- Original Poster
- #1
I've been off the boards for quite a while now, working furiiously on the version 2 of our own website. The current site has been more succesful than we ever predicted, but I'm aware ecommerce is shifting up a gear. I thought that I would impart some of what I have researched as a *hopefully* useful re-entry to the UKBF community 
I have also spent a lot of time reflecting on what is the likely direction of ecommerce in the near future.
So in the first 10 years of the century, online shopping 'happened'.
Yes you can trace the genesis of online shopping way back, but the turn of the century was the time the whole of the west seemed to be focussed on technology. Minds opened up, the digital revelotution was started propper. And like mobile phones, broadband and satnav, online shopping was about to become common cause for discussion, not just the territory of the geek.
And how did businesses respond?
Oddly, or perhaps not, as many independant start-ups jumped on the ecommerce bandwagon, as did the established high street names. In many cases names that had conquered the traditional retail world took longer to get a website sorted out than some of the more enterprising individuals.
And how did SMEs in particular respond?
Naturally we fit into the most enterprising business group of all. Most of us on these boards are small enough to flex and adapt very quickly (not that all of us do so willingly). Soon there was a multitude of quick and easy solutions to get started selling online. Certainly for the last five years the common question has been not 'how do I sell online' but 'What do I sell online?' The masses have heard that selling online makes easy money, and the only barrier to entry was finding something to flog for more than you can buy it for.
So why will it become harder to start up and sell online?
Because online shopping is now so commonplace, certain unwritten rules are emerging that need to be addressed. This is of course in addition to the written rules which also often get overlooked...!
Delivery times
Expectations are shifting fast. Speed of delivery needs addressing, which means holding stock. Customers increasingly consider guarenteed quick delivery equally important as price. The requirement to hold stock is in many industies no longer optional, its what the shoppers demand. This in turn requires a site that is able to display stock levels, which relies on a back-end system to track stock. Entry to the market is made much more difficult for the basic 'site in a box' users. It is also making life harder for current traders that are limited by their chosen cart solution or their own time/ability/willingness to move up a gear.
Navigation
Now that we have 10 years of online shopping under our belts we all have higher expectations - we have seen how easy to use some sites can be, and how awkward many others are. Now is the time then that the big players are leading the way, storming ahead in fact. visit http://www.diy.com and have a browse round. This is an example of a cutting edge site that employs the following:
Mega MenuThe top menu, hover over it and you will see the 'mega menu' theory in practice. This is being adopted by an increasing number of big retailers and its easy to see why. Unlike traditional dynamic menus which either cascade several times, or simply limit the number of options available, the mega menu offers at a glance organised access to pretty much any page on the site. It's the culmination of just about every other method of creating a dynamic menu to date. They can be designed using pure CSS, great for SEO and as each drop down can contain any content required. Images, flash, links and other dynamic objects. Its essentially possible to offer click free access to user relevant content that used to require its own page. Many articles attribute the birth of the website 'mega menu' to MS use of similar dynamic content containing drop downs in their ribbon menu system.
The good news is that as a pure CSS solution anyone with access to their sites CSS has the ability to implement one. Many sellers feel limited as they cannot write or use JS on their site, well this a trend that is gathering pace at the top end, it makes sense and you can get on board with it now.
Intelligent Search
Despite us all benefitting from ever more intelligent search engine algorythems, the majority of ecomerce sites still use very basic search systems. I.e., most sites require the user to input the exact string of letters that are found in the product name. On our current site, searching for 'fish nets' will not bring up a product called 'fish net'. This is not always easy to solve but always possible - and its crucial. You absolutely cannot sell something that a shopper cannot find. Google custome site search is usable in most cases, and for a reasonable cost, can be used as a fully integrated or customised part of your site. Other solutions are available of course. In fact, we nearly moved of to Magento because of the progress they (and the various extentions) have made in this area alone.
Standardised layout
Now true standards exist of course, but there are common layout trends which are emerging as popular. Most common desktop software, across various platforms as well, looks vaguely similar in layout. This is not due to lack of imagination. It's due to the fact that the users are used to looking in a prticular area for a prticular function, its about making the user experience easy and comfortable. Be different where you can, that is the joy of the internet, but pay attention to developing trends. A common example is forgetting to place contact info and links to legal blurb etc at the bottom of each page.
Learn basic HTML, CSS and image creation.
In the same way that a tradional shop owner does not need to know how to build a shop, you do not need to know how to build an entire site. But you do need to know how to dress and organise one. Any traditional shop owner can stick an attractive SALE pos in the window, so it follows that anyone serious about selling online needs the basic knowledge to achieve the same attractive presentational tricks online. The most useful thing a web designer will ever be able to do for you is help you understand what you really need, to achieve the functions you want, and build that framework. Once you have that, you need to take over on the day to day stuff - and its stuff that needs doing to keep a site fresh and current.
