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Building Your Own Electronic Commerce Web Site
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Investigating the Opportunity
The Business Plan
Building or Acquiring a Website
Steps to Building a Website
Step 1: Selection of a Web Host
Web Hosting Option 1: Store Builder Service
Web Hosting Option 2: ISP Hosting
Web Hosting Option 3: A Pure Hosting Service
Evaluating Web Hosts
Step 2: Registering a Domain Name
Step 3: Preparing for Online Financial Transactions
Security Considerations
Step 4: Creating and Managing Content
Content Type and Criteria
Creating or Purchasing Content
Managing Content
Step 5: Designing the Web Site
Structure
Navigation
Consistency
Performance
Colors and Graphics
Step 6: Constructing, Testing and Monitoring the Web Site
Customer Relationship Management
Web Analytics
Step 7: Marketing and Promoting the Web Site
Search Engine Optimization
Internal Web Site Promotion
INTRODUCTION
Electronic commerce (EC) offers many benefits. You increase your reach beyond a physical location. With your Web site, you can reach customers who cannot visit a physical location because of distance or time. Further, your Web site gives you a global presence.
You also increase your hours of operation because your Web site is open 24/7/365. Further, you facilitate your marketing activities. Once you establish your Web site, visitors can come to your site to learn about your business and its products. Search engines can link prospects to your site. Depending on your site’s design, visitors can find information as well as communicate with you.
If you are considering launching an e-commerce Web site, you will find these resources useful:
· eCommerce Times (www.ecommercetimes.com)
· Ecommerce-Guide.com (www.ecommerce-guide.com)
· The eCommerce Guidebook (www.online-commerce.com)
· E-commerce tutorials, reports, and guides (www.ecominfocenter.com/index.html?page=/help/tutorials.html)
INVESTIGATING THE OPPORTUNITY
You must first evaluate your business and the market. Initially you should consider the plausibility of your new business. First, identify a consumer or business need in the marketplace. When you have an idea, you should see if there is a gap between what people need and what is available.
Second, investigate the opportunity. Here you will determine if a perceived opportunity actually exists. Is the idea feasible and will it be profitable? For example, online grocery shopping would seem to be a great opportunity – relieving busy professionals of the time-consuming task of visiting a grocery store. Many online grocery ventures have been tried (for example: NetGrocer, HomeGrocer, Webvan), but most have failed because they misjudged the logistical problems associated with grocery warehousing and delivery.
Third, determine your ability to establish your business and make it a success. Is this something you would love doing? Is your proposed business in an industry that you already know well? You must also be sure that you have the financial, time, managerial, and technical resources to start and continue your business. Also, do not allow the scope of your business to grow too large or “creep”, as you may lose sight of your original goals.
Another point that you must consider is the nature of your proposed product and/or service. Products that can be digitized (e.g., information, music, and software) sell well and can be delivered easily. Similarly, services (e.g., stock brokering and ticket sales) and commodities (e.g., books and CDs) have also been successful. In contrast, some products, such as expensive clothes, do not sell well. However, one of the greatest opportunities the Web offers is in niche marketing. Quirky sales ideas, such as antique Coke bottles (www.antiquebottles.com), gadgets for left-handed people (www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk), and gift ideas from Belize (www.belizenet.com) would rarely succeed in a physical storefront, but the Web offers you the opportunity to pursue such ideas and be successful.
There is another point that you should consider while contemplating an online business. You must understand the Web culture. Activities such as spam, extensive use of graphics, forced visitor registration, and intrusive pop-up browser windows are counter to the accepted norms of behavior on the Web and will turn visitors away.
THE BUSINESS PLAN
Your new online business needs at least an informal business plan. A business plan is a written document that identifies a company’s goals and outlines how the company intends to achieve those goals and at what cost. A business plan includes both strategic elements (e.g., mission statement, value proposition, and competitive positioning statement) and operational elements (e.g., operations plan, financial statements) of how your new business intends to operate.
