Lessons from the ecommerce trenches
Davis
One of the amazing things about technology is how it can make very complicated tasks seem incredibly simple. That's definitely true when it comes to ecommerce. Log on to Amazon, and you can buy something within seconds. Of course, what you don't see are the thousands of Amazon programmers who worked to make that process seem so simple.
And therein lies the challenge of selling online. The big guys in the space have become so good that it raises the bar for everyone, including the smallest businesses that are just getting started. I talked to some local experts to get their advice for anyone thinking of entering the ecommerce world for the first time.
Hard lessons in hardware
When Westminster-based Aubuchon Hardware got into the ecommerce game, they were pretty much the only show online selling hardware. And that was great for the company for a long time, according to Will Aubuchon, vice president of sales and marketing for the company and a fourth-generation member of the Aubuchon clan to work for the company.
As an early entrant to selling online, Aubuchon initially benefited from strong organic search, meaning the company's website — hardwarestore.com — came up at the top of search engines for most relevant terms. In fact, the company's organic search was so good, the company was “sort of drunk” from the success, Aubuchon admits.
As the years wore on and more — and bigger — players started selling online, Aubuchon's place at the top of the rankings fell dramatically. The lesson from that hangover? Aubuchon recommends that anyone entering ecommerce make sure the business plan relies on more than just good SEO (search engine optimization).
“Your growth projections can't be based on the success of SEO alone,” he said. “Paid search and repeat business have to be part of the plan.”
The other key lesson Aubuchon shared is that ecommerce takes resources.
“It's a significant investment,” he said of ecommerce sites. “You kind of get lulled into thinking, 'Oh, I can just get an ecommerce site. It's only 10 bucks a month. It's going to be so easy.' But underneath that, there needs to be a significant investment on the back end for something as simple as order management.”
And the other side of the income statement has to be realistic with revenue projections. Aubuchon's Internet business delivers 3 to 5 percent of total revenue, which is in line with most brick-and-mortar businesses that have online sales.
The experience at Worcester-based Checkerboard Ltd. was relatively similar. Checkerboard has two web portals — einvite.com for the general public and checkernet.com for its retail shop customers — that sell high-end stationery and invitations. Like Aubuchon, the company was early to selling online and built its own ecommerce system. That has resulted in growing pains over the years, according to its CEO, Micah Chase.
The company found additional revenue by selling its custom ecommerce platform to retail customers and even some competitors. That couldn't have been possible without having internal web developers, programmers and a room full of servers. But today, the business model is changing: It's cheaper to rent server time from providers like Amazon, and there are many ready-made ecommerce platforms ready to plug into your website.
For anyone entering the ecommerce game today, Chase recommends considering some of those third-party tools, rather than build tools from scratch. But while it's worked for Checkerboard, it hasn't been cheap.
The other key takeaway from Chase is the importance of the user experience. In fact, Chase calls website usability his passion.
If the average online consumer “can't figure (your website) out in two seconds, they're going to move on to another competitor.”
To address that, Checkerboard does extensive usability studies by bringing in actual customers who plan to buy their product and watch from behind a one-way mirror as they start their online search. It's expensive to do that level of research, but the lessons are invaluable, according to Chase.
Things to keep in mind
Nathan Harris, at New Perspective Web Solutions, has pretty basic advice for anyone considering entering the ecommerce game: Create a strategy, then be prepared to invest both money and time.
“It takes a commitment to the planning and managing (of) the minutiae and it's not really everyone's bag,” Harris said.
That's why it's important to bring in a web developer whom you trust and has experience.
“It's a lot of work to take someone's business and put it online,” he said. A good web developer, he added, will know the pluses and minuses of various ecommerce platforms, and will also be familiar with all the minutiae, including issues like site load time, lead generation and email receipt deliverability.
That's also why Harris sometimes steers smaller businesses toward sales channels like Etsy, which enable micro-businesses to sell their craft goods online with a very easy-to-use online platform. Solutions like Etsy can help get a small entrepreneur off the ground, and can be a great first step into the world of online selling, according to Harris.
Read more
Thinking Of Buying An Email List? Think Again
HealthCare.gov Lessons: Picking An IT Consultant
Where To Focus Your Social Media Efforts? A Demographic Guide
Things to consider before your next virtual meeting
Does social media really make a difference in sales?
The annual rant: Tech gripes that hurt me more than they hurt you
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments