No 1 Solution for Growing Businesses

Why pay for a Content Management System?

As a company that offers a paid content management solution, a frequent question we hear is ‘why pay for it?’  Good, free alternatives exist, the most common being Drupal, Joomla and WordPress.

A ‘CMS’ is a system for managing the content of your website, without having to edit the HTML source code of your pages. Most work by allowing you to set up HTML templates, and inserting your page content into the template you want to use using a simple WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor.

The CMS works by maintaining a database of your content, and inserting the appropriate content into your page template to serve you the page you clicked on.

Content management systems have dramatically lowered the cost of
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eCommerce 10 point site checklist

How do I even decide on a layout?

You want to stand out.

The best way to stand out is to be different to everyone else – right?

This is true in many walks of life, but when it comes to web shopping you need to be careful about being different.

There is a fine balance between creating something that is well designed and pleasing to use; and creating something so different that it is confusing to use and therefore has a negative impacts on sales.

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Which products and services sell successfully in the online model and why?

What do you think the top selling product type is online? I’ll share that with you in a minute…

but really, it’s not about the type of product you sell, it is however about the target market.

Most business to business suppliers have a readymade market in their existing customers and best of all the credibility and trust already exists in the brand. For many suppliers their products will naturally lend themselves to being ordered via the web. The critical thing is being able to offer facilities that make it possible:

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If you are like almost every business in the UK, you are probably looking for ways to cut costs in 2012. What are the best ways to cut costs? We don’t know for certain, because cutting costs always involves taking a hard look at your business.

A good starting point however, is considering how your business takes and processes orders.

If you take orders over the phone, a great opportunity exists for you to save money by making more effective use of your website.

Here’s why.
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I recently had to make a trip to Halfords. Not a trip I make on a regular basis, and for that matter not a trip that anyone I know makes on a regular basis!

Normally, I would only go to Halfords when something breaks, for example when a bulb in my car goes (which is what prompted my most recent visit), or on the rare occasion I might want to sit on a push bike.

So for my recent trip, I made my way down to my local Halfords. I knew I was looking for a specific set of bulbs, so I headed straight for the car section where the bulbs were on display. I spent maybe two minutes finding the correct bulb, paid and then left.

This is what most people experience when they go to Halfords; they are fulfilling an immediate need and are not interested in browsing the other products on offer.

Taking this into account you would not expect Halfords to have much scope for an online store.

Let’s consider eCommerce…

According to the ONS (Office for National Statistics), in June 2011 online purchases made up almost 10% of the UK retail spend, this is up by 50% compared to the same time in 2010. This is a massive segment of the UK’s retail spend, which is still growing. So it makes sense that businesses big and small are looking to get involved in this opportunity.

However, many businesses today are too quick to assume their business is not suitable for online selling. Remember what I was saying about Halfords? They did not appear to be a business who could feasibly operate in an online environment…

A recent article in ComputerWeekly.com looked at how Halfords has managed to launch a successful webshop, which has been successful while in-store sales are faltering. Back in 2008 Halfords invested in their eCommerce store to make it easier to use and more accessible for their current and prospective customers.

Since then they have not only managed to create a successful online store but one which is continuing to grow. This is during a time when their retail stores are operating in, as they put it, “a difficult environment for UK consumers” yet they are seeing growth in this new area of their business.

This highlights that, even a company which would not seem a very suitable candidate to sell online, can be hugely successful and attract a wider variety of customers through an eCommerce store.

Halfords of course are a big company and have a big budget to invest, but this is not essential for online business success. What would you say are the key features of an online store?

1. Integration into your accounts system to avoid rekeying of orders
2. An easy to use order process to encourage customers to use it
3. Special pricing for trade or regular customers (from the accounts system)
4. Easy to manage and update

You can have all of this and more with ProspectSoft Easy eCommerce. Our Easy eCommerce solution is designed to allow you to get up and running with a fully integrated eCommerce store quickly, and for a reasonable price.

To find out what we can do, please take a look at:

www.prospectsoft.com/easyecommerce

P.S. Want to learn more about eCommerce?

We run regular events up and down the country focusing on a number of different topics. Our next eCommerce event which will be held in Yorkshire on 29^th September, where we’ll focus on eCommerce and how it can work for your business.

We aim to cover a variety of different areas to give you a full understanding of online selling. This will allow you to make an informed decision about what is best for your business.

At our last event we covered:

• The ‘Long Tail’ of eCommerce – why you don’t need to compete with Amazon
• How to sell ‘real’ products and services; products you may not think can be sold in an online environment
• What information your eCommerce portal is going to need, and how to make this a source of competitive advantage
• How eCommerce done correctly can save you money, as well as increase revenue
• Case studies of real SME’s adding six figures plus to their bottom line

You can find more information and registration details at http://www.prospectsoft.com/free-events.

Tesco reported last week that they are investing £20 million in a new 152,000 sq ft ecommerce distribution centre. Which by anyone’s standards (even a company the size of Tesco), is a significant investment. Tesco sell a huge amount of goods online, and are developing their own huge infrastructure to support this.

All this raises the question; as a small to medium sized business, do you need to invest £20 million to play the ecommerce game?

You do if you want to directly compete with Tesco…
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A new study commissioned by Google has suggested that online business now accounts for 7.2% of the UK’s gross domestic product (GDP) – approximately £100 billion a year. Sixty percent of this comes from ‘internet consumption’ (the amount people spend on online purchases, and the cost of internet connections).

We are spending more and more online, on a wider range of products, and this can have a big impact on your business.

Compared to the offline economy for example, where only 90p for every pound is exported, £2.80 for every pound is being exported online.

The growth in eCommerce is real, and not confined to websites such as eBay and Amazon. Thousands of businesses – including SME organisations selling complex products and services, are making a fortune online.
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