Posts Tagged ‘E-Commerce and E-Business’
Reach Out and Touch - Selling Clothing Online
Friday, September 19th, 2008
"There will never be a significant clothing market online," I was once told by a leading Scottish fashion journalist. "People don’t want to buy clothes unless they can reach out and touch them."
In fact, tens of thousands of items of clothing, both new and used, are traded on eBay every week. Though there are other specialist clothing auction sites available, none of them can guarantee anything like as many potential customers. Whether you represent a clothing company or are a private individual wanting to make some money out of old garments which no longer fit, eBay will often be your best bet. Along with all those customers, however, comes all that competition. How can you make your item stand out? How can you make a potential customer feel as if he or she can reach out and touch it?
I am continually amazed to see items of clothing advertised on eBay without accompanying pictures. Such items hardly ever sell. Why would they? Unless you’re selling a designer piece which everybody in your market niche is familiar with (in which case you should be promoting it as much as possible in order to encourage high bidding), people will be buying blind. Customers need to be able to imagine how they or their loved ones will look in the clothes they buy. The clothes must be presented clearly, in a good light. If an item has unusual features at the front and back, it may be wise to include several pictures. You can compound your pictures into a single image if you want to avoid paying extra fees. Consider whether the item looks best in a static pose or when moving - for instance, a full skirt should be drawn outward so that the customer can see how much fabric it contains, and giving the impression that it’s swinging outward helps the customer to imagine how it will look when she’s walking around in it.
It’s important to portray items of clothing in the right setting. Designer wear often looks best in a plain studio photograph, because that’s how it is intended to be seen. Fashionable urban wear can look good shot against the backdrop of a busy street or a window view of a city. Practical outdoor wear might be best photographed in your garden. This helps customers to think about the image which the clothing can give them, even if they don’t intend it to be worn in those environments.
Finally, when you have described the color and style of your garment, don’t forget about the texture. Texture is an important factor in many people’s purchasing choices. Make sure you identify the fabric accurately and any special features (such as whether it is crushed or pleated). Close-up photos can be used to highlight attractive details.
Properly packaged, your eBay item can seem every bit as appealing as a beautiful piece of clothing on the catwalk or in a high street store.
Tags: E-Commerce and E-Business, Marketing, Web Design, wholesale clothing
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How To: Establish Trust With an Online Buyer
Friday, September 12th, 2008
Without a doubt, the number one obstacle to running a successful online business is getting potential buyers to trust your website enough that they are willing to make a purchase.
Let’s be really honest; there are plenty of steps involved with the purchase and receipt of any online product from the release of a credit card number to final delivery - and potential customers will worry about every single one of these areas when it comes to making a purchase from a business they have not used in the past.
About Branding
There is a lot of competition in online sales out there, and some of it is from well-recognized companies that have their own names to create the kind of trust you need from your visitors.
So that is your first step to establishing that trust with customers on your site; build yourself an identity. This step is more popularly known today as branding, and it extends to everything your business does, from the site layout to slogans to a nice looking logo.
Everything you put out needs to look professional and great, or your first impression on a visitor might be the last.
Guard Your Reputation
Next, you have to make sure that you know what is being said about you. Business can be dirty business sometimes, and with the amount of online competition there is no guarantee that yours will play fair.
It is easy enough to go into consumer forums and make false posts about businesses, so make sure that you are doing your own search engine inquiries about your business to have a look at what’s being said.
If you do encounter negative feedback, defend your business honestly and don’t jump to conclusions; try to track down the source of the complaint on your end and remedy the situation, and then post that you have done so.
Social Media Concerns
In the Web 2.0 World, you also have to be very careful about the way you present yourself when on a message board, posting a video to YouTube, on Facebook, and so on.
Most of us are using social media to extend awareness of our businesses, but people can get the wrong impression according to how you conduct yourself. If they don’t like how they see you as a person, odds are that you won’t have their trust, and you even run the risk of them discouraging others from using your business.