Specifically, with e-business planning, you must recognize that the Web is unlike any other sales channel. The Web allows you to interact with consumers with both reach and richness and to distribute information extremely quickly and at very low cost. The Web also creates more bargaining power for customers and less bargaining power for suppliers (that is, you). Further, the Web creates greater opportunities for focusing on the customer through personalization of content, one-to-one marketing, and customer self-service. Therefore, the Web raises customer expectations. You must make the characteristics of the Web as a distribution channel part of your thinking and your business plan.
BUILDING OR ACQUIRING A WEBSITE
Every online business needs a Web site, which is the primary way any firm doing business on the Web advertises its products or services and attracts customers. For your purposes, you will typically build or outsource (have it built for you) a transactional Web site. Transactional Web sites sell products and services. They typically include information and interactivity features but also have features such as a shopping cart, a product catalog, a shipping calculator, and the ability to accept credit cards to complete the sale.
Building a Web site yourself can be a complicated process. Although it is fairly straight forward to put together a simple Web site using HTML, design software, or online templates, electronic commerce sites often require complex designs and security features that are beyond the skill level of a novice designer.
This Appendix presents the steps necessary to establish a Web site. After reading through the information, you will decide whether or not to construct your Web site or employ the services of a professional site designer. Your decision will be based upon your own personal abilities, resources, and the sophistication and level at which you would like your site to operate.
STEPS TO BUILDING A WEBSITE
Step 1: Selection of a Web host
One of the first decisions that an online business will face is where and how the Web site will be located on the Web. A site may be self-hosted (owned) or rented. Possible options for hosting include store builder services, ISP’s, or self hosting. Although many small businesses will build a stand-alone Web site, the site may also be included in a virtual shopping mall, such as www.activeplaza.com or www.godaddy.com, or hosted in a collection of independent storefronts, as at Yahoo (http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com).
An online mall or Web mall is a single Web company that owns a Web site that hosts an assortment of retailers. Online businesses affiliate with the mall and pay a monthly fee or commission on each sale. Some malls specialize in a certain area, such as weddings or vacation packages, while others host a large variety of stores. If you do online credit card transactions, you could pay $100 per month or more, plus transaction fees.
You should pay attention to the mall’s store-building tool. Some tools limit you to a specific layout and color scheme, which results in all the mall’s stores looking alike.
Questions you should ask before affiliating with an online mall:
· Does the mall charge a membership or setup fee?
· How much is the commission on each sale?
· Who handles credit card processing?
· If the mall processes orders, does it charge an extra fee per order?
· Will the mall allow you to connect your existing Web site to the mall?
· Does the mall charge extra for its store-building service?
· What are the mall’s policies regarding order fulfillment and returns?
· How will the mall help you promote your business?
Web Hosting Option 1: Store Builder Service. A store builder service (also called a design-and-host service) provides Web hosting as well as storage, templates, and other services to help you build a Web site quickly and cheaply. An example of a company that offers comprehensive store building hosting services and software is Yahoo! Web Hosting. Yahoo’s base service offers Web hosting as well as customized templates and other support for $11.95 per month. Other plans, which offer additional services and support, cost $19.95 and $39.95 per month. All three plans include customizable templates which can be used to build a storefront quickly and easily. Free templates are also available at www.freewebsitetemplates.com, www.freesitetemplates.com, and Google’s Page Creator (www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/page_creator.html).
Yahoo’s Web Hosting package also provides marketing tools, domain name selection assistance, a payment gateway (for online payments), storage, and shipment services. The package usually offers a Web site address for your Web site (e.g., a URL such as http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/mybusiness), management tools, security features, and Internet connection maintenance. Yahoo combines Web hosting and store building, but other vendors may separate the two functions.
Yahoo offers three levels of merchant solutions: starter, standard, and professional. The capabilities and fees or each plan are available on Yahoo’s Web site. Yahoo offers an 11-step guide that explains how Yahoo Merchant Solutions works and how it can be used to build, manage, and market an online business.
Get started by reading the online Getting Started Overview or download the full step-by-step Getting Started Guide (380 pages). A summary of the 11-step guide is provided at http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/merchant/gstart.php.
