Starting up an e-commerce wing of your well-established business may seem like a daunting prospect, especially given the negative press about dotcom crashes. There’s no need to worry, however; there’s a vast quantity of information and advice available on how to get started, and it’s unlikely that your business will be anything like these troublesome dotcoms about whom we’ve heard so much. The fact is that if you are a well-established bricks-and-mortar business already, you’re just adding another string to your bow; starting up a site doesn’t have to be a huge investment, and it’s very likely that it will turn out to be a great asset to your business as a whole. In a few months, you’ll wonder why it took you so long.

That said, there are certainly a few things you need to know if you want to add a successful internet branch to your business; it’s a bit more complicated than simply transferring your business to a website and sitting back. A simple online catalogue can work reasonably well for some businesses and some products, but it is not making the most of the new medium and taking advantage of all the features it has to offer. To get you started, here are a few important points.

Research

Research is an extremely useful tool, because if you’re getting someone in to set up your site for you, you need to know that you’re getting what you need and that someone isn’t taking you for a ride. Take the time to do some reading around the subject, and have a good look at some popular websites in their field. Decide what you like and don’t like about them, and feel free to hijack any elements that you think will be useful for your site! Knowing what you want is very important, as is keeping up with the ways that the dotcom industry is changing (it does so daily). Don’t let an "expert" pull the wool over your eyes with technical speak; get to know the buzzwords and jargon, as it will help you in the long-run to know that you’re getting what you’ve asked for.

Do your research when it comes to choosing a consultant, too. Make the effort to read customer reviews on forums, and ask lots of questions before making your decision. You won’t regret having done some background reading.

Focus

What is the primary focus of your website? What is your niche? As a general rule, for a small business, it’s a good idea to be as specialist and specific as you can, because there are almost certainly already huge players in the more general market with whom you can’t possibly compete. Work out exactly what you’re offering and keep to that business plan. That way, you’ll have fewer and smaller competitors, and you can work with your consultant to beat them to the top search engine rankings and the best customers.

Planning

Find a consultant who can help you to build a serious business plan. You need to have marketing and pricing strategies laid out before you start, just as with any other business. Be realistic about how many visitors you can expect, and what percentage of these will make a purchase. Focus on the needs, expectations and desires of your customers.

Branding

Branding is even more important on the web than it is on the highstreet. With literally thousands of websites to choose from, all available to your customers at the touch of a button, your site needs to be extremely memorable if it is to stand out. You need to create a unique and professional website with your own good domain name, which needs to form an integral part of your branding strategy.

Find a good web designer and a web marketing expert to help you. It will be money well-spent.

Hosting

You will need to find a company to host your website. Try to find one which has a good reputation for reliability, honesty and a high standard of customer service. Hosting directories such as HostSearch can be invaluable for reading customer reviews and selecting the best host to suit your needs.

Automation

Automation will be very important if your online business is successful to any degree. Make sure, when you choose hosting, that you can upgrade to things like a shopping cart and real-time credit card authorisation when you need them. Room for expansion is in general an important criterion for choosing a web host.

Regular Updates

Don’t let your website stagnate. Update regularly and add new content. Make your site look as if someone is maintaining it. Add pictures of yourself and your staff – some people find shopping on the web very impersonal, so make yourself seem human! If possible, add a new product a couple of times a year. If this is not feasible, you may be able to join a joint venture with a product owner. Even if you can’t sell their product, you could offer to promote their product or service for a percentage of their profits.

Emails

Organise an opt-in mailing list. Make it easy for your potential customers to join this list, and then update them regularly with product information, as well as content which might be of interest, such as links to articles and news items, or special offers. Make sure you are polite and professional. You will find that more people will join your mailing list if you offer a one-time discount for people who have joined, or some other incentive to handing out their name and email address. Also, make it easy to unsubscribe, and make it clear that it is possible to do so from the outset.

Traffic

Online businesses rely, of course, on traffic to their sites. Optimise your site for search engines, and submit yourself to directories such as Yahoo! and Dmoz. There is a lot of literature available on the web about search engine optimisation and increasing traffic (not least on DomainMonster.com). Read it, and put it into practice. Your marketing and web design consultants should be able to help you with this, or you can hire a professional search engine optimising expert.

Consultants

An awful lot of people think they’re web designers. When you choose yours, make sure that you choose someone with a good reputation, and have a good look at their portfolio of clients. If you aren’t sure that the sites look efficient and professional, move on. Also, make sure you’re happy to work with this person. It’s no good choosing a fabulously successful web designer if you can’t tolerate their company. It is worth paying for someone really good, and you may have to chat them up a bit; offering them a percentage of sales might be an adequate incentive.

By Natalie Catchpole

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