Shopfitter BlogWebshop and e-commerce articles, hints and tips from Shopfitter.com

As reported on the BBC News website yesterday, the the internet trade body IMRG predicted that Monday 9th December was likely to be the busiest day ever for online sales.

Here at Shopfitter we can confirm that was the case, we saw our largest ever volume of sales through our online system, in fact it was more than double that of the same day last year.

I remember writing a piece earlier this year stating that I thought that shoppers still want to buy but that their behaviour seemed to be changing.

That certainly seems to have been demonstrated to be true throughout 2008. The online sales sector has continued to grow and the webshops powered by Shopfitter, especially the more established sites, have seen revenues increase by up to nearly 100%.

Many of the newer sites are doing very well too, although it does take a few months for them to become established. However, sites that went live in the first half of this year are doing quite nicely now and will continue to improve as time goes by.

One thing is for sure, the sooner you get your webshop online the better able you are to take advantage of the burgeoning online sales market more quickly.

Have you noticed? The banking world is struggling a bit at the moment.

It's been difficult to sleep through, the news is full of gloom about the latest events, you can't have missed the reports.

In the thick of it has been the BBC's Business Editor Robert Peston who has been ahead of the pack with revelations about what is really happening long before anyone else right from the outset.

Mr Peston has been critcised for making the situation worse, I've even heard of hate blogs being set up against him. But surely this is just 'shooting the messenger'? Without doubt he has influence, he has a seemingly unrivalled pool of knowledge and information, his communications network work at lightning speed and his ability to turn around the next big story is impressive.

In my view, Robert Peston is demonstrating the same verve and determination in his role as BBC Business Editor as any entrepreneur does in his own field. Indeed, the skills required are similar; market understanding, the ability to 'feel' the underlying trends and the analytical skills (instinctive or intellectual) to take small items and represent them in a fashion that demands attention.

What I get from all this is that the signs were there for a long time that economic turmoil was coming, the scale of it has come as a surprise to many because they didn't want to believe it, the gravy train was going to go on forever.

However, those of us who've invested a lot of time and effort into our e-commerce businesses are reporting excellent growth. Neville Fox, webmaster at Knit and Sew, told me on Monday that they had just had their best ever weekend with 148 sales, up nearly 50% over the same period last month. And in a conversation with Bob Bagley today I discovered that Fountain Filters has seen 25% growth for the last two years and is well on target for 35% growth in 2008.

Clearly, the whole of the economy has not gone into freefall, there are still lots of success stories around but they don't seem to be getting much attention at the moment. I guess it's true to say that only bad news sells papers.

Let's hope Mr Peston and his colleagues catch on to the one sector that really seems to be bucking the economic trend at the moment and gives the burgeoning small online business it's due recognition - we are after all, to paraphrase Napoleon, a nation of (online) shopkeepers.

Here at Shopfitter Central I've been telling Simon D that I could make a theme that could be converted into a Dreamweaver template for some time.

At long last this has been done and the resulting template can be downloaded from the following page: Download Dreamweaver Template

The benefit of this is that website designers who are familiar with Dreamweaver but don't want to learn how to create bespoke themes for Shopfitter 4 can now build an e-commerce website in html with Shopfitter and then do all the design and styling in Dreamweaver (or even FrontPage).

There are instructions included in the downloadable zip file which are also available as a pdf or MS Word file.

As with all Shopfitter products and services support in the use of the SF4-DWT Template is completely free of charge.

Howard Guest is a photographer (and Shopfitter user) who has just published his new collection of photographs in conjunction with an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.

On The Shoulders Of Giants - Portraits from the University of Cambridge is the result of over two years work by Howard and is a collection of images of the people who work, at all levels, within the university. This is particularly relevant today as the University prepares to celebrate it's 800th anniversary and Mr Guest has recorded pictures of a cross section of the 'inhabitants' for the first in it's history.

The exhibition, a first for the Fitzwilliam, can be seen between Tue 10 June 2008 to Sun 28 September 2008, Mellon Gallery (Gallery 13). For more information visit the Fitzwilliam Museum's website.

To buy Howard Guest's On The Shoulders Of Giants - Portraits from the University of Cambridge please visit his website - www.howardguest.co.uk.

The news has been full to the brim of stories about the so called 'credit crunch', banks failing and being nationalised (Northern Rock) or forcibly sold for a knockdown price (Bear Stearns) to a competitor.

Is this all an over-reaction, are we really seeing the first signs of a major recession? Or are there some positives amongst the doom and gloom?

Well, it's true to say that bad news sells better than good news, a good recent example was when there were numerous reports of a slow down on the high street during the Christmas period. Marks & Spencer confirmed this, however, their huge growth in online sales hardly got a mention. And this is a trend seen across most of the major retailers.

This is most definitely a glimmer of hope, what is really happening is not necessarily a slow down in the consumer economy but a change in shopper behaviour precipitated by the internet.

It seems that people still want to buy stuff, but what's changed is that they want to get what they need at the best price possible - even a few pennies less can make the difference and the internet makes this easy and comfortable. In addition, there just doesn't seem the appetite for traipsing around the shops or phoning them all up to make a comparison. This could well be due to the effect of out of town developments not necessarily having all the competition within a small area as it was when town centres were the main shopping areas.

Statistics recently published by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) in the UK indicate that total online trading was worth £130 Billion in 2007 and internet retail alone is worth £4 Billion per month, showing a 30% growth.

