemble a competent and dedicated staff. Make sure that the people you hire have a strong background in web design and specifically have experience in setting up sales sites; it is better to take your time putting together a site which works smoothly and without error, than to hurry out a site with bugs. Consumers on the web are used to sites that have easy flow through and allow them to pay safely and securely. A site with bugs will reflect poorly on your company and have a negative effect on future internet sales. Many companies choose to go with corporate web hosting packages which may include e-commerce software packages. Note that while these systems are generally fairly straightforward to set up, you still will want to hire a professional to make sure that everything is properly configured and to help train your sales people in the use of the site. The other option is to set up your own web servers at your company and use either a standard e-commerce package or a custom one developed by your people. Unless there are specific reasons that you need to make your own e-commerce software, you should go with the simplest software package that will have the flexibility to meet all of your company's growing needs. Make sure to test your site extensively before you have it go live, and work out any problems that the site may have before it is open for business to the public.
Your internet sales staff will have to be trained in the use of the internal aspects of the web site by the people hired to handle the site design. The internet sales staff should be separate from the sales staff for other media; they should be able to focus entirely on handling customer questions and issues for the web site. Beyond the customer support staff, you may have the entire process of maintaining your product catalog, tracking inventory, and so on taken care of on computer with software that communicates directly to your sales front package. An increasing number of companies are using computers for every step of their business process, integrating the entire system so that it is able to work continuously and flawlessly. This cuts down on the amount of paper overhead, the amount of space that you need in your offices, and the amount of time that it takes for the entire business cycle of your company to take place, making it possible for you to handle a higher volume of sales without sacrificing quality.
When you sell over the internet, you usually will not be paid directly by the customer. Instead, you will set up an account with a transaction processing service. The transaction processing service will accept the credit card information from the customers, withdraw the money from their accounts, and then make the deposit to your company's bank account, for a small transaction fee. Rates of transaction fees are typically set in tiers according to the cash amount of the number of transactions that your company produces, so with higher numbers you can get more discounted rates. In some cases a transaction processing service will have a preferred type of storefront software, and the same company may be able to help you handle the entire process of setting up an online storefront on their servers and taking care of transactions for you. In general, this is the best way for companies that are just getting into selling their products online to start. By keeping things as simple as possible on the technical end, you can focus on customer service and provide the best possible online store experience, which will encourage repeat business and help to spread good word of mouth. Any time that you go with the more difficult technical option, the possibility that you will save some money on installation has to be offset by the probability that bugs will crop up over the months and years. The cost of doing your own maintenance and fixing errors on your own system, as well as the negative impact of problems with the site on sales figures, can easily eat up any savings made by setting up your own sales front, unless you are absolutely sure that you know what you are doing and that there is some necessity for taking care of the technical aspects of web site design on your own.
Word of mouth alone will not get customers to come to your store online. Make the name of the site something that will be intuitive and easily remembered. In most cases it is best to make the name of your website the same as the name of your company, as many people just assume that that will be the case. It will also make it more likely that customers searching for the name of your company on a search engine such as Google or Yahoo will be able to find your page on the first click. As with any kind of advertising you have to play the numbers - the easier you make it for people to find your site in the least number of clicks, the more people will get through. The better designed your site is to make it simple for people to click through, adding items to their cart then moving to an easy checkout, the more sales you will have out of that group. Online advertising is available in a wide variety of forms. Google Adwords are one of the most popular options for businesses of all kinds, and if you know of specific websites where your customers like to go, you can inquire with the webmasters about options for banner advertising. Many companies are also starting to go with a more guerilla marketing style approach, hiring people to post about their products in online message boards, in the comments sections of blogs, and in online chat rooms. Beware - many customers online find these kinds of advertising intrusive. If you have a well funded advertising staff you may be able to get the best results with a combination of search engine advertisement and modern animated banner advertisements which today can contain video and audio. Make sure that your advertisements in traditional media also provide your web address, so that all your customers know that you have a website, and consider running special web-only promotions to attract more customers to buying from you directly, because every sale that you make online will provide you will greater profit than an offline sale, and every customer that becomes comfortable with buying from you online will provide a greater continuing value.
These are just a few of the issues to consider while taking steps to bring your company's sales online. Remember that simple is best - don't make your web site public until it is bug-free and ready to be unveiled. Have a dedicated support and sales staff for the online sales of your products, to make your online customer experience as smooth as possible. Finally, support your online sales with an effective advertising campaign and see that traditional ads direct customers to the web site as well. Good luck bringing your company into the era of internet purchasing!