Finally, the best way to establish trust with your online customers is to provide them with honest, prompt service and delivery. No customer should ever have to contact you about the delivery of a product.
Instead, be proactive and contact them to inquire about whether or not they have received what they bought, the condition it was in, and so on. This is a great way not only to gain repeat business but to gain testimonials, which are another important tool when it comes to gaining the trust of online customers.
Tags: branding, customer service, E-Commerce and E-Business, establish trust, how to, Leeia Ladipoh, online shopping, online transactions, reputation, Sales, social media, web 2.0
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Humanizing Your Website
Wednesday, July 9th, 2008
One of the biggest problems online marketers face is grabbing the attention of surfers. The second is building instant trust between the surfer and the website. The latter sounds practically impossible but new technology has once again prevailed and brought us one step closer to the goal.
Perhaps you’ve seen it and perhaps you haven’t. Regardless, it’s making a splash in the online advertising/marketing community. What is it? (drum roll please…)
Moving media.
The principle is to place a "live host" on your website that will greet your customers and personally introduce your site and company. The humanized video makes for a far more personalized feel to your site and establishes a sense of trust worthiness and credibility. Many large companies are jumping on the bandwagon and from everything I’ve heard, people seem to think it’s a pretty cool thing.
Two companies appear to have the market cornered on creating and delivering this service. Rovion and Webouts offer the same things essentially however, Webouts appears to be different in that their video person can enter from any direction on your website while Rovion’s are apparently stationary.
The companies allow you to produce your own creative but also have their own teams that can work with you to produce the desired result. The clips can be up to 30 seconds long and Rovion’s starting price for a small campaign is $2,500.
Check out Rovion and Webouts for examples and more information.
Tags: advertising, E-Commerce and E-Business, Marketing, Marketing Your Business, moving media, online marketing, Rebecca Button, websites
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Viral Marketing Gone Right…on accident…sort of.
Monday, July 7th, 2008
This video has had 3.5 million+ hits in the past month.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SqJz0NgnnE
The ad was designed to be a part of a viral marketing campaign for Gatorade. The ad was pulled however when Gatorade decided it wanted to pursue a different direction with it’s marketing campaign but somehow the video still leaked out and to Gatorade’s great fortune, they got to see just how successful the campaign might have been.
Granted, Gatorade has millions of dollars it can spend on stunt girls and fancy video editing but no amount of money can buy the phenomenal reach their video has had online. It goes to show that if your video is worth watching, people will watch it and spread it around whether they know what it’s for or not. This is the "word of mouth " marketer’s dream come true. I bet the folks at Gatorade are kicking themselves now for not attaching a bigger logo to the end of the clip!
Tags: E-Commerce and E-Business, Marketing, Marketing Your Business, online marketing, Rebecca Button, viral marketing, viral video, word of mouth, word of mouth marketing
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Sta.rtUp.Biz: A Promising New Social Network
Thursday, July 3rd, 2008
Move over Facebook. Watch out MySpace. There’s a new kid in town.
Aside from the less than convenient domain name, Sta.rtUp.Biz appears to be a social network above the rest (as far as small businesses should be concerned). With a slick and stylized presentation this social network seems to have it all. From creating your own profile and connecting with other business owners to an impressive resource offering, this site is bound to give it’s members everything they could possibly want all in one place. Their articles section traverses the top business magazines online including Fortune, BusinessWeek, and Entreprenuer. They’ve got forums, blogs and videos as well as free business tools and free advice from experts.
Check it out. And if you are a member please let us know what you think about it. Does it live up to it’s flashy presentation?
Tags: E-Commerce and E-Business, networking, Rebecca Button, small business, social network, social networking, Starting a Business, startups
Posted in News & Articles | 1 Comment »
Move Over Tony Soprano: Organized Retail Crime on the Rise
Wednesday, June 4th, 2008
A recent study released by the National Retail Federation reports that the number of businesses victimized in the past 12 months is up from 79% in 2007 to 85% so far in 2008. More and more businesses are seeing their stolen merchandise popping up for sale in other locations (the internet clearly being one of the most prevalent places).
