Shoppers visit ecommerce web sites not only to make purchases, but to gather product information, read or write product reviews etc. It is important that the site design allows the consumers to easily find what they are looking for. For example, if the customer wants to get additional product details or read reviews, there needs to be a clear path. Sites that make it easy for consumers to accomplish their goals build long-term loyalty.

Once the retailer has a well designed site, they need to address how to get visitors to the site. An Internet Retailer Survey reports that 40.2% of the respondents would like the search engines to get them visitors. This is done by a process of search engine optimization (SEO). Moreover, 27.8% of the respondents would like to have more community features, which is done by using social media.

Social media is a major source of information for consumers. A social network presence can help drive traffic back to a retailer’s site. This trend is prompting many retailers to participate in social networks and be part of that information exchange.

If you are still having difficulties following the steps above try to estimate them.

Ask the customers when they buy if they used your web site prior to buying.
If your company uses warranty cards, update your warranty cards that asks about the use of your web site.
Add a question to a survey. Your business may regularly send surveys to your customers. Add a question regarding whether customers used your web site prior to their last purchase.

You can use estimates to perform trend analysis checking ups and downs from month to month. Furthermore, you can also implement systems which accurately track sales.

Online merchants need more sales online and a higher conversion rate? If your site sells products available in shopping search engines do not miss out on the opportunity. Try shopping search engines.

A growing section of search marketing is shopping search. Comparison Shopping Engines benefit consumers by researching products; user reviews, locating stores with best customer ratings, find the best price. Shopping search engines allow comparison features and prices for many different products. Customers are searching them. According to Matt Tatham of Hitwise, US shopping search sites are increasing at 51 percent between 2006 and 2007.

Consumers enjoy comparison shopping search engines because they allow for comparison of similar products across purchasing factors, such as price, reviews, and availability. Shopping search engines carry an assortment of consumer products, such as electronics, office supplies, DVDs, toys, and others. Internet users on these shopping search engines know what they want with price and availability, which are crucial factors in their purchasing decisions.

A comparison shopping engine survey of the comparison shopping engines that merchants use reports that comparison shopping engines produce better qualified leads than pay per click. The person clicking on the listing is further along in the buyer process. The listing includes product picture, short description. Also, merchants do no have to compete for as much attention as in the pay per click in search engines. Less competition leads to your products have a better chance for qualified leads.
Watch video on comparison shopping

Below are the results of comparison shopping engines survey that merchants use:

Price Grabber 41.2%
Nextag 27.5%
Shopping.com 47.1%
Yahoo!Shopping 64.7%
Shopzilla 33.3%

Take advantage of shopping search engine marketing and make sure no data is missing of the products. Provide product availability data such as in stock and ships within two weeks. By leaving out this critical information about your products, your products will fall to the bottom of the list when shoppers sort the product list.

Companies such Overstock state that unless laws change in North Carolina, New York and Rhode Island that they will no longer have affiliates in those states. In addition, Overstock finds it poor business to continue accepting sales hundreds or thousands of affiliates in those states. Furthermore, Overstock argues that tax has impact on online customers scaring them away.

New York was intended on raising tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue that they contend would go uncollected roughly more than $70 million. Overstock and Amazon have appealed a court decision that upheld the New York Law.

In our opinion, affiliate tax destroys business and impacts communities. The affiliates will get cut out and have to layoff workers impacting the local economy. Affiliates will have to move to survive. Let the private sector run ecommerce trade and leave the state out of the affiliate tax law. For example,California supported affiliate businesses in vetoing the affiliate laws. Another instance, Hawaii sided with the affiliate businesses. Furthermore, the National Retail Federation opposes the state affiliate laws.

To understand shipping, merchants can get accurate estimates by using the online calculators provided by FedEx (www.fedex.com/ratefinder/home?cc=US&language=en, UPS (www.theupsstore.com/qcc/qcc.asp), and U.S. Postal Service (postcalc.usps.gov/). Looking at zones where the products ship is also significant. Prices increase as shipping distance increases. Merchants also need to be familiar with the weights of the products, shipping needs and zones that they will ship to. This allows for merchants to have an understanding of the shipping cost projections.

Utilize ecommerce solutions that integrate USP, FedEx or UPS in their shopping carts. Many ecommerce programs have built in calculation systems, which display accurate shipping rates based on total weight of order. In the customer’s shipping address, it relates to Internet shoppers using the platform. A realtime-shipping interface, which allows customers their preferred shipping provider as well as seeing shipping rates in the shipping cart would make it easier for the customer in choosing their shipping destination.

Merchants should also look into fulfillment solutions that reduce management expense while keeping order processing forward. They should consider the cost of third-party fulfillment services to what it costs to house merchandise, package items. Furthermore, merchants now have to be familiar with shipping expenditures.