How to Run a Successful E-Commerce Business
An e-commerce business involves selling products and/or services to the people who visit an Internet site. This type of business ranges from a retail apparel store that sells men's and women's clothing to a digital goods store that sells only e-books in digital formats. Retail e-commerce sales in the United States stood at $35.9 billion during the fourth quarter of 2009, according to the Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce.
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Instructions
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Identify a target market for the products and/or services to sell. Figure out the characteristics of the population that is to be targeted. Match these characteristics to products in which the market would be interested. For example, the stay-at-home-mom population may be interested in household products. College students may be interested in fashion, clothing, and pop music.
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Set up your e-commerce site using shopping cart software to organize the products being sold. Examples of shopping carts include Zen Cart, osCommerce, BigCommerce, and Volusion. Integrate all the available payment gateways, such as PayPal and Google Checkout, so that you can accept major credit cards and other online currency payment options.
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Offer special discounts and sales to your e-commerce business visitors. Create special discounts for first-time buyers and repeat buyers to foster the customer-business relationship. Create sales on certain days to promote specific items in your e-commerce business and to attract buyers.
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Provide customer service to customers from beginning to end of the ordering experience. Add a trouble ticket system to the website so that site visitors can let you know when problems arise. Consider creating a special "live" chat box on the website to provide immediate help to e-commerce business visitors that may be browsing the site or have questions about products or services.
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Develop a marketing strategy to advertise the business and bring in new customers. Advertise on forums and other websites where the target market surfs online. Use pay-per-click advertising such as Google Adwords to drive traffic to the website. Ask blog owners to make a post about your e-commerce business. Create a blog on your e-commerce business' website to discuss important announcements about your business and to "connect" with customers by blogging about interesting topics related to the target market.
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Review the products and services your e-commerce business offers on a regular basis. Decide if there are other products that can be sold that are not being offered. Adding the latest products or giving more value may help keep customers coming back and entice those who are unsure.
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