Is Your eCommerce Website Fast Enough?
By Jack Burnett
Do you have a website that your customers like to see with great
content about your products tailored just for them? That's great,
but may not mean much for your business if uptime,
availability and performance is poor. It's critical to have the
infrastructure in place to deliver that valued content with the
speed expected by the customers who are accessing it from home
computers with slower broadband connections, mobile devices on the
road or from high-speed broadband connections at work.
So how much time do you have before that happens? You may want
to sit down.
Two seconds. That's what 47% of 1,048 online U.S.
consumers responded in a 2009 study, "eCommerce Web Site
Performance Today," by Forrester Research Inc. Two seconds to make
or lose a sale on your website. The study also found that 40%
of the consumers surveyed said they'd wait only three seconds
before completely abandoning a website page and shopping somewhere
else online.
So 2-3 seconds is the benchmark to study your eCommerce website
and determe if it is indeed fast enough. That's for your
website displaying on a desktop browser. With increasing broadband
speeds and more powerful mobile devices, consumers expectations are
going to be higher.
Collect all the information you can about your website page
speed and performance including your hosting provider, your
Internet ISP and your IT systems. For larger companies or
high-volume eCommerce sites , it make sense to use Web Performance
Monitoring products that have real-time status reports about how
well your website is delivering content to your customers.
For smaller companies, you can add Google Analytics Event APIs on
your site as well as use a new Page Speed tool that works with the
Firebug plugin on Firefox.
eCommerce - Measure Your Conversion Rate
By Jack Burnett
The conversion rate may be the most important web metric in an
eCommerce website. A good conversion rate is important because
conversions lead to sales, and sales leads to profits.
The definition of conversion rate is:
Conversion rate (measured in %) = Number of Sales / Number of
unique visitors
Customers ask me what is a good conversion rate. The
answer is simple - your conversion rate should be high enough for
you to be profitable. It may only be 1% or 3%,
or you may need a 15% conversion rate to be profitable.
For an ecommerce site, you can mesaure your monthly conversion
rate manually.
- Find the total number of unique visitors to your website in a
month no matter how they find your site (direct and referrals)
- Calculate the total number of sales in a month.
At TwinEngines, we use MediaChase as our eCommerce technology
platform, and we implement Google Analytics to track website
performance. Our customers log into their eCommerce management
website and find the total number of sales. They get their
total number of visitors from the Google Analytics dashboard.
I recommend measuring your conversion rate over a calendar year
to get a complete understanding. You'll be able to break the
year down into seasonal periods and around other outside events
that influence your sales.
Here is a link to an article on an automatic way to
measure conversion rates - using Google Analyics.
SEO Tips for eCommerce Website
By Jack Burnett
I read an informative article about search engine optimization
tips for eCommerce websites. At TwinEngines, I help small and
mid-market manufacturing companies in the southeast expand their
markets and increase sales with B2C and B2B websites.
I follow my lean web methodology to implement a web presence
that works hard for your business 24/7/365. If people
cannot find you online, then you have committed one of the 7 deadly wastes of
the web - that is, committing time, money and resources
into building a website that your customers cannot find. One
of the tools to eliminate this waste is to enhance the basic SEO
techniques.
The article at EConsultancy titled, Seven
sensational SEO tips for ecommerce sites, addresses
some of the common issues found in eCommerce
websites. One of the tips is looking at your products
and placing them in multiple categories that have unique landing
pages containing their own keyword phrases. Another good tip
is using the singular version of keywords instead of the
plural. This is a good idea since people usually want just
one product and not a whole bunch.
If you need help upgrading your search engine optimization on
your eCommerce website, contact me at TwinEngines and
I'll be glad to create an implementation plan with you. We'll
prioritize these 7 tips and more ways to improve your SEO, creating
action plans with cost estimates. Your employees
should even be able to perform some of these tips
with the content management system of your website.
eCoupons Tips for an eBusiness
By Jack Burnett
I recently read several articles on eCoupons and online
promotions, and thought about my circle of family and friends
in Atlanta, GA. We all love discounts, but no one likes to go
through the ciculars arriving in the mail or go through the Sunday
newspaper. It takes too much time or is not timely. We
do use an electronic coupon or promotion when we are at the
purchase stage of the buying cycle, though. And not just the
younger generation. One of my roles at TwinEngines is
eCommerce consulting where I help small and mid-market companies
increase sales via the Internet sales channel. Online
promotions are a great way to increase sales.
