Chapter 5

Electronic Commerce:

Part 2 – Effective Website Development

and Management

Effective Online Business:

Hosting, Marketing, and Management Strategies

The Typical Online Customer

• Completed online transactions: 10• Online sessions per week: 6• Unique sites visited per week: 6• Average surfing session: 31 minutes• Time per site per week: 32 minutes• Time online per week: 3 hours, 8 minutes

Source: Harris Interactive, Nielson NetratingsSource: Harris Interactive, Nielson Netratings

Reasons for Shopping Online

Source: eCommerce - 2011Source: eCommerce - 2011

Reason %

Get better bargains online 61

More choice online 39

Like convenience of home delivery 51

Don’t like experience of shopping in store 19

Prefer ease of shopping from home / work 29

Feel safer shopping online 2

Deterrents to Shopping OnlineIssue %

Poor product descriptions / images 42

Poor navigation 32

Unavailable items 28

No contact information 18

Long checkout process 16

Source: eCommerce - 2011Source: eCommerce - 2011

Reasons for Choice of Website to Shop

Reason %

Recommendation from friends / family 72

Knowledge from brick & mortar store 46

Search engine visibility 35

Off-line advertising 21

Source: eCommerce - 2011Source: eCommerce - 2011

Miscellaneous Consumer Data• 57% appreciate receiving advertising messages if directly beneficial, such as

receiving a discount.

• 36% say receiving an email prompts them to make an online purchase.

• 38% do not use a social profile site.

• 61% use search engines to help them in their product research leading to purchase.

• 75% of young people (18-26) use recommendations on social sites to help them research products prior to purchase.

• 61% expect to receive delivery notification via email.

• The lowest priority for consumers when considering purchasing a product is the price.

Source: eCommerce - 2011Source: eCommerce - 2011

Miscellaneous Consumer Data• The lowest priority for consumers when considering purchasing a product is

the price.• Electronics and computing (23%) is the category most likely to be researched

online by consumers.• 55% report a product with high rating increases likelihood of purchasing.• 68% of consumers aged 18-26 use emailed coupons online.• The purchase process for women tends to involve a greater range of media

than men, and to take longer.• The age range among consumers that is most reliant on e-commerce is the 27

to 38 year-old demographic.• People over the age of 38 are significantly less likely to use social networks to

pursue product information or seek recommendations.

Source: eCommerce - 2011Source: eCommerce - 2011

Effective Online Business: Hosting, Marketing and Management Strategies

• Web hosting and your e-business• Marketing your Internet business• Monitoring your site’s performance• Extending business opportunities through

online exchanges / cooperatives

ClientClient(Browser)(Browser)

Web ServerWeb Server

Commerce ServerCommerce Server(Storefront)(Storefront)

ProductProductDatabaseDatabase

Shopping Shopping CartCart

Secure Secure Transaction Transaction

ServerServer

DynamicDynamic

StaticStatic

PagesPagesPagesPagesPagesPages

PagesPages

Getting Started: Hosting Issues

• Hosting– Understanding what “hosting” means and your

alternatives?

• “Do-it-yourself” website services– http://www.1and1.com– http://www.bigstep.com/– http://store.yahoo.com/

Getting Started: Hosting Issues

Bandwidth Bandwidth Capabilities and specificationsCapabilities and specificationsFirewall systemFirewall systemWireless deliveryWireless deliveryBuy, rent, or leaseBuy, rent, or leaseMaintenance, upgrade, and service of the Maintenance, upgrade, and service of the

equipmentequipment

The services wantedThe services wanted How much your company can How much your company can

contribute to the site, from contribute to the site, from manpower to electronic manpower to electronic contentcontent

Time to design your siteTime to design your site Time to create and program Time to create and program

your siteyour site Extra fees for software Extra fees for software

developmentdevelopment Fees for off-the-shelf Fees for off-the-shelf

applications toolsapplications tools The size of the siteThe size of the site

Training requirementsTraining requirements Installation and server Installation and server

maintenancemaintenance ProgrammingProgramming On corporate site hosting vs. off-On corporate site hosting vs. off-

sitesite Secure Server for financial Secure Server for financial

transactionstransactions Your bandwidth needsYour bandwidth needs Your server capacity needsYour server capacity needs Location of your server at the Location of your server at the

Web company or ISP company Web company or ISP company location location

What is Involved in Establishing a Web Site?

Getting Started: Web Hosting

• Identify what you have resources and time to do• Identify what will be done “outside” the firm• Identify which external parties will be involved

– e.g., designer, ISP, web host? commerce provider? • Identify how you will assess their performance

– Decision metrics – e.g., are they reliable?– On-going performance metrics – e.g., is their “uptime” what

they claim?

