According to comScore, On Black Friday in 2011, online shoppers spent $816 million dollars, a 26 percent increase from the year before. This data illustrates how comfortable consumers are becoming with online shopping and credit card transactions.
Do you want to tap into the ever-growing e-commerce market by selling your products or services online? If you are looking to conduct more online sales and make the process as easy and secure as possible, here are some tips for jump-starting your e-commerce business.
Buy Software or Use a Shopping Cart
The first decision e-commerce customers need to make is whether to buy an all-inclusive hosted e-commerce package from a third party company or to create a custom solution using a number of different software tools. A shopping cart feature can be added onto your existing website by a web development company. The all-inclusive e-commerce platform is normally associated with monthly fees, while a shopping cart software solution can be a one-time expense. Consult with a web developer or online marketing professional before deciding which solution is right for you.
Offer A Variety of Payment Options
When evaluating e-commerce solutions, look for software that allows you to process every type of major credit. This helps your company to cast a wider net and allows customers to use their payment method of choice. For those customers who want to pay without a credit card, consider integrating PayPal into your checkout system as well. To protect your customer’s information, a leading credit card processing solution will include the latest encryption and security features.
Add Photographs and Optimize
Professional product photographs may help to drive online sales. These photos can be indexed by shopping aggregators such as Google’s shopping feature, and offered to customers who are using a search engine to comparison shop. You can also work with an internet marketing firm to optimize your e-commerce product photographs and text descriptions, so that your offerings will more frequently show up in relevant Google searches.
If you’re an Arizona business looking to jump into e-commerce, then contact the web design and internet marketing experts at Anchor Wave in Tucson. Our team of web designers and marketers can help to take your e-commerce sales to the next level. Get in touch today at (520) 622-3731.
