Laughing Cheese e-commerce Strategies

Through the years, I have seen many small businesses try their hand at selling online. Some have had success but most have failed without ever getting a single order. What I want to talk about today is what has been the single best idea that helped start the successful online sales process ? Its a question that I get frequently, and I’m going to give you some useful (yea- I mean that) answers right here, right now (be patient Sparky) Just for clarification, this blog will, for the most part, discuss e-commerce as it relates to small businesses. Big businesses have big e-commerce budgets and project managers and probably don’t care too much about anything that I have to say (Meeester Big- you can leave … Read entire article »

When you look at the analytics of your web traffic, (you are looking at the analytics right?) one of the most important statistics is the “Bounce Rate” What is this and why is it important? (I’m glad you asked) In a nutshell, its the percentage of people that land on your site but don’t click on anything for 29 minutes (how long a session lasts) Why that’s important is that google and other search engines will consider your site more relevant when people click on stuff once they get to your site. Its also a good measure on how effective your main page is. If someone gets to your site they are considered “bounced” if they click on a link to a page on a different … Read entire article »

When coaching a new e-store, I generally like to focus on things that don’t cost anything, but produce results. (I have outlined many of these strategies in articles past.) Today I want to touch on the subject of Google’s pay per click advertising called AdWords. Once a store begins to generate orders on a regular basis, it is rather easy to predict how many unique visitors it takes to produce a sale. (Total number sales/ Number of Visitors) Most store fall somewhere between 2 and 4 sales per 100 visitors. For now, let’s just assume for now you are getting 3 sales per 100 visitors. If you make $12. on the average sale then each visitor is worth $.36. (It took 33.33 visitors … Read entire article »

Sometimes its hard to keep up your enthusiasm, even with things you love. You try to be fresh and keep it real, but sometimes it all seems like a grind. Believe me I know. Been there many times. Sometimes we lose sight on what its all for. I have long maintained that when you boil it all down, nothing’s more important than human relationships. Yep, that give and take, push and pull, yin and yang interaction that is what life is. If you feel like you are slipping a little and need to get a boost, reach out to people that you are helping. (If you are not helping anyone then get with the program!) Find out what you can do … Read entire article »

I was having a side chat with someone that contacted me through an online user forum that helps to support a PHP e-commerce solution very similar to my beloved ZenCart. She had spent literally days on a configuration problem that was driving her out of her mind. She wanted to place a particular object in her site and no matter what she did she could not get it to work. I gave her a chunk of code to put in her page that resolved the issue in 5 minutes flat. Mind you she was not a programmer or a consultant. She was the owner of an online store. She was proud of the fact that she was able to get her store … Read entire article »

Sometimes you have to begin with the end in mind. When you are creating content for your e-commerce website you need to think about what people may be searching for to arrive on your website. You can start with a product or a product feature and think about what information people would need to know about that thing. Think about what you would search for and what do you think you can tell people about that product that they may not know. Think about questions that people may ask or features around that product that may be confusing. Make your content useful and informative. To bring traffic, bring value. Time is a valuable commodity. If someone is investing his time on your site, your success … Read entire article »

During a recent visit to one of my new devoted followers (cough, cough), it came up in conversation that her customers were asking about a website available for online purchases. If your customers are asking this question, then you need to get busy fast. By fast, I mean right away. You are missing out on a free source of revenue and a way to provide better customer service for your existing customers. When I “coach” a store owner, (aka devoted follower) I make sure that this NEVER happens. First off, If you have a brick and mortar shop, a small display that tells your customers that you have a website is an absolute MUST. You should have e-mail sign up cards available and … Read entire article »

“Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it.” –Hardy D. Jackson~~ It’s interesting and fun to work with someone that has a passion about their business. They are their own best sales people and they can’t wait for a chance to share their product or idea. Yep- you can be passionate about an idea as well as something more tangible. The important thing is that you need something that drives you, something that’s not only going to help you through the day but drive you to excel, be excellent, go the extra mile (yadda yadda). As my ol’ pal Hardy says- “If you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it” … Read entire article »

One of the strategies that you can use to get sales with very little effort is by making other website owners your salespeople or “affiliates”. The biggest and most successful affiliate marketer of them all is Amazon. You can become an affiliate of Amazon and sell their books and other stuff on your website and earn commissions. Amazon gives you a code to embed on your site complete with a unique identifier so they know who to give the credit to. Amazon grew to a ginormous size using this model. There is no reason a small store can’t do the same thing. ZenCart has a Mod called Snap Affiliates that adds this feature to your website. Potential affiliate partners can go to your site, … Read entire article »

The first thing that I do when setting up a new web store is to set it up with the code for Google’s Analytics. Its very important to know not only how much traffic you are getting, but equally important to know where its coming from. (geographically as well as internet-o-graphically). If you built a store with e-commerce functions built in like ZenCart or OS Commerce, Google will provide some great stats for you like your total sales, how much money an individual visitor is worth, conversion rates, bounce rates, etc. etc. Its very important that you know where your traffic is coming from so you can spend more effort on the activities that produce results. You can see what words folks are searching for that … Read entire article »