E-fencing is quickly becoming the primary modus operandi for thieves as they can resell the stolen merchandise anonymously without raising any eyebrows. One of the most important findings is how much "new in box" items are worth to the criminals. These items can render up to 70 cents on the dollar whereas traditional black market methods only render around 30 cents. This means "new in box" products are being stolen at a higher rate than ever. Loss prevention respondents estimate that nearly 40% of current "new in box" items for sale on auction sites is stolen.
The survey’s conclusion sites training and awareness, utilizing exsisting relationships among trade associations and the government and communication/advocacy as solutions to help reduce this trend. To read the full report, click here .
Tags: E-Commerce and E-Business, e-fencing, news, organize retial crime, Rebecca Button, retail theft, stolen merchandise, survey
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How Well does eBay’s Best Match Feature Stack Up?
Thursday, May 29th, 2008
On March 3rd Ebay launched a few new features. One of these was Best Match. Has this addition helped or hurt their business? Let’s take a look and find out.
Now when you log onto eBay and search for an item, instead of getting several thousand items that only match the words you type in, you get millions of items that all have the keywords you typed in - some not having anything to do with the item you are searching for.
Best Match - Changes Made
Along with the best match feature, they also made changes to their feedback system. For the past ten years, you could be honest about your experience on eBay.
You could give a positive, neutral, or negative feedback to a person or business, depending on how well you felt you were treated after a purchase or sale. Now, you can only give positive feedback to anyone you make a purchase from.
That means even if you were to get ripped off, or never get your item, you still have to leave positive feedback.
Search Results Changes
eBay also changed the way search results are displayed. Now, the higher your feedback score, the higher your auction will be displayed when someone searches for products, instead of the way it used to be.
In the past, this feature would display search results from the auction ending the soonest to auctions with more time. Now, if you have a 99% feedback rating, your auctions will be listed higher than someone who has a 95% feedback score.
This has many of eBay’s top sellers thinking of finding a new place to sell their items. The longer a person or business has been a member on eBay the more they have dealt with people and developed a feedback score. Sometimes, no matter how much you try, you just cannot satisfy everyone - so the ones that are not satisfied may leave a negative feedback.
This can impact your score, and put your auctions at the end of the search results.
The Bottom Line - Better or Worse?
With your items at the bottom of the search list, you have to find ways of getting your auctions noticed. You can sell your products for a lower price, but you still have to make a profit.
You would have to get your merchandise way below wholesale to sell below wholesale and make a profit. Also, don’t forget that eBay will get 10-20% just for you selling on their site. Since the changes were made in early March, many eBay sellers have been losing more money than they are making.
With some of their top sellers looking for other places to sell their items, eBay has to be asking themselves if these changes were a wise move, or if they took something that was working well and made unnecessary changes that will cause them to lose business.
Tags: E-Commerce and E-Business, ebay, eBay Edge, ebay seller, Leeia Ladipoh
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Breaking E-Mail Marketing News: CAN-SPAM Act Update
Tuesday, May 20th, 2008
The Federal Trade Commission announced in a press release today that it will soon be publishing clarifications to the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. The following topics are to be addressed:
(1) an e-mail recipient cannot be required to pay a fee, provide information other than his or her e-mail address and opt-out preferences, or take any steps other than sending a reply e-mail message or visiting a single Internet Web page to opt out of receiving future e-mail from a sender.
(2) the definition of “sender” was modified to make it easier to determine which of multiple parties advertising in a single e-mail message is responsible for complying with the Act’s opt-out requirements.
(3) a “sender” of commercial e-mail can include an accurately-registered post office box or private mailbox established under United States Postal Service regulations to satisfy the Act’s requirement that a commercial e-mail display a “valid physical postal address.”
