How to achieve ecommerce success for the modern bricks and mortar retailer

Getting an ecommerce site is easy these days. I am not going to tell you how to do this - there are numerous ways of the modern small retailer getting an ecommerce site, but, although getting the site and setting it up is fairly simple, large numbers of retailers loose interest in their ecommerce site for one simple reason - they do not get any customers, or anybody buying anything. Most small retailers start a simple ecommerce site in the misguided belief that they will make a lot of money, but most realise quite quickly that it is very difficult to draw customer to your website, and the interest soon wanes.

The first step in a successful ecommerce site is to get it properly setup and working. You need your stock item all setup on the site, with competitive prices and a payment system setup and working. Most of these activities are akin to setting up a normal retail shop - putting things on the shelves, making the places nice for customers etc.

However, the major different between an ecommerce site and a normal shop, is the normal shop already has a physical presence. You are going to get a certain number of customers simply because you've physically sited your shop in a busy location. These am does not apply to internet ecommerce websites.

You have to make a special effort to market your website to attractive visitors. There are two broad areas you need to work on from the beginning.

Search engines and product descriptions

Most of the customers are going to reach your ecommerce site via the major search engines. So you need to make your ecommerce site attractive to the search engines so that they re-direct traffic to your site. Once this search engine optimisation is complete, you need to make the site attractive to visitors to make them spend money.

This process starts with your stock. First, make sure you've got a picture on the website of everything you are selling. People rarely buy on the internet if they cannot see the product they are buying. Next, concentrate on the product names and descriptions. Do not simple copy your manufactures descriptions, or borrow text off of a competitor site. The single most important thing you can do with a new ecommerce site is write your own description for every single product you are selling. These unique descriptions will set your product pages apart from all the other ecommerce sites selling exactly the same products.

Unique articles on your ecommerce site

The next things is to add additional unique article based content to your site. Make sure you add a couple of articles to your site every week. Write articles on how to choose products you sell, which are best for beginners and experts - what to do when things break. Many people on the internet are searching for solutions to problems - so think of all the questions you get asked in your shop by customers, and write articles on these questions for your website.

I can't stress how important this article creation process is. Most ecommerce retailers shun the work because is time consuming. You need to remember that many people come into your shop with a problem seeking your advice - you tell them which products will solve their problem, the trust to your experience and make a purchase. This process sadly missing from ecommerce - you need to transplant your niche experience into articles and information on your website. Every time a customer asks a question in the shop, write it down in a notepad, and later use the idea to write another article.

These additional unique content makes your website much more attractive to search engines, and adds value for customers. However, it is also necessary for your to market your website.

Buying in advertising from programs like Google Adwords can attract a lot of visitors to your website. Collect customer email addresses and send out marketing emails. Use tools such as Froogle to promote your products so that people searching "products" in Google will find your site.

Any retailer who simply starts an ecommerce sites, puts up their products, and sits back waiting for it to happen will get nothing but failure. You have to spend a great deal of effort making a success of an ecommerce website. Remember how much hard work it was to open a new physical shop? Opening a new ecommerce site is just as much hard work!