Do SEO - the really easy SEO that requires no understanding of SEO...
Content really is king online. So many independant sellers simply copy and paste supplier blurb for thier products. Search engines see this as one of the lowest form of page content possible. There are many things a professional can do to help search engines crawl your site easier, and to develop important keyword strength. But ultimatley nothing will bring you a greater return on time/investment than well written, unique, useful content. Always write in a Q&A style where possible, most searches start with either a question or an answer, if your text matches either closely then you are well up in the rankings. Again, basic SEO is something that any of us can research and understand.
Get professional
Sharpen up the copy, tone and layout you use on the site. 5 years ago shoppers were an experimental bunch, early adopters willling to trust most sites so long as they had what they wanted at the right price. Now shoppers are smart and increasingly educated regards how to identify warning signs of a trader that is either amatuer, or likely to be unreliable. This ranges from the obvious crime, no phone number/address... To the more subtle. Is your menu system a mess? DO colours clash? Does your site look like its matured and developed and updated well? Or does it look like it could have been built from a basic template just 2 days ago? Is your wording concise and clear? Do you use to many'!'s!?!??!?!?
Presentation is becoming so important. Because anyone can have a website, of any size, for free. Physical shops cost money, having the biggest or best presented shop on the high street costs millions. Online any site can be as big as you want, or presented however you want. So present well and strive to judge your efforts against those of your competitors.
Growth
Growth is important too at the moment. Economy of scale and buying power are becoming vital to maintain the competitive price and high levels of service shoppers now start to expect, often demand, online. You cannot enter a marketplace and grow if the effort is only causual. A website is a business like any other and must stand strong with one eye on the future. Expect the quantity and variety of ecommerce websites in any one sector to diminish gradually, as on the high street before. Ultimatley those that move with the times and grow their own brand strength and values will be most secure. Secotrs already exist which have effectively been narrowed down to just a few major players, making entry now almost impossible without big and long term investment.
Finally - just take ecommerce seriously.
The above points are a handful of what I could have gone into. The undertone is that over the last ten years the party has been open to all-comers. But now, to move forwards or enter the market as a serious business venture, you need to be very serious about what really makes shoppers tick. The 'easy - basic' online shops out there will increasingly feel the pain of limited functionality, flexibility and power. And you cannot escape those bounds without developing your own knowledge and skills at the same pace as the marketplace develops.
David
I have also spent a lot of time reflecting on what is the likely direction of ecommerce in the near future.So in the first 10 years of the century, online shopping 'happened'.
Yes you can trace the genesis of online shopping way back, but the turn of the century was the time the whole of the west seemed to be focussed on technology. Minds opened up, the digital revelotution was started propper. And like mobile phones, broadband and satnav, online shopping was about to become common cause for discussion, not just the territory of the geek.
And how did businesses respond?
Oddly, or perhaps not, as many independant start-ups jumped on the ecommerce bandwagon, as did the established high street names. In many cases names that had conquered the traditional retail world took longer to get a website sorted out than some of the more enterprising individuals.
And how did SMEs in particular respond?
Naturally we fit into the most enterprising business group of all. Most of us on these boards are small enough to flex and adapt very quickly (not that all of us do so willingly). Soon there was a multitude of quick and easy solutions to get started selling online. Certainly for the last five years the common question has been not 'how do I sell online' but 'What do I sell online?' The masses have heard that selling online makes easy money, and the only barrier to entry was finding something to flog for more than you can buy it for.
So why will it become harder to start up and sell online?
Because online shopping is now so commonplace, certain unwritten rules are emerging that need to be addressed. This is of course in addition to the written rules which also often get overlooked...!
Delivery times
Expectations are shifting fast. Speed of delivery needs addressing, which means holding stock. Customers increasingly consider guarenteed quick delivery equally important as price. The requirement to hold stock is in many industies no longer optional, its what the shoppers demand. This in turn requires a site that is able to display stock levels, which relies on a back-end system to track stock. Entry to the market is made much more difficult for the basic 'site in a box' users. It is also making life harder for current traders that are limited by their chosen cart solution or their own time/ability/willingness to move up a gear.