For an eCommerce website, there is a trend of more and more
people using online promotions and specifically younger people
using eCoupons and electronic discounts. The recession has
made coupons cool again, as more consumers use coupons to combat
the current economic times. The social media sites, like
Twitter and Facebook, are
popular because people can receive the
coupons they want to receive. Just
compare receiving a Tweet or a message from your favorite
stores or online merchants compared with trying to find last week's
mail circular. Do you even buy the Sunday paper anymore?
When you want to send a promotional discount or eCoupon,
whether via the cellphone, an email or through social
media sites, consider the fact that your eCoupon can spread
very quickly to a greater audience than you first intended.
Consider: You send a eCoupon for a free widget to your Facebook
fans, and find out that friends of your fans and friends of friends
of your fans are all of sudden placing orders to get the free
widget.
Here are some tips on using eCoupons for your eCommerce
website:
- Develop a strategy for using eCoupons and tailor your
promotions to motivate customers to make a purchase decision
beneficial to your bottom line or future growth. Example are:
- Daily or weekly Tweet with limited promotion or discount
- 10% off your order when you join the email program
- Free shipping for orders over a certain amount
- A free side dish for the first 1000 customers
- Be very specific and forthright regarding the terms of the
eCoupon or online promotion.
- Prepare your customer service to be consistent in
responding to consumers, and have dedicated resources
for all the communication channels your consumers use -
including the social media sites.
- Make cosnsumers create an account and login to use the
eCoupon.
- Through the account, associate the promotion to a single
shipping address and email address, so you can restrict the usage
to one per account, for example.
- Promote the eCoupons program on your website, explaining terms
and offering FAQs to help consumers understand the rules.
TwinEngines' customers with an eBusiness or an eCommerce website
use eCoupons and online promotions for the following reasons:
- Drivie consumer traffic
- Build loyalty
- increase sales
- Attract new customers
It is a continual learning experience on what promotions work
best. The important thing is to (1) measure everything, and
(2) listen to your social networks and customers, responding to
their desires and needs in a way that makes sense to your business
growth plans.
10 eCommerce Website Best Practices
By Jack Burnett
At TwinEngines, I lead manufacturing automation initiatives and
specialize in eBusiness and integrating eCommerce to back-office
systems and business processes. I recently guided a
client through the process of opening a new sales channel
on the Internet, following ten eCommerce website best
practices. A retailer has a store in the Savannah, GA area,
and wanted to reach more consumers and businesses along the east
coast. We started by mapping the existing order and
fulfillment processes figuring the best way to integrate the web
orders into their processes and financial and shipping
systems. Pulling current item counts and pricing from their
inventory management system was an important customer service
consideration, too.
The web presence was created following a custom web design
approach; after the goals and objectives of the website were
documented, compositions showing the look and feel and the
information architecture were crreated. Once the design was
finalized the product pages were described in wireframe
drawings. The analogy to building a house describes the
necessity to pick out the style of the structure and decide on
floorplans, before starting to build the house. Don't make
the mistake of having a web developer start building and then
determining what the website will look like and how people will
interact with it.
We followed these ten eCommerce website best practices:
- State the security method for transmission of payment
information, adhering to the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data
Security Standard for storing cardholder data.
- State the return policy clearly and accurately during the order
process and incorporate an interaction for the shopper to accept
the policy.
- Provide a complete description of the products and services you
offer, including photos and availability.
- When providing age-restriced products, clearly state the age
restrictions and have an age-verification process.
- State the shipping method and policy clearly and accurately,
and incorporate an interaction for the shopper to accept the
policy.
- Include unique meta titles, descriptions and keywords for each
individual product category and product detail page.
- Display your store address so it can be seen during the
checkout process - the page footer is usually a good location.
- Display your customer service contact including email and phone
number.
- State clearly your consumer data privacy policy and website
terms of use.
- Allow anonymous orders where the consumer does not have to
create an account as a prerequisite to making a purchase.
We successfully launched the website on our hosting
platform in Atlanta, GA, and now we are focusing on search engine
marketing, social media and email marketing efforts.