To see all of the features that come with Yahoo Merchant Solutions, take a tour (click “Tour”). Once welcomed, you will be shown a slide show that lists all of its capabilities. Notable features include: web hosting and domain name registration; e-mail; electronic commerce tools (shopping cart, payment processing, inventory management); business tools and services (Web site design, marketing, site management); order processing tools; Web site development tools (site editor, templates, uploading content, for example with Yahoo SiteBuilder); finding and keeping customers; payment acceptance tools; tax calculators; order notification and confirmations; and performance-tracking tools (statistics, drill-downs, measuring the effectiveness of marketing campaigns).
You can build your store in several ways. Your primary tool is an easy-to-use online Store Editor. You can create a front page, and you can set up various store sections and add to them. You can upload content developed in Microsoft FrontPage, Macromedia Dreamweaver, or Yahoo SiteBuilder.
Amazon also offers its Web Store (http://webstore.amazon.com). For a full explanation of the features of Amazon’s Web Store and a tour, see http://www.amazonservices.com/webstore/.
The advantage of a store builder service is that it is a quick, easy, and inexpensive way to build a Web site. The major disadvantages are the lack or a strong online identity and some lack of differentiation (your Web site tends to look like other sites because everyone is using the same set of templates).
Other vendors, in addition to Yahoo and Amazon, include:
· Bigstep (www.bigstep.com)
· StoreFront (www.storefront.net)
· 1and1 (www.1and1.com)
· ShoppingCartsPlus.com (www.shoppingcartsplus.com)
· Network Solutions (http://ecommerce.networksolutions.com)
Web Hosting Option 2: ISP Hosting. An ISP hosting service provides an independent, stand-alone Web site for small and medium-sized businesses. The ISP is likely to provide additional hosting services (e.g., more storage space, simple site statistics, credit card gateway software) at the same or slightly higher cost then store builder services.
The major difference between a store builder and an ISP hosting service is that with the ISP service, the time-consuming task of designing and constructing the Web site becomes your responsibility. Usually with the help of a contracted Web designer, you will use a Web site construction tool to create the Web site (for example, www.ibuilt.net) or a Web page editor (for example, Dreamweaver at www.macromedia.com or FrontPage at www.microsoft.com). Compared with a store builder template, the combination of an ISP hosting service and a Web designer or builder offers you increased flexibility as to what you can do with your site, so that it can be distinctive and stand out from the competition.
One disadvantage of using an ISP is that most providers have limited functionality (e.g., an ISP may be unwilling to host a back-end database). Keep in mind that the main business of an ISP is providing Internet access, not hosting Web sites. If you would like to use ISP hosting, lists of ISPs and providers of commercial Internet access can be found at The List of ISPs (www.thelist.com).
Web Hosting Option 3: A Pure Hosting Service. A Web hosting service is a dedicated Web site hosting company that offers a wide range of hosting services and functionality to businesses of all sizes. Companies such as Hostway (www.hostway.com) and Dellhost (www.appsitehosting.com/index.aspx) offer more and better services than an ISP because Web site hosting is their core business. Almost all Web hosting companies provide functionality such as database integration, shipping and tax calculators, sufficient bandwidth to support multimedia files, shopping carts, site search engines, and comprehensive Web site statistics.
Evaluating Web Hosts. Your first contact with the prospective host is a good opportunity to evaluate how responsive they are to problems and questions. Call and see how long you are on hold. E-mail a list of questions. Look elsewhere if you do not get a personal response within 24 hours.
Prospective Web hosts should be able to answer the questions below. You can probably get most of this information from their Web site’s service description and FAQs (frequently asked questions), but do not use online research as a substitute for personal contact.
· What types of technical support are available and when? E-mail-only tech support can be extremely frustrating for you if the host does not respond promptly. Telephone support means that you can talk with a person, but long distance charges can add up without a toll-free number to call. If the host promises 24/7 support, test it! Place a late-night call or send an e-mail on a holiday weekend and see if anyone responds.
· What is the total cost per month? Besides the basic monthly fee, you can incur additional charges for account activation, multiple e-mail addresses, extra site traffic, database support, etc. Make sure that the host quotes you the cost for all the services that you will need. Good hosts offer a 30-day money back guarantee, but most do not refund set-up charges. In general, it is best to pay as little as possible up front with a new host at first. Wait to see if the service is good before you lock yourself into a long-term contract.