20 Tips for Getting Started in e-Commerce

Credit goes to Actinic Software for posting this sobering article, replicated below. Although EU-centric, principles apply equally if you are wishing to engage e-Commerce Down Under.


The wild west of the internet has been largely tamed and lots of people are succeeding online these days. Sadly, there have been numerous casualties, but the good news is that you don't have to follow in their footsteps. Here are some of the good practices that have been extracted from the last few years of turmoil.

1. It's not the technology
Internet technology has enabled the whole ecommerce revolution to happen. But if we focus on technology, we will never succeed commercially. The rules of ecommerce are like those for any other business. You have to have something that customers want, at a price that they can afford and where you can make money. Then you have to let your prospects know about it. It's as simple as that.

2. Marketing, marketing, marketing
If your great idea is ever to be profitable, people have to know about it. You need to find out how people search on the internet. What are the key words that they use for your type of product? What other ways do they look online? Talk to lots of people and try to understand a bit more about it all. Here are some sites that can help: www.searchenginewatch.com, www.overture.com, and www.webmasterworld.com (look under 'Ecommerce' and 'The Marketing World').

3. Market offline
It's true that all of your prospects are online, but it also true that they are all offline more of the time. Some very successful internet companies built initial awareness almost exclusively offline. You need to ask whether traditional marketing like advertising, PR or direct mail can help.

4. Remember your existing customers
Once you are up and running, remember that existing customers are your best customers. Make sure that you encourage them to return by making special offers and letting them know what you are doing at your store.

5. Use stuff that already works
Use technology that works, not stuff that’s a masterpiece in progress. Why bother debugging software from some start-up or paying thousands for a bespoke solution that leaves you reliant on the designer ever after, when you could be using stuff that is already working on thousands of online stores.

6. Sell from the second they arrive
Once someone arrives at your site, marketing is over and selling begins. So leave the smooth talk out, and make it easy to find your products. Have a clear link like "Shop Here". And don't ask them to register before they can look at your catalogue. There will be plenty of time to get their name and address once they have decided to buy.

7. Make sure your site works for you, not your designer
Don’t let a fantastic design spoil your business because, for instance, the design stuff takes so long to load that everyone just clicks away. Make everything the servant of the business objective, which is to make sales.

8. Get a good online payment provider
You need to be able to take payments online, and it makes sense to team up with a good one.

9. Sign up with a good hosting company
Your online store needs to be hosted somewhere, and there are plenty of great deals around for good, low cost web hosting. Look for a company that is a hosting specialist, rather than one trying to be a jack of all trades.

10. Make arrangements for the shipping of orders
Arranging for shipping is not so daunting as you might think, because there are many specialist firms to help. Many ecommerce merchants ship abroad without any problems. The big boys are UPS, Fedex, DHL and ParcelForce, but there are many others. Ask for advice from other local businesses that already ship their goods.

11. Don't miss opportunities abroad
Surprisingly, it's fairly straightforward. If you're eating out in France and you pay by credit card then the restaurant will be paid in euros. The opposite is also true, so when foreign buyers visit your site you can be paid in pounds and they will be charged in their local currency.

12. Be legal and decent
Like every area of business these days, ecommerce is surrounded by a maze of red tape, rules and regulations. In fact, selling online tends to be worse because of the international dimension. And any slip-ups you make are there for the world to see, so it's doubly important to be legal and decent. The following five tips try to pull together some of the areas that you need to think about and understand. They shouldn't be taken as definitive – it's your job to comply with the law – but they are a good place to start.

13. Comply with the EU Distance Selling Directive
Under the EU Distance Selling Directive, you must make clear who you are by providing full contact details including an address and phone number. This is also good practice for building trust.

Under the same Directive, you must accept goods for return within 7 working days. Why not make this a selling point?

14. Get your tax right
As of 1 April 2006, you must be VAT registered if your annual sales exceed £61,000. If you're not VAT registered, you don't have to worry about charging VAT and it would actually be against the law to do so.

Selling to the EU, you should charge VAT at your usual rate. But there are some exceptions. If you exceed the individual VAT threshold for Germany, France, etc. then you should charge VAT at the appropriate country VAT rate when selling into that country, not the usual UK 17.5% rate. Also, if your customer is a non-UK business in the EU and is registered for VAT in its own country, the buyer is allowed to quote their VAT registration number to you in order to be exempted from tax.

Finally, you don’t have to charge VAT when selling outside the EU, such as to the US.

15. Allow for disabled visitors it's the law!
Make sure that you comply with the disability law which is effective from late 2004. The key requirement is that you have to take "reasonable" steps to provide access to people with disabilities, and this includes your online store. One way of doing that is to make sure that all images have alternate text tags so visually impaired people can still navigate your site.