PayPal Payflow Pro Upgrade for eCommerce Websites
By Jack Burnett
PayPal, the owner of the PayFlow Pro Gateway
- a popular credit card payment gateway for eCommerce
websites - has announced a new update to their standard
software for custom shopping cart applications.
TwinEngines creates manufacturing websites, industrial
websites and content managed websites for small businesses.
Our expertise includes the Payflow Pro credit card payment gateway
as well as the Authorize.Net gateway. The new PayPal PayFlow
Pro Gateway interface is live now, and the old gatway software will
be shut down on September 1, 2009.
Our eCommerce website platform is a configurable system,
where TwinEngines staff easily change configuration settings and
developers extend capabilities for unique eBusiness
applications. Our developers created a patch update for
existing eCommerce websites that upgrades the gateway plug-in, and
included the new plug-in as part of our baseline eCommerce platform
for all future updates.
From PayPal:
"We've added new security features to our Payflow gateway
service that will make your payment processing even safer. Because
of these new features, you must update the Payflow code that's
integrated into your web site. All merchants should update to
Payflow Pro Software Development Kit (SDK) version 4.3 or higher,
or use our direct HTTPS Interface."
If you are a manufacturer, distributor or an eBusiness
and operate a eCommerce website that accepts credit card
payments using the Payflow Pro credit card gateway, then you will
need to update the gateway connection before September 1,
2009. After that date, your eCommerce website will no longer
be able to process credit card transactions.
eBusiness Insight - When to Charge the Card
By Jack Burnett
I was working with a customer who operates a store in
Georgia plus an eBusiness operation. We launched their new
eCommerce website two months ago, and met to review how the
website was working and how smoothly business processes were
completed. Initially, the eCommerce shopping cart was
configured to only authorize the credit card when the shopper
submitted the order. After fulfilling the order, the
shipping manager charged the card in the eCommerce
administration website. This ensures that a credit card is
not charged before the order is fulfilled; a good eBusiness
practice to follow.
The merchant wants to streamline fulfillment and be ready
for the busy fall season by changing this process. The
requested change to the eCommerce website is to authorize and
capture the charge when the shopper submits the order.
Inventory on the eCommerce website is kept up to date, they collect
phone numbers with each order in case there is an issue, and their
shipping policy gives them enough time to ship all the orders made
each day. The new process would mean a phone call to a
customer if there happened to be an order that could not ever be
fulfilled.
In the rare case an order could not be shipped that day or the
next couple days, after speaking with the customer to discuss
another product to order, the merchant then would go into the
virtual terminal of his credit card payment gateway
software. Each virtual terminal tool has a
function to credit the charge on a credtit card. If
the customer felt like they were not being treated honestly, the
merchant risks losing them and maybe any friends.
Knowing their business, internal processes, customer service
standards and after evaluating how the eBusiness operates, the
merchant feels the odds of orders that cannot ever be
fulfilled are very, very low.
Because it is just a database value change to us, this process
change was made in less than a minute on the fly without
taking the eCommerce website out of operation. That's what I
call a configurable eCommerce solution. We added the policy on
his site in the FAQs section, under Terms and Conditions, and
with the shipping and returns policies to be up front with
customers. After a couple months we plan to meet again to
evaluate the change and make a final decision in time for the busy
fall season.
If you are a consumer, the policy is well communicated
and you have the customer service phone number and store
address available to you on every page, does it matter to you that
your card is charged before your order ships that same day?
What would you do if you received that phone call?
eCommerce Website - Where is the Money?
By Jack Burnett
I was working with a small business today in Georgia
that had a simple problem - the new eCommerce manager couldn't
find the money from his eCommerce website. Like people
at many small businesses, he filled many roles, which partly
explains why he was in this situation. It also gets pretty
confusing, what with websites, shopping carts, credit card payment
gateways, and internet merchant accounts. So I started by going
over these components in his eBusiness.
First, he had a shopping cart module built into his website that
he owned. The customizable shopping cart allows people to add
products from the online catalog, and then enter shipping and
credit card payment information.
Second, the credit card payment gateway is a third party
service that connects the shopping cart to the financial networks
needed for the credit card transaction, including the customer's
credit card issuer and his internet merchant
account.
Third, the internet merchant account is at his local bank, which
also enables him to collect credit card and cash payments at his
brick-and-mortar store.