Website Marketing• Excellent customer service

• Word of mouth is the best form of advertising• Plan a realistic monthly marketing and advertising budget

• Search engines• Directories• Traditional media

• Domain name should suggest your service or products• Ex: flowers-by-kelly.com • not kb.com or flowersbykelly.com

• The text in your website is critical to marketing• Descriptive, accurate, concise• Include keywords – more than once – but not too often

Website Marketing: Three Objectives

• Increase Presence Optimize

• Drive Traffic Publicize

• Convert Visitors Monetize

Website Marketing

• Find out if your site is indexed– Pages in cache

• At Google cache:http://your-domain.com • Try cache:http://primal-elements.com - nothing?• Try cache:http://primalelements.com

• Number of pages indexed in domain• At Google or Yahoo! site:your-domain.com• Google site:www.uhh.hawaii.edu/~kburke

Search Engine Marketing

• The way most search engines work • Most use weighted point systems to display results• Ex: Page ‘quality score’ = title + description + keywords + H1 tags +

number of images + ‘alt’ descriptions + page size + links• Ex: Use a tool at Summit Media to analyze your site

• http://tools.summitmedia.co.uk/spider

• Bid-for-placement marketing• Sponsored results at search engine sites

– Ex: search Google for “bath soap”• The power of cross-linking: Ex – search Google for kelly burke• Linking strategies that enhance your website's position – not detract

from potential sales

Search Engine Marketing: Basic Design

• It’s all about ‘content’• Limit use of multimedia• Limit use of graphics• Use ‘Alt’ text• Make it easy to move around in site• Avoid frames• Use long descriptive link text• Spell check and edit

Search Engine Marketing: Keywords

• How they work• Keyword analysis

• Ex: Keyword rank = meta tag placement + capitalization + font size + word position in document relative to other words

• Meta tag example: http://mamabearssoaps.com

• Identify competitors’ keywords• Look up synonyms

– ex: bicycle / cycle• Use plurals and spelling mistakes

– ex: bicycles and bycycle• Research the use of the keyword

– Go to www.overture.com – SEO Tools term search tool

Search Engine Marketing: Keyword Tools

• www.Adwords.Google.com• www.Wordtracker.com

– Searches data at large webcrawlers like www.Dogpile.com– Stores two months of searches – 300 million searches– Number of times searched for in last 60 days– Estimates number of searches per day– Similar terms & common misspellings– Comparison of number of times term is searched for and

number of pages returned for the term • Look for term with many searches and few pages returned

Search Engine Marketing: What They Don’t Like

• Don’t search or find difficult to search when they find:– Frames, images, multimedia (ex: flash, animation), image maps

• Avoid frames, images, animation unless necessary• Move images and image maps to bottom of page

– Scripts, excessive formatting code• Call external scripts – don’t embed in source• Use external CSS files for formatting

– Dynamic pages – too many parameters, too many possible pages• Use static pages when possible• Use one or two parameters at most

– Sites that demand cookies for site access• Search-bots will not search

Search Engine Marketing: Submit to the Major Engines

• AltaVista – www.altavista.com• AOL.COM Search – search.aol.com• Ask Jeeves – www.askjeeves.com• Google – www.google.com• Overture – www.overture.com• Excite – www.excite.com• Fast – www.alltheweb.com• HotBot – www.hotbot.com• Lycos – www.lycos.com• MSN Search – search.msn.com

Search Directory Marketing• Directories are different than engines• Index by categories rather than keywords

– So – there are far fewer categories• Three major directories are

– Google Directory – fed by Open Directory Project– Yahoo! Directory

• Fourteen categories – thousands of subcategories • So may be difficult choosing a category to be listed in• Submitting costs $$$

– Open Directory Project – www.dmoz.com– LookSmart – www.looksmart.com

Non-Search Engine Marketing• Advertising banners

• Are they effective?• Buying them• Are they right for your products or services?

• The importance of traditional advertising • Ex: print, radio, television

• Opt-in e-mail databases • Promotions, e-mail marketing, direct mail marketing

• Affiliate programs and promotional partnerships– Pay to have leads sent to you (pay per-click or per-sale)– Ex: www.myaffiliateprogram.com

• Using bonus point strategies to develop repeat business

Website Marketing• Collecting / analyzing visitor and customer data

• Discovering your customers’ patterns, wants and desires• Using software to analyze the data

• Ex: Yahoo! Store• What to analyze• How often

• ROI (Return On Investment) from advertising and marketing• Measuring advertising effectiveness

Website Management Issues: The Shopping Experience

• Industry research shows that up to 75 percent of shoppers abandon shopping cart before completing checkout

• Techniques for minimizing shopping cart abandonment rates:

– Provide shipping costs early in the process, so shoppers are not surprised during final checkout.

– Show stock availability on the product page, so shoppers do not have to wait until checkout to determine if a product is out of stock.

– When an item is placed in the shopping cart, include a link back to product page, so shoppers can easily go back to make sure they have selected the right item.

– Make it easy to change quantities or delete items from shopping cart. – Make it easy to select or change product values in the shopping cart (e.g., color,

size). – Include a "Progress Indicator" (e.g., "Step 2 of 5") on each checkout page, so

shoppers always know where they are in the checkout process.

Adapted from Overture.com - 2005Adapted from Overture.com - 2005

Website Management Issues: The Shopping Experience

• Techniques for minimizing shopping cart abandonment rates (continued):– Include a prominent "Next Step" or "Continue with Checkout" button on each

checkout page, so shoppers do not get lost. – Keep all information on one screen on each checkout page, so shoppers do not

have to frequently scroll down. – If the billing information is the same as the shipping information, include a box

that shoppers can check to automatically fill in the same information. – If information is missing or filled out incorrectly during checkout, give

meaningful error message that clearly describes what needs to be corrected. – If you intend to add your customers to a list for future e-mail marketing (either

from you or a third party), make sure your customers know this and can easily opt out.

– Make recommendations of additional items to buy based on what is already in the shopping cart.

Adapted from Overture.com - 2005Adapted from Overture.com - 2005

E-Business Trend – Long Tail