What this means in real terms is that those of us who are already successfully trading online should either feel no effects of a downturn and may even see sales increase.

I spend a lot of time talking to people, both Shopfitter customers and those I meet at ecommerce events or who just ring up for a bit of information. They all want to know pretty much the same thing; how to create a successful ecommerce website.

I think it's fair to say that there's no secret formula, no magic bullet and no one right way to do it. However, there are a number of things that are common to all successful businesses whether they trade online or only in the 'real' world.

As a seasoned conference speaker I've become reasonably adept at distilling much of these critical business activities into succinct 'Rules of Business' and then talking about how these apply to an online enterprise: this is the first.

Simon's First Rule of Business - Know your market

OK, I know it may seem obvious but there's a lot more to selling online than just sticking a load of products on a website.

Marketing is not selling or advertising (although they do come into it) it is about understanding your marketplace and doing things to fulfill it, here's a bullet list of what you need to know to know your own market:

• What do people want to buy?
  
• How much will they pay?
  
• How do they find those goods or services?
• What drives the marketplace, is it segmented?
• What competition is there (and what are they doing)?
  

So taking those into account it show us that marketing affects what our products are just as much as the way we advertise or sell our products. Marketing shapes our products and services to suit what our potential customers want to buy.

What do people want to buy? To find this out you need to talk to people, ask friends neighbours, existing customers, anyone, what it is (in your line of business, obviously) that makes them want to part with their cash. This information is extremely valuable because it gives you details about what customers' needs are.

For example; if I retail T-shirts and have black and white I need to know if people want other colours, I may be missing lots of sales because I don't have red, blue, yellow or orange T-shirts, in fact, it could be that the market for black or white is only a fraction of the total. I won't know unless I ask people.

How much will they pay? Price is (almost) always a factor, especially on the web because it's so easy for customers to compare your prices with other people. However, price isn't the only factor, speed of delivery, better quality, gift delivery to an alternative address and nicely packaged with a message are examples of why someone may pay more. Trust is a big factor too, if your website is low quality and unprofessional looking it could be perceived that your whole business is the same, so an item bought from a higher priced competitor will be chosen.

How do they find goods or services? This is where website sales differs most from 'real world' sales channels. Something like 80% of visitors arrive via a Search Engine, which one varies from country to country. In the UK Google holds around 70% of the search market whereas it's lead is much smaller in the US (nearer 50%).

This is where there's a sub First Rule - Know your search terms. This applies only to selling on the internet. People type words into search engines, if these terms don't appear on your website then there's no way a search engine will display a link to your site in its search return.

For example, if someone types "red tshirt buy online" into Google and it exactly matches what is on my site I'll get a search listing, if the words don't appear on my site at all I have no listing.
So you must find out what sort things people type into search engines to find the sort of products or services you sell, again, talk to people, guess and test and use the tools that Google et al provide to find how much each term (and their variants) are used.

In addition, this also means that creating a website that follows search engine guidelines is a critical factor in your marketing. But more of that in other posts and pages on the Shopfitter site.

What drives the marketplace, is it segmented? You need to know something about what the most important factors are in people making their buying decision, it may be price, rarity, customisation. Whatever it is there's a good chance that there will be segmentation to understand too.

For example, there may be a market for a higher quality variation of your product for which you can charge a premium price. This will, of course, only be attractive to a segment of the buying public, so you need to know what makes them want premium goods and also how to attract them to your website.

What competition is there (and what are they doing)? Your competitors are doing you a favour by existing because they act both as a barometer of your marketplace but also give you the chance to create some differentiation. In a price sensitive market this would be lower prices, or it could be free delivery, or providing unusual sizing, for example.

You can also look at how and where they advertise and compare your own activities with theirs and come up with something different and better. Never be afraid of competition, they force you to improve what you do.

I hope thats been of use, much of it goes without saying - but it's definitely better to state the obvious than overlook it when there are so many other things going on when you're trying to improve your online selling.

Good luck and don't hesitate to get in touch if there's any way Shopfitter.com or I can help.

Simon :)

Yes it's true, the BBC news is reporting that once again businesses who are selling online are taking advantage of the opportunities for growth available in virtual market places.

While high street sales are in decline this Christmas internet based retail has grown again, this year by a massive 50%.

And that's something we at Shopfitter can confirm, in fact we're seeing a 300% increase in the number of sales through our servers. Naturally we're very pleased to see our users becoming more successful each year, and the longer the e-commerce sites exist the better they seem to do.

Over the years we've had people hesitate over whether to take the plunge and start trading with a webshop, concerns over security and not being able to cope with increased demand put many small businesses off.

Fortunately, the buying public has, on the whole, got over the worries about security, online systems are now seen to be as secure as any other form of transaction.

With regard to not being able to cope with a massive influx of new orders, the reality is that it takes months or years to really build up the order numbers - and because it's fairly organic growth it's easy to extend the capabilities of your business as you need to.

One thing that's certainly clear, the internet retail growth is set to continue. So if you don't have an ecommerce website at the moment but would like to share in the online boom next Christmas then now is the time to be planning and building your webshop.

Remember, it will probably take a couple of months to build your site, even with an easy to use system like Shopfitter 4, then another three months for Google and the other search engines to notice and index your site. That takes us into early summer, just right for getting ready for Autumn and the busiest month online - November.

So don't put it off too long, the sooner you get started, the better you'll do next Christmas and the one after that...

Labels: Christmas sales, ecommerce up by 50%, high street decline, onlines sales growth