So our eCommerce manager logs into his eCommerce administration
website and sees all the orders. Customers are getting
automatic notifications. The orders are being fulfilled and the
credit cards are charged after shipment. Inventory is being
depleted. All the information the company needs to market
and sell their products online and fulfill shipments is found
in the eCommerce website and the eCommerce administration
online tool.
In our case, Authorize.net is the credit card payment
gateway. Our eCommerce manager logs into the
Authorize.net administration site that gives him the
capability of a virtual credit card terminal plus
reporting. Daily transactions and summary reports shows the
credit card transactions. The detail of each transaction
holds the eCommerce website order number, to tie website orders to
the credit card transactions.
Most importantly, the money is transferred to his internet
merchant account at his local bank. So after we talked, he
called his local banker. As soon as the banker returned from
his bar-b-que lunch social, they reviewed the internet and store
merchant accounts, fees, and statements.
The eCommerce manager had all the information to reconcile
eCommerce website orders with the credit card
transactions and with the money in his merchant bank
account. He analyzes the hosting fees and fees from
the credit card gateway and merchant account to calculate his
net margin on online sales. On a side note, when the UPS
invoices for shipping, he reconciles what UPS charges against
what his customers pay in shipping costs - found in his eCommerce
administration tool.
There's a lot of moving pieces, each with assoicated costs, all
of which requires attention when setting up an eCommerce website or
an eBusiness. We, at TwinEngines in Atlanta, GA, help small
and mid-market companies build eCommerce websites and guide them
through the process to set up all the components. Whoever you
turn to for eCommerce solution, make sure you go over all
three areas to understand the process, operations and
costs at the start.
Are You PCI Compliant?
By Jack Burnett
I am helping a marine supplies company expand their
customer base and increase consumer sales with a new eCommerce
website. Consumer sales means credit card payment processing.
Credit cards mean PCI compliance.
Some people think that PCI compliance is the big credit card
companies attempt to push the responsibility down to the merchants,
so they don't have to spend money now to upgrade their
infrastructure from the 1980's. While there may be some truth in
that, a merchant is responsible for protecting its customers'
credit card information when they purchase their products. If they
want to offer VISA, MasterCard and American Express credit card
payments, then they have to follow the rules.
Wikipedia says the Payment Card Industry Data Security
Standard is a worldwide information security standard
created to help organizations that process card payments prevent
credit card fraud. The standard applies to all organizations which
hold, process, or pass cardholder information.
PCI compliance means that merchants and eCommerce solutions must
follow the standards or be liable for credit card fraud. There are
6 core principles and 12 requirements to follow. The major business
areas to consider for a merchant are:
- Merchant's facility, order processing and internal
financial/ERP systems
- eCommerce website
- Credit card processing gateway
- Processor
- Merchant Bank
I recommend Authorize.net and PayPay Payflow Pro credit card
processing gateways in our eCommerce websites, because they are
rock-solid PCI compliant. A merchant chooses their Merchant bank
and processor company, and best practices dictate due dilligence to
ensure PCI compliance. This happened to be a concern for the
marine supplies company, because they chose to use Heartland as the
processor. Heartland was removed from the PCI-compliant list in
March because of data breaches (see eCommerce
Times article here), so it was important to ensure they were
back on the PCI-compliant list; they were reinstated earlier this
month.
TwinEngines eCommerce solutions do not store full credit card
information in the website database. Very limited, partial
information is stored only for customer service. The shopping cart
transaction is secure with SSL, and does not display full credit
card numbers anywhere after the card information is taken. The
administrative engine used in eCommerce websites, connects directly
to the credit card processing gateway to authorize payments at
check out and to capture the charge at shipment.
Some merchants use the eCommerce website administration tool to
process phone orders, ensuring PCI compliance. The eCommerce
website holds the credit card gateway transaction numbers to allow
the merchant to work with the transactions securely in the credit
card gateway's virtual terminal. This is necessary for activities
such as voiding an authorization or crediting a card when
needed.
If you are selling online, the first place to start is the PCI
DSS questionaire found at
the PCI Security Standards Council. You'll also find the 6 core
principles and 12 requirements established by PCI SSC. After
you do your homework, make sure your eCommerce website will be in
compliance when selecting a partner to help you implement commerce
on the web.