The Online Shop Designer Blog

You run a business, you sell products and you have a “web site“. Maybe that’s the problem!

Without a doubt I think the single most important thing associated with managing a small business web site that sells products or services is the mindset that is adopted by those responsible for its growth and development. If it is perceived as a “web site” then that is exactly what it will be. A poorly defined thing with little or no focus.

A “shop” on the other hand has far more focus. We all intuitively understand that a shop:

• is accessed by visiting a published address
• entry will not be a problem
• the stock on display will be labelled, priced and available
• and there will be a range of payment options.

How does this help us manage an online shop? Now that we are thinking “online shop” not “web site” it is easy to extrapolate basic customer expectations.

For example: customers visiting your online shop will expect many of the things they have been conditioned to expect in “bricks and mortar” shops. They will expect to be able to move around easily to find what they are looking for, and when they do, they will expect it to be displayed to its best advantage with pricing and any option details clearly marked. In other words, they will expect sufficient information to be able to make a purchasing decision.

But as any “bricks and mortar” retailer will tell you, it goes a little deeper that that. Customers will also expect the online shop to have an ambience that supports the product range, help when they need it and excellent after sales service … and that is just for starters!

Do you begin to see how much easier it is to anticipate what customers will expect when you think of an online shop rather than a web site? It is simply a matter of extrapolating what we all expect when visiting a “bricks and mortar” shop. What follows of course is that that the online shop manager must ensure that all those things are where they are wanted, when they are wanted and are fully functional. It is quite unacceptable for instance for a customer to visit an online shop only to find that access is denied, information is missing, navigation and signage is inconsistent, prices are incorrect or the checkout system is faulty (or worse) insecure.

One parting comment: when was the last time you visited a shop, at intervals over a period of several months, without a single thing ever changing? And yet we have all seen it in an online shop haven’t we. Perhaps the owner thinks he is managing a web site …

Yes, as far as your Online Shop is concerned, your images really are everything.

In fact your images are often the single most important factor affecting your potential customer’s decision to buy. Aside from the images you present, all your customer has is a basic description and price . . . so they had better be good!

And by “good”, I don’t just mean high quality. That should be a given. Rather, I mean that they should be carefully selected and presented to tell a story.

Typically I suggest you consider having the following images incorporated:

• a thumbnail for convenient item viewing and selection at the category level. This should be a small replica of your standard image.
• a standard image that shows a full view of the product.
• an enlargement that either shows a larger version of the standard image, a larger version shot from a different angle, or a close-up of a particular feature.
• an “in use” image. This could be a woman modeling a handbag, or a frypan cooking a delicious meal.

Note that the first three essentially allow the customer to see the features, while the last one shows the benefits: in these examples how stylish you could look swinging the handbag, or what wonderful meals you could cook with the frypan.

The bottom line?

Features describe – benefits sell!

For a good example of how this can be done well have a look at an Online Shop I completed for Eurolux Australia The quality of the images I was supplied with were excellent, but more importantly the range of images told the whole story – features and benefits. Just look at the shots of the meals cooking in the frypans. You can almost smell them!

In doing a little research for this article I found that the most depressing thing were the statistics on the upsurge of SPAM emails. So I will spare you from repeating the obvious. Sadly, we are all too well aware that SPAM is a problem. Instead, here are some practical suggestions . . .

• Try as far as is possible to protect your Email address at it’s source. By this I mean that if you publish your email address on your web site, make sure that it is masked (encrypted) from “SpamBots”. These are spiders that visit uninvited for the sole purpose of scraping off any email addresses they find. You can’t stop them visiting but you can determine what they do or don’t find! Email addresses are now encoded (masked) as a matter of course on all new web sites created by TOSD. If you would like to do this yourself visit www.addressmunger.com
• If you have email addresses out there that have been collecting way too much Spam then it may be time to consider changing them. Yes, I know it is a hassle, but think of the relief! You should also ensure that Spam Assassin or similar has been enabled on your hosting account. These server based spam filters are very effective. If you are unsure how to check this drop me a line and I will be happy to assist.
• Consider whether you are happy with the anti-spam capabilities of the email client (application) you are currently using on your PC. Don’t know what they are? Make a point of finding out. It can be well worth the effort. Any good email client should at least have spam filtering capabilities that “learn” over time. For this to work you need to mark Emails in the initial stages as spam(junk), or not spam. The resulting database is then used to filter future incoming Email.  “The Bat!” is a good email client that  has an added feature called the Mail Dispatcher. This is a pop up window that displays the headers of all incoming mail and gives you the opportunity of deleting it from the server before they are downloaded to your PC. Mozilla Thunderbird is also another Email client with good security features that include Junk Mail filtering and Anti-Phishing protection (Phishing is the name used to describe Emails that purport to look like they are from legitimate trusted companies e.g. banks, and often try to extract private information).

I have been asked the question on a couple of occasions lately whether the web site of an Australian company will be returned in Google search results if it has a [.com] domain name. Tricky question …

As near as I can make it the information I found in a Search Engine Watch forum seems to sum up the situation fairly well. Here is a summary:

• Host in a particular country, you’ll almost certainly be seen as related to that country. So, host your .com or .au site physically in Australia, and you should be seen as Australian
• If you have a [.com.au] domain then even if you host in the US, you should still seem like an Australian site to Google.
• But what if you are an Australian site using .com? Then unfortunately, you’re stuck — the .com part doesn’t expressly say Australian, so chances are if you host in the US, you won’t be seen as Australian.
• Links  — if you have many backlinks from major Australian sites, then that might help you seem related. i.e. get sites that are known to be Australian to link to your site, and it might be seen as Australian. (seems a bit “iffy” this one doesn’t it?)

Sometimes I think the simple approach is the safest. If you are an Australian business selling primarily within Australia then use a “.com.au” domain. That way you will have no problems. In general of course so many product ranges are only viable within Australia simply because of the rather expensive overseas freight issue.

If you have any further information on this matter I would be happy to hear it. It is easy to imagine a situation where it could make or break a site owners marketing efforts.

Choosing a domain name can at times be every bit as tricky as choosing the name of your first born. Here are 5 top tips from TOSD:

1. Memorable and as short as possible beats long and descriptive every time.
2. A name connected to your products, services or business name is great as long as it doesn’t conflict too badly with (1) above.
3. Domain names with multiple words are fine, as long as the individual words are recognisable e.g. www.mapbrokers.com.au.
4. It is good to have a important keywords embedded in a domain name, but to be effective a search engine must be able to recognise them. Hyphens are the answer. e.g. www.map-brokers.com.au.
5. Don’t want to use a hyphen in advertising? Easy – set the hyphenated version to be the primary domain name attached to the hosting account and then piggy back the non hyphenated version on to it. To follow the example above www.map-brokers.com.au would be the primary domain while www.mapbrokers.com.au would be an add-on domain with a permanent re-direct to the primary domain.
6. Avoid names with words that seemingly run into each other e.g www.oneensignforall.com.au – I almost feel obliged to explain that this attempt at a domain name was intended to be “one ensign for all”. It just doesn’t visually stand out does it? The chances of people typing www.onesignforall.com.au would be just too high.
7. If you are operating within Australia, and your audience is primarily Australian, stick to a .com.au address – .net.au or .org.au if appropriate.

A final thought. With domain names, the name of the game – above all else – is to be memorable.

Good luck!