16. Privacy matters
You will probably need to register with the Information Commissioner's Office at www.ico.gov.uk. Registering takes just a few hours of careful thought and work.

17. Comply with the rules on sending email
You are only allowed to send direct email marketing to individuals who have agreed to receive it from you by directly opting in. It is not sufficient simply to provide an opt out.

However, if you obtained their details in the course of making a sale, or in the course of a sales enquiry, the rules are different. You are allowed to continue communicating with them provided there is a free method of opting out each time you send them an email. This can be by email.

18. Turn burdens into a benefit
Assuming that you are legal and decent, let the world know. Anything that adds to your credibility will help online. So why not list all of the things that you have done under the heading "We comply with the following legal and tax regulations"?

19. Avoid Fraud
One potential problem when selling online is fraud. Don’t get things out of proportion, there are problems with any business and no one has managed to entirely eliminate shoplifting yet. Unfortunately it's true that foreign orders from some countries seem to be much more likely to be fraudulent than others. If in doubt, stick to ones from Western Europe and North America.

To help avoid fraudulent orders look out for these indicators:

They tend to use the most expensive shipping method available
They tend to choose the most expensive products
They tend to use free email addresses such as Yahoo or Hotmail.
In addition you can check whether an order is fraudulent by asking for a fax of a copy of the back strip of the credit card; asking for proof of name and address to be faxed; or you can telephone to make sure that the number is genuine. Most fraudsters give up at the first hurdle and you don't hear from them again.

20. Go for it
Finally, you may have been wondering for a while whether ecommerce would be worth it. Well the results are now firmly in, and it’s very clear. Ecommerce is really on the rise, while conventional retail is relatively static. In the UK, around 6% of all retail sales are made across the web. What’s stopping you getting your share of this growing pie?

Source: Actinic Software

Living in a (Mis)information Society

As reported on Slashdot:

Germany has a new minister of economic affairs. Mr. von und zu Guttenberg is descended from an old and noble lineage, so his official name is very long: Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. When first there were rumors that he would be appointed to the post, someone changed his Wikipedia entry and added the name 'Wilhelm,' so Wikipedia stated his full name as: Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Wilhelm Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg.

What resulted from this edit points up a big problem for our information society (in German; Google translation). The German and international press picked up the wrong name from Wikipedia — including well-known newspapers, Internet sites, and TV news such as spiegel.de, Bild, heute.de, TAZ, or Süddeutsche Zeitung. In the meantime, the change on Wikipedia was reverted, with a request for proof of the name. The proof was quickly found. On spiegel.de an article cites Mr. von und zu Guttenberg using his 'full name'; however, while the quote might have been real, the full name seems to have been looked up on Wikipedia while the false edit was in place. So the circle was closed: Wikipedia states a false fact, a reputable media outlet copies the false fact, and this outlet is then used as the source to prove the false fact to Wikipedia.

Source: Slashdot

Intel 32nm Process, a Hint of Good Things to Come

The new 32nm lithography process allows smaller, more highly integrated chips. The next generation due late 09 / early 10 include CPU (dual core), graphics processor and memory controller (dual channel) in a single package. The new chips are codenamed Clarkdale and Arrandale.

Benefits include reduced power consumption and heat dissipation thereby allowing portable devices with relatively high levels of performance, longer battery life and thinner / light weight designs. Can't wait to see these in laptops!

Source: Xbit Labs

India's "$10 Laptop" Huge Disappointment

The news no doubt had Nicholas Negroponte and the lads over at the OLPC foundation quaking in their boots. The XO Laptop was already getting its ass kicked by the barrage of netbooks that hit the market shortly after its launch and Intel’s rival educational notebook, the Classmate PC was winning over governments and filling more classrooms than the OLPC’s laptop.



Fortunately for the OLPC and unfortunately for everyone else, it seems like there’s less to the $10/$20 laptop than we originally thought--considerably less. With "megabytes" of onboard memory and wi-fi capabilities we (rather optimistically, we’ll admit) pictured something that resembled the netbooks we’re seeing now but a little more primitive. What we saw, was not a laptop, nor was it $10, or even $20. And why it was being touted as a laptop still remains a mystery

Times of India reports that the Sakshat is a 10-inch by 5-inch plastic box which, despite an official unveiling at India's Sri Venkateswara University yesterday, still contains only mystery parts. It appeared more like a storage device than anything else. As for the $10 price, the expected price is closer to thirty bucks. Bummer. It feels like being promised a car and getting a single rollerskate.

Source: TG Daily

Touch Recognition from SMART

FYI, nothing new, but well implemented:

HD Playback Experience on Modern Graphics Cards

For those of you who are considering a HTPC (Home Theatre Personal Computer) the graphics processor will be one of your most crucial decisions. Not only does it affect visual quality, overall system noise and performance levels, it also determines audio capabilities of your setup.

Check out the Xbit Labs article.