Navigation
Now that we have 10 years of online shopping under our belts we all have higher expectations - we have seen how easy to use some sites can be, and how awkward many others are. Now is the time then that the big players are leading the way, storming ahead in fact. visit http://www.diy.com and have a browse round. This is an example of a cutting edge site that employs the following:
Mega MenuThe top menu, hover over it and you will see the 'mega menu' theory in practice. This is being adopted by an increasing number of big retailers and its easy to see why. Unlike traditional dynamic menus which either cascade several times, or simply limit the number of options available, the mega menu offers at a glance organised access to pretty much any page on the site. It's the culmination of just about every other method of creating a dynamic menu to date. They can be designed using pure CSS, great for SEO and as each drop down can contain any content required. Images, flash, links and other dynamic objects. Its essentially possible to offer click free access to user relevant content that used to require its own page. Many articles attribute the birth of the website 'mega menu' to MS use of similar dynamic content containing drop downs in their ribbon menu system.
The good news is that as a pure CSS solution anyone with access to their sites CSS has the ability to implement one. Many sellers feel limited as they cannot write or use JS on their site, well this a trend that is gathering pace at the top end, it makes sense and you can get on board with it now.
Intelligent Search
Despite us all benefitting from ever more intelligent search engine algorythems, the majority of ecomerce sites still use very basic search systems. I.e., most sites require the user to input the exact string of letters that are found in the product name. On our current site, searching for 'fish nets' will not bring up a product called 'fish net'. This is not always easy to solve but always possible - and its crucial. You absolutely cannot sell something that a shopper cannot find. Google custome site search is usable in most cases, and for a reasonable cost, can be used as a fully integrated or customised part of your site. Other solutions are available of course. In fact, we nearly moved of to Magento because of the progress they (and the various extentions) have made in this area alone.
Standardised layout
Now true standards exist of course, but there are common layout trends which are emerging as popular. Most common desktop software, across various platforms as well, looks vaguely similar in layout. This is not due to lack of imagination. It's due to the fact that the users are used to looking in a prticular area for a prticular function, its about making the user experience easy and comfortable. Be different where you can, that is the joy of the internet, but pay attention to developing trends. A common example is forgetting to place contact info and links to legal blurb etc at the bottom of each page.
Learn basic HTML, CSS and image creation.
In the same way that a tradional shop owner does not need to know how to build a shop, you do not need to know how to build an entire site. But you do need to know how to dress and organise one. Any traditional shop owner can stick an attractive SALE pos in the window, so it follows that anyone serious about selling online needs the basic knowledge to achieve the same attractive presentational tricks online. The most useful thing a web designer will ever be able to do for you is help you understand what you really need, to achieve the functions you want, and build that framework. Once you have that, you need to take over on the day to day stuff - and its stuff that needs doing to keep a site fresh and current.
Do SEO - the really easy SEO that requires no understanding of SEO...
Content really is king online. So many independant sellers simply copy and paste supplier blurb for thier products. Search engines see this as one of the lowest form of page content possible. There are many things a professional can do to help search engines crawl your site easier, and to develop important keyword strength. But ultimatley nothing will bring you a greater return on time/investment than well written, unique, useful content. Always write in a Q&A style where possible, most searches start with either a question or an answer, if your text matches either closely then you are well up in the rankings. Again, basic SEO is something that any of us can research and understand.
Get professional
Sharpen up the copy, tone and layout you use on the site. 5 years ago shoppers were an experimental bunch, early adopters willling to trust most sites so long as they had what they wanted at the right price. Now shoppers are smart and increasingly educated regards how to identify warning signs of a trader that is either amatuer, or likely to be unreliable. This ranges from the obvious crime, no phone number/address... To the more subtle. Is your menu system a mess? DO colours clash? Does your site look like its matured and developed and updated well? Or does it look like it could have been built from a basic template just 2 days ago? Is your wording concise and clear? Do you use to many'!'s!?!??!?!?
Presentation is becoming so important. Because anyone can have a website, of any size, for free. Physical shops cost money, having the biggest or best presented shop on the high street costs millions. Online any site can be as big as you want, or presented however you want. So present well and strive to judge your efforts against those of your competitors.
Growth
Growth is important too at the moment. Economy of scale and buying power are becoming vital to maintain the competitive price and high levels of service shoppers now start to expect, often demand, online. You cannot enter a marketplace and grow if the effort is only causual. A website is a business like any other and must stand strong with one eye on the future. Expect the quantity and variety of ecommerce websites in any one sector to diminish gradually, as on the high street before. Ultimatley those that move with the times and grow their own brand strength and values will be most secure. Secotrs already exist which have effectively been narrowed down to just a few major players, making entry now almost impossible without big and long term investment.
Finally - just take ecommerce seriously.
The above points are a handful of what I could have gone into. The undertone is that over the last ten years the party has been open to all-comers. But now, to move forwards or enter the market as a serious business venture, you need to be very serious about what really makes shoppers tick. The 'easy - basic' online shops out there will increasingly feel the pain of limited functionality, flexibility and power. And you cannot escape those bounds without developing your own knowledge and skills at the same pace as the marketplace develops.
David
