Top 100 E-Commerce Tips

100. Never leave unanswered emails for more than 48 hours, or your customer is gone.

99. Let the customer see the shipping charge without registering! Preferably on the basket or a easy-to-find ’shipping charges’ page.

98. Make sure your forms use common names for fields so that they’re recognized by toolbars that have an autofill function.

97. Sites (mainly US!) that have address or phone fields that assume only a US citizen is going to purchase e.g. State fields that only allow a few characters entry.

96. (following on from 97) If you’ve got a country drop-down box, please list it in alphabetical order, and don’t put United States at the top!

95. Don’t just accept payment through PayPal. Many people have had bad experiences with PayPal and prefer to use alternative, simpler payment methods.

94. Make your site incredibly easy to buy from – no registration if possible, live chat, 800 # – make it friendly and easy to buy from.

93. Take a picture of your office and add it to your contact us page with your company FAX number on it, then, go to www.crystalcreeklogistics.com

92. Don’t bury your products in several pages of clickthroughs, implement a working search mechanism so the user can get to what they seek in two clicks, three maximum. Insure there are redundant methods of getting around and no point on your site is more than two clicks away . . . from ANYWHERE.

91. Keep your initial products pages light and clean, with links to product details if they actually want to read.

90. Build your site for the end user, not the search engines. This means leave off all the serp-y text on the initial products pages.

89. Give the user a sense of who you are. The web is a cold, anonymous place. Anything you can do to bring a sense of personality and assurance to your website will help.

88. if you use a site search, make sure it works better than expected. It should search more than product names. Make sure it can find products by SKU, Model Number, and even misspellings if possible.

87. Be sure to include links to your privacy, shipping, returns & exchange policies right out where the customer can easily find them. Tell them the truth.

86. Keep the customer informed about the status of their order before they ask

85. Re: Navigation – Use the same visual theme for every action required of the customer

84. Re: Product options – Make them clear and comprehensive. Answer every possible question on the product detail page

83. Make sure your site search can also search by size and color. If I’m considering a green skirt or blue towels, make it easy to find other items that would match.

82. Don’t use those standard drop down country forms containing places like North Korea or Bouvet Island (an inhabited speck in the South Atlantic. For heavens sake, don’t list known scam destinations as a ship-to.

81. Don’t start huge lists like this that require people to read every previous post thoroughly

80. If you only ship to USA (or wherever) say that right off and several times.

79. Drives me crazy when the “About Us” section says nothing specific about the seller and just has some obviously canned verbiage.

78. Mission Statements: Yuck! Luckily they seem to be dying out. No one gives a ****, anyway.

77. Goes without saying that spelling must be perfect. On slow days, have employees proof read old pages.

76. Bragging about yourself is ok if you have something to brag about. But better to not mention things like “Since 2005″ or “here’s a picture of our new puppy.”

75. If you’re new to e commerce NEVER mention that.  Invitation to scammers to hit you.

74. Get a real 800# (or 888), not a 866 or such.

73. Get the most web un-savvy person you know to test your site.

72. Customize product descriptions. Eschew text provided by suppliers which everyone else uses.

71. Listen to customers, invite their comments and criticism and act on what you learn

70. Answer emails in 8 hours max (certainly not 48)

69. Give street address but never “we’re in Puppyland Center, between Tony’s Pizza and the Shoe repair shop.”

68. Show good sharp graphics. Learn to use basic photo editing software.

67. Worth saying again, and again. Make everything fast and simple. Do you really need a wish list or tell-a-friend or even customer registration? Don’t just add to your site. Sometimes remove clutter.

66. (Follow on from 67) remove all non essential navigation elements from the checkout process. Have a single page checkout if possible.

65. Calling your customer to thank them and confirm their order instills immediate trust.

64. Make entering credit card numbers easy.

63. Install a really good stats system to track where your visitors bailed out of the purchasing process.

62. Pay good money for a proper interactive graphic designer (not a coder, web ‘developer’, or print designer doing a bit of moonlighting). If your web site looks professional, people will trust it and buy stuff.

61. Accessibility and usability – those 5% of ‘non-standard’ user groups all add up.

60. Add your 800# to every step of the checkout process with something to the tune of “questions or problems completing your order, call 800#)

59. Have a “best sellers” or “most popular” listing. The boost from this has been noticeable.

58. If your site ranks best in your niche, and If you sell something that is sold on many other websites (something drop shipped for you, for example), very slightly change the name — Tarenta to Tarento, Classica to Classico, for example. This helps deter people price shopping for the ‘product name’ elsewhere and in the shopping engines.

57. List your prices for every item clearly and upfront. There’s no space for a ‘price on application’ model online, none at all.