(4) a definition of the term “person” was added to clarify that CAN-SPAM’s obligations are not limited to natural persons.
Keep your eyes peeled for it. The good news is that if you are already conducting an ethical email marketing campaign, these specifications should not affect you one way or another. If not, you may want to revise your strategy. For some guidance, check out Keeping Your E-Mail Campaigns Legal .
Tags: CAN-SPAM, E-Commerce and E-Business, email marketing, law, legal, legislation, Marketing, Marketing Your Business, news, Rebecca Button
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Twitter Schmitter
Monday, May 19th, 2008
I have beef with Twitter. To me, it’s an oddly socially accepted and encouraged form of stalking where the "victims" volunteer themselves.
Aside from the creepy factor, from its inception I have never really understood how thousands of people #1 care so much about what other people are doing that they would subscribe to and check instant updates via a personal feed, and #2 that said number of people actually believe that that many OTHER people care enough about their minute happenings so much that they’d consistently update these feeds.
Twitter’s usefulness has long been debated and I have clearly chosen sides. But I can’t argue with the fact that Twitter’s traffic numbers have nearly doubled in recent months . Looks like more and more people from my side are hopping the fence to join the other "volunteer victims" and "stalkers"…traitors…
Okay, perhaps I’m being a bit harsh on Twitter. But I really don’t see how it can keep up it’s stamina? Sooner or later, it’s going to loose steam right? After all, not everyone can keep up with everyone to that degree all the time and still make actual useful contributions to mankind…can they? Heck, I have enough trouble keeping up with my MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts!
Here’s how I see Twitter succeeding: in the business world. While people can really care less what their best friend ate for lunch today, they might really care what lunch specials their favorite restaurant is having. And while they might ignore that their little brother just beat Grand Theft Auto 4, they might really want to know that Best Buy is putting the game on sale for the next 12 hours for 50% off (that would REALLY be worth "tweeting" about don’t you think?).
If that’s the future of Twitter, sign me up. Otherwise, count me out.
Do you think businesses will be Twitter’s savior or am I completely off my rocker?
Tags: Business, E-Commerce and E-Business, facebook, linkedin, myspace, Rebecca Button, social networking, twitter
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Comment Etiquette - Say What?
Wednesday, May 7th, 2008
If you are in any way involved in a blog you know that positive comments are awesome, negative comments are…well, good for balanced feedback and spam comments are downright infuriating. Its the latter variety that this post is about.
You know them when you see them. Sometimes they are blatant, "Great blog! Visit my site www.bestsiteintheworld.com!"
Sometimes they are incoherent, "Greek should thy savage health insurance agents make light business contact manager windows mobile wheat." (Whaaa?)
But most of the time, they are a little sneakier than that (in response to one of my Valentine’s Day Trend Alert posts), "Its true! We sell more Heart Valentines Day Votive candles on blacktaisaltco.com months after V Day. The Pure Himalayan Salt Lamps and regular Crystal Salt Votive candle holders sell during valentines day… most people send them to themselves as presents and not to anyone else… we had a questionnaire…proves our point."
Yeah…so clearly, that’s marketing at work but because it was relevant to the blog post I felt inclined to allow it. And it didn’t make me feel very good either. It got me wondering if there is any sort of formal comment etiquette out there that would help marketers who are posting these comments to get what they want and not tick off bloggers?
My research led me to a SmallBusinessNewz.com article on the subject. The article’s author Chris Crum writes about how each blogger generally makes up their own policy regarding comments. There is quite a range from very lenient to very strict and not all of them are made known to commenters/readers. He links to Daria Black’s The Blogger’s Guide to Comment Etiquette which outlines guidelines the average blogger uses. Be sure to pay heed to number 1 on the list (it IS number 1 for a reason ya know…).
Tags: Blog, bloggers, blogging, comment etiquette, comments, E-Commerce and E-Business, Marketing, Marketing Your Business, Rebecca Button, spam
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