Archive for the ‘shopping carts’ Category

10 Years of Shopping Cart Wisdom

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

Words: Greg Cromwell
Editing: Kaleigh Wisman (note it has not been edited yet)
Images: Nighean O’Brien/Jon Sturge (waiting for some)
Embellishment: Andrew Bleakley (coming soon)

After a decade of selling online you forget just how much you know and have learned about ecommerce. It all started back in the mid 90’s with a little boot company that sold slip on boots from Australia: blundstone and R.M. Williams. My partner Ian had a friend who was very clever with computers and he built us a custom shopping cart for our boot retailing business, thanks Brad Sellors from Infinite Media (caution this website has loud music that automatically starts when you got to their website) for getting us started and sorry for being such a Bad Client Brad.

One of my other partners at the time was excited about the prospect of actually making money from the internet. I remember his comment “the only net I want is one out in front of our shop to catch customers in.” Well Jimbo the dream has come true and our ten years of selling online has almost brought in as much money as a bricks and mortar store in small town anywhere would have and at a fraction of the cost of opening and operating a physical store.

After 10 years and over $1,000,000 dollars in online sales here is a list of a few things we have learned:

1) Start with a spreadsheet: get your products, prices and descriptions sorted before you even think about the technology you are going to use to sell online. Heck scrap the spreadsheet and write it all down on a piece of graph paper.

2) Remember mail order? Selling online is just like running a mail order business the only difference is you don’t have to print out and mail out catalogues. And just like mail order you will most often be putting your product in the mail to get it to your customer.

3) Break your budget into 3 equal parts: design, technology and promotion.

4) Keep it simple to start and start selling as quick as you can so you know what you are getting into.

5) Price. Price. Price. Research what you have to offer online to see if anyone else is selling what you have and if they are whats’ the price. Suggest you check on ebay too.

6) Speaking of ebay. Start your online selling with an ebay shop. Cheap. Easy to setup and you have instant access to potential customers.

7) Paypal is your pal. Getting set up to take credit cards gets expensive and complicated. With paypal you can take peoples money online safely, securely and almost instantly.

8) Melt some plastic and write it off as research. Buy from other online shops that are selling what you intend to sell or something similar. This will give you an idea of the sort of shopping experience you want and in many cases don’t want.

9) Be friendly.

10) Whatever your time frame and budget are triple it and then divide by 3 to get your preliminary shop up and running. Keep the rest in the bank for further investment once you are convinced that your shopping cart is going to provide you with a return on your investment.

Links to some of the carts we have designed, developed and promoted

australianboot.com
elnaturalista.ca
presso.com
greencauldron.com
heartofthebay.com.au
heartoftheearth.com.au

Other Shopping Cart Resource Links

paypal.com
xcart.com
shopify.com
interspire.com
magento

Posted in ecommerce, selling online, shopping carts | No Comments »

The Price is Right

Wednesday, January 30th, 2008

Bob Barker, a hero of my youth, from the popular game show The Price Right, had it right when it comes to selling online. If you want to sell products or services on the internet you need to be sure you have your pricing right. Your shopping cart cash register will run silent if you are not offering the best price online.

When clients come to us looking to cash in on the world of buyers on the WWW I often suggest that they test out their offering on ebay first. This sobering strategy has helped Bush Marketing’s clients realise the realities of price sensitivity on the internet and thus saved them $1,000s on investing in a shopping cart and the long list of ancillary expenditures like payment gateways.

Here is a good news Online getting the Price Right story. Tin Shack, one of our longstanding clients, have been selling products over the internet since the mid 90’s. One of their latest fashion footwear brands El Naturalista was in need of an outlet for selling styles from previous year’s ranges. In fashion footwear it’s all about the latest styles. To test the waters we deployed a cost effective shopping cart solution called Shopify. Up the shop went in record time and with minimal expense. We just waited for the sales to come in. And waited. And Waited. Nothing. No Sales. Lots of visitors to the shop but nobody was buying. Why? We did not have the Price Right. Two days ago we changed the prices. Since then they have had orders daily.

Thanks Bob Barker. You are right.

Posted in el naturalista, elnaturalista, selling online, shopify, shopping carts | No Comments »