Digitalwall: A Word of Advice for Small Online Stores

Trust me, you don’t need password protected membership, shopping cart, or newsletter for your site.

[+] Don't take things for granted, please

With the re-emergence of eCommerce, many people find it a temping idea to set up a website to do business. To take advantage of this market demand, many system vendors have in store all-around eCommerce system, a.k.a. online store solution, which instantly becomes the choice for many as the cost is highly affordable.

Systems of this sort often come with such three features as newsletter, shopping cart, and online payment, whose presence is, obviously, for the shopping convenience of consumers. Behind the scenes, these three customer-friendly services correspond to three website management functions: membership management system, merchandise management system, plus online credit card payment system.

These three sets of services are must-haves for many beginners of online store operations. So much so that new comers order these three functions by reflex. So much so that system vendors have had these functions packaged into a ready-made item. It makes perfect sense. After all, who are we to challenge what world-renowned eCommerce companies have been doing successfully for quite a while. After all, it's only natural to copy.

What slipped the minds of these smaller online stores is that size matters, so does market position, when it comes to website designs. What works just fine with large websites like Yahoo! and Amazon does not always suit smaller ones.

For example, has it ever hit you why we need to provide an ID and a password to our customer when we sell stuff on the Net? If it has, do you know the answer to this question? If you don't, what makes you think your website needs them?

[+] Smaller online stores should give up ID and passwords

With accounts, login names, and passwords comes the requirement that consumers must register for membership before they can shop in online stores. This means consumers must take time to fill in details about their gender, age, income or even social security number. The question is: why are these hassles impossible in the real world but indispensable in the virtual one?

Has it ever occurred to you that many consumers go on to other online store just because they want no part in the filling-out process on yours? How many who managed to go through the process forgot their ID and password in their next visit and were shut out?

For large online stores like Yahoo!, whose services are aplenty, it makes much more sense to required mandatory registration because people re-visit the website a lot so that it is less likely for the vital info to slip their minds. That is only the kind of convenience that Yahoo and its likes offer and the brand image that they project can make all the intolerables somewhat endurable.

As a stark contrast, there is no way smaller online stores can offer those perks to justify their obsession with ID/passwords. Since hits are mostly flukes, there is no predicting when this particular consumer will come again. If he/she returns, say, six months later, I guarantee he will have forgotten all about his ID and password.

[+] What good are the ID and password

For B2C eCommerce website runners, IDs and passwords are what they need to identify customers on the Net. By tracking the same ID/password combination, online store owners will be able to analyze the combination holder's buying behavior. That understanding, in turn, helps runners decide what products to recommend.

For consumers, registration serves the sole purpose of not having to fill-in personal data every time one log onto an online store.

However, small online stores would be risking driving customers away every time they require registration of web surfers knocking on their doors. Hence the question, how can an online store balance its own need to keep track of consumer behavioral pattern and the convenience of a registration-free shopping environment for buyers? That's a question we should all think about.

[+] Ill-designed shopping cart feature

The one who invented the online shopping cart function must have been a genius, because he took advantage of the easy-to-grasp notion of a shopping cart, which works just as well in the virtual world of Internet as in the physical world. Those who have difficulty figuring it out right off the bat should pay the nearest clinic a visit.

Big or small, most current online stores are featuring ill-designed shopping cart functionality. Online shoppers will find that one has no instant on-screen access to the contents of one virtual cart. You must click on "check cart" link icon to find out.

That click will lead you to a new webpage on which the contents of your shopping cart will be shown. After that information, you will be presented with a choice between checking out or continue shopping. With the former, it is clear what it means. But with the latter, what does it really mean to "continue shopping" ? What is the next webpage if I go for this option? Back to the previous product page or to the homepage?

That's not how it works in the real world. In the real world, you get to see what's inside your cart any time you feel like it, down to every second. If that is any indication, a desirable virtual shopping cart should be able to show cart contents and products on display on every webpage at all times, instead of requiring users to jump between different webpages.

[+] What are newsletters for, exactly?

Many a small-fry online stores publish newsletters, hoping that those who don't buy will at least subscribe to the newsletters. The subscription will leave a trail that online stores can retrace by, say, sending promotion e-mail. But that's only wishful-thinking, considering that oftentimes the websites are so small that nobody even bothers to subscribe to their newsletters. This never fails to empty a good bowl of icy water all over whoever produces those newsletters.

Come to think of it. If you'd like your newsletter to enjoy a decent number of subscriptions, you might want to publish it on other larger website. That makes much better sense, doesn't it? After all, when few people visit a website, it's only natural that fewer will subscribe to publication on it. And that brings us back to the fundamental question of why does an online shopping owner need to publish a newsletter?

The above are three main frequently made mistakes on the part of small and relatively small online stores and my advice to them. For those who are set to enter eCommerce, remember this: imitation of past success in the ignorance of why your predecessors succeeded can be risky; innovation may not always pay off, but when it does, it does big-time. (
2004/11/14 - By Digitalwall.com - Way to
China Internet/Telecom )