E-commerce

History

The meaning of the term "electronic commerce" has changed over the last 30 years. Originally, "electronic commerce" meant the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically, usually using technology like Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT), where both were introduced in the late 1970s, for example, to send commercial documents like purchase orders or invoices electronically.The 'electronic' or 'e' in e-commerce refers to the technology/systems; the 'commerce' refers to be traditional business models. E-commerce is the complete set of processes that support commercial business activities on a network. In the 1970s and 1980s, this would also have involved information analysis. The growth and acceptance of credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM) and telephone banking in the 1980s were also forms of e-commerce. However, from the 1990s onwards, this would include enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data mining and data warehousing.In the dot com era, it came to include activities more precisely termed "Web commerce" -- the purchase of goods and services over the World Wide Web, usually with secure connections (HTTPS, a special server protocol that encrypts confidential ordering data for customer protection) with e-shopping carts and with electronic payment services, like credit card payment authorizations.Today, it encompasses a very wide range of business activities and processes, from e-banking to offshore manufacturing to e-logistics. The ever growing dependence of modern industries on electronically enabled business processes gave impetus to the growth and development of supporting systems, including backend systems, applications and middleware. Examples are broadband and fibre-optic networks, supply-chain management software, customer relationship management software, inventory control systems and financial accounting software.When the Web first became well-known among the general public in 1994, many journalists and pundits forecast that e-commerce would soon become a major economic sector. However, it took about four years for security protocols (like HTTPS) to become sufficiently developed and widely deployed. Subsequently, between 1998 and 2000, a substantial number of businesses in the United States and Western Europe developed rudimentary web sites.Although a large number of "pure e-commerce" companies disappeared during the dot-com collapse in 2000 and 2001, many "brick-and-mortar" retailers recognized that such companies had identified valuable niche markets and began to add e-commerce capabilities to their Web sites. For example, after the collapse of online grocer Webvan, two traditional supermarket chains, Albertsons and Safeway, both started e-commerce subsidiaries through which consumers could order groceries online.The emergence of e-commerce also significantly lowered barriers to entry in the selling of many types of goods; accordingly many small home-based proprietors are able to use the internet to sell goods. Often, small sellers use online auction sites such as EBay, or sell via large corporate websites like Amazon.com, in order to take advantage of the exposure and setup convenience of such sites.

In-Store Pickup and Store Locator Usability

Guess what? People like to shop online (or by cellphone) and pick up in-store. We all love research to back up our theories, so here goes:

“Jupiter Research states that 51% of consumers are researching on the Internet and then completing their purchases offline; online research influences more than $400 billion of in-store sales and projections call for that sum to surpass $1.1 trillion by 2012.

A Gartner Group study reveals 68% of consumers are comparing prices online before shopping in a physical store and 58% locate items online before going to a store to purchase; only 13% say the Internet has not improved their in-store shopping experience.”

Source:http://www.getelastic.com/

Is Your Store Losing Natural Rankings?

Over the past few months you may have noticed your store dropping in the natural rankings. If you are, you're not alone. We've heard from several clients who have recently found their pages slowly slipping into the supplemental index.
A recent design change, upgrade or redesign should not cause your pages to move into supplemental, but lack of unique content would. It is one of the most common mistakes that merchants make. Many of you are still using manufacturer supplied descriptions, descriptions from another store or information found somewhere else. Don't expect to rank well if you continue to use any of these.
Here are some ways in which you can improve your rankings and get your store out of the supplemental index:
Write
WRITE
WRITE
It may seem like a daunting task, but it can be done. Start with your homepage by adding information about the products you are selling and include major search terms that are related to the product categories. Next, move to your high level section pages and write as much information about the type of products/sub-sections people will find in this category and include relevant any keywords. Continue on to your sub-sections, taking one at a time, and add as much information that you can think of. Don't be afraid to look at similar websites to get some ideas, but avoid copying them outright. (Sometimes it's just too easy)
One of the many hidden gems is to add content to your informational pages, with a lot of keyword rich text and links, without impeding the important contact information.
Last but not least, take a deep breath, rewrite your product descriptions. Depending on the number of products that you have this could be a daunting task, but will be well worth your time in the long run.
PS - Don't ignore important factors such as Title Tags and Meta Descriptions making sure that they are unique on each and every page. If you don't have any, get them! Custom copy is best, but there are many dynamic SEO templates for your Yahoo! Store to help get you started.
PPS - Almost all of these changes can be done in a CSV and uploaded at a later date. Keep that in mind as you plan your next steps.

Source: http://blog.solidcactus.com/

Keeping Your Customer’s Trust - What NOT to Do

I try to make the majority of my purchases from stores that I trust. If, in the past, a site has offered consistently good customer service, fair prices and products that I need (or enjoy), then I’ll come back to buy again and again. Doing something to tarnish that trust, however, assures that I (and the average consumer) won’t be coming back anytime soon. Transgressions of this sort can include lying about a shipping error and refusing to correct it, dismissing valid customer services inquiries or, as Blockbuster.com demonstrated last week, raising your prices and sending customer notification after it’s too late to change services.
The Consumerist reports that Blockbuster’s customers received notification of a price change in an e-mail after the fact… what’s worse is that the e-mail warned customers to “keep in mind that if you want to change your subscription plan at any point after July 26, 2007, your new plan will be subject to prices and terms available at that time.” Since it was sent on the 27th, they conveniently voiding this option for anyone reading the e-mail.
I don’t doubt that this terrible example of customer service has resulted in more than a few cancellations today. Always keep in mind how much your customer’s trust is worth, and do everything that you can to keep it intact. A good reputation is much easier to lose than a bad one, and customer trust is hard to win back. If you make a mistake, try to correct it by immediately owning up to what happened, and offering incentives to try smooth over any bad taste left in your customer’s mouth. Maintain this trust, and you’ll see customers returning again and again.

Source: http://www.varien.com/blog/