Conducting sales through a website is no easy task. Surveys reveal that 3/4^th of the e-commerce endeavors end in a fiasco as the management did not realize the tasks needed to conduct the business online. With unrealistic expectations of profit and no strategy firmly in place, e-commerce is bound to fail. After extensive research however, experts have come up with some kind of framework and guidelines based on which an e-commerce hub can survive. Here’s a brief synopsis of the seven fundamental guidelines or pillars of an e-commerce site. 

Marketing Strategies — Online

Although online marketing has been in the online market for more than a decade, many e-commerce webmasters don’t realize its importance. The fact that sites should make their presence in the search engines, create brand awareness, and showcase their products to attract traffic is not new. 

One of the most important survival tactics by e-commerce site is to promote their Internet marketing strategies by making their site optimized with keywords, creating search engine spider friendly website design, and ensure products are categorized well for all to find it through search engine result pages. 

Initiating Orders — Online

Can a user order a product online? Theoretically its all perfect in most e-commerce site, however the scenario changes in the practical world. This is what most users say while transacting an online shopping mall or a shopping guide. The second pillar to success on any e-commerce site is to ensure that the ordering process is easy and through online means. 

Conducting Sales – Online

Conducting sales is the next pillar of success for any online business site. A website design should be created in such a way so that financial transaction and shipping is completed without any hassle and that the customer should not be compelled to follow up through phone or mail. 

An online payment option – whether through online payment website, such as Paypal – or credit card payment, should be hassle free. When asking for personal information from the client for identity verification, ensure the information does not leak. 

Transaction of Goods and Money — Online

The fourth pillar of success is to complete the entire process of shipment with ease and on time. Whether tangible products or information-related ones, ensure that the customers gets the value for his money. 

Boost Interest — Online

Advertising one’s skills through various Internet marketing techniques or simply showcasing one’s abilities through articles, virtual tours is the next pillar of success for e-commerce site. 

Direct Marketing — Online

Direct marketing works wonders for any sites conducting business through online means. The one-on-one marketing helps to be more specific, personal, and sincere in the effort to increase sales prospects. 

Initiating Support System — Online

Last but not the least, is the online support system. Having a round-the-clock customer cell to cater to all issues related to the e-commerce business is one of the best pillars of success for a site. 

So, get, set, and go with your online endeavor by keeping in mind these salient pillars of success.

eCommerce web design is a lot more than just putting your company brochure on the net or adding an internet shopping cart to your existing product catalog. There are some fundamental differences between doing business online and doing business the traditional way. Before you design your business web site, you must know what specific goals you desire to achieve with your business web site, determine how best to meet your goals based on your budget, and then determine what software and services you will use to design your e-commerce web site.

Web Site Business Objectives

A small business web site can do many things. This can include:

- Generate Leads. Pre-sell your business services and products to generate telephone, e-mail, or online form leads from customers.

- Generate Sales Quotes. Solicit or generate automated quotes that in turn generates a customer sale or lead.

- Generate Advertising Revenue. Display online content and free services with affiliate or ad network advertisements that generates advertising revenue from your merchant partners.

- Provide A StoreFront. Host online catalog that fully automates the customer purchase and communications process.

- Generate Customer Traffic. Generate customer traffic from search engines and business directories to pre-sell your product or service. Traffic is then re-directed to you main web site or product web pages.

Your e-Commerce web site design is greatly influenced by your specific web site objectives for your small business.

eCommerce Web Site Design Fundamentals

A web site is a lot more or even a lot less than a traditional store. There are more considerations with ecommerce web site design versus a traditional store. Web design considerations include:

Customer Friendly: Present a professional image, offer customer convenience, have good sales copy, and just make it easy for the customer to make the desired response (click, lead, sale).

Search Engine Friendly. For most online businesses, most customer traffic comes from search engines like Google, Yahoo!, or MSN. If part of your e-Commerce web site design strategy is to generate search engine traffic, you will need search engine optimization expertise to succeed. Buy it or grow it.

Web Site Automation Tools. There are thousands of web site tools such as shopping carts, content management systems, e-mail auto-responders, payment processors, search engine optimization tools, online bulletin boards, traffic analyzers, and advertising management tools. Some of these tools are cheap and some are expensive. If you do not have the expertise to evaluate these products, it is probably best that you do not make any major investments in expensive web site tools. Wait until you become knowledgeable enough to evaluate web tools and add-ons for your business web site and that you have a specific need.

Costs. Costs, of course, are a key consideration for any e-Commerce web site design solution. You can usually purchase web site tools and services up-front or by subscription. Subscriptions can help you with your cash flow up-front. Usually you do not need to make any long-term commitments with subscription software or services. Subscriptions are good because as you become more knowledgeable of specific web site solutions you can add and drop web tools and services at will. Buying software up-front is good if you know that you will definitely use the software for a long time (1 to 3 years).

Web Site Design Options

eCommerce web site design options can range from doing it yourself with web design software such as Microsoft FrontPage or outsourcing the entire web site development to a web design company. For a business, a free site with a free web site builder is not the answer. A free solution will not generate the desire response from the customer, is not search engine friendly, and is limited in growth for web site add-ons. A free affiliate site can be OK for making a sale, but have another method to generate traffic to your affiliate site as search engines will rarely give high rankings to cloned affiliate sites. Here are some e-Commerce web site design options:

Do-It-Yourself. Buy web design software and do it yourself. Good option if: technically inclined, marketing skills, part-time web publisher, limited budget.

Do-It-Yourself Using Templates. Buy web site templates, web design software, and do it yourself. Good option if: technically inclined, marketing skills, supplement with low cost web design services.

Do-It-Yourself Using Web Site Builder Solution. Buy business web solution service. Good option if: not technically inclined, have marketing skills, and willing to make some investment. Do not waste your time with a site builder that just clones a snazzy web site. You will not get a web site that generates traffic or sales.

eCommerce Web Site Design Company or Consultant. Outsource your web design work. Good option if: not technically inclined, limited marketing skills, medium-to-large budget

As with any business there are risks. In evaluating an ecommerce web design solution it is best to know your objectives, have enough business knowledge to evaluate your web service suppliers as well as your business web tools, and maintain a positive cash flow.