56. When using thumbnails to link to larger images give your customers larger images.

55. Pick the right product to sell. Something people actually want to buy. Preferably something lots of people want to buy.

54. If your target audience is concentrated in one country, host your website on a server and ip located in that country.

53. Promotional Offers: I believe offers are v imp. Now they need to be planned for first timers, repeat buyers and special offers for top customers.

52. Referral Program: Refer 2 friends and get x% additional/ discount always helps.

51. Actually have contact info – many sites hide their identity and location. Try to put the contact number somewhere on every page, it instills confidence.

50. Keep the 3 P’s above the fold on a product page. Product name, Price and Purchase link should all be visible without having to scroll.

49. Drop the “Create account” language. People don’t come to our sites to create accounts, they come there to buy things. I try to make the account creation process appear like the normal checkout process. If they enter an email that is already in the system, THEN I ask them to request their password to login.

48. Know your visitors – if significantly more people are first-time-buyers, don’t hit them with a login screen with a small link to register to the site – reverse the process.

47. Keep your cart on your domain – if for nothing else, it keeps your reporting homogenous.

46. Don’t use the “simple” methods of gateway processing where the visitor is redirected to the gateway site. It seems that on almost every implementation of these setups the webmaster fails to bring the most current site layout over to the gateway site and the visitor gets a whole new layout for cc errors.

45. Never tell the visitor to “Hit your ‘back’ button to correct”. I haven’t found a valid reason to do this yet – any issue should be able to be handled within the system.

44. Have a “Help” link very prominently displayed so they have somewhere to go if there is an issue.

43. For telephone purposes use a short and easy to spell domain name like … dot tld depending on locations or products use more than one, which redirect to a product or location page.

42. Get the credit card number first, ask questions later!

41. If you show a picture of the product and next to it a link that says ‘enlarge’ actually ENLARGE the photo rather than have it open in a new window exactly the same size as on the main page!

40. Ship fast. Preferably the same day and you are sure to get mails for appreciation.

39. Have points of re-assurance near the buy/add to cart button (bbb, bizrate, other ratings)

38. Use a proper ssl certificate.

37. If using paid advertising, don’t send them to your home page; send them to the relevant product page (or custom landing page) that is tied to the keyword you advertised!

36. If you sell software, allow immediate access to the full version and allow unlimited upgrades

35. Have a list of “recommended products” and “other customers also bought” with each item. This can be simply done in your database where you just connect products together and base it on what customers have actually bought.

34. Have a newsletter sign up and send out newsletters.

33. Don’t make the customer fill in the CC billing & shipping address fields when they’re the same, drives me nuts!

32. Vat number & Company Registration Number should be visible on the site in the UK to comply with UK Companies Act (updated Jan 2007).

31. If the product ships via a carrier, send an email to the customer with the tracking number with a link to the carrier to check status.

30. Use an XML Sitemap generator to create a sitemap to get a “big picture” of your site. Submit it to Google et al. and they’ll help you find dead pages, etc.

29. On category pages don’t just list product names, but include some unique content about the category for indexing.

28. Use a product rating feed or create your own system (if you have a sizable user base). A place for user-generated comments can be great, but it can also be a hassle (monitoring, lots of fake entries, etc).

27. If you sell the same object in different colors, offer them pictures of each color.
telling a customer that you “also do this in blue” isn’t all that helpful because there are about fifty billion shades of blue.

26. Use a larger font (14+) for titles and product names to make them stand out and possibly increase conversions.

25. Stay away from dynamic URLs when possible.

24. Sign up for Hackersafe, Verisign and your related trade associations and display their logos to improve credibility.

23. Have a person answer the phone, not a recording.

22. If you cannot exceed the expectations created by your site, rewrite your copy. Under promise and over-deliver.

21. Hang in there with the difficult customers-they become the most loyal.

20. Know when a customer needs to be given to your competition.

19. Consistency. Everyone has a different flavor, color, even brand. Key is to be consistant — have 1 text size and color for descriptions, one for links, one for category headers, perhaps another for main category links. At least theres a tone or vibe that your site is a statement vs a hodgepodge of stuff made by someone in their basement Be serious about what you are doing, and people will be serious about considering buying from you

18. If you use sessions, store them in a database, don’t append them to the URL, as people like the look of clean URL’s and often snip them to mail to friends to refer them to a particular product to purchase.

17. On checkout gather a name and phone number as the first 2 fields, store them before proceeding and ring all the customers that drop out before completing the checkout. (This alone turned a $1M business into a $5M business)

16. Make the font on your product copy readable. 12pt at least. NO funky fonts.

15. Make sure your buy button pops off the page and is big enough to be seen and clicked on.

14. Make sure the title tag on each product page is unique and reflects what is on the page. (It never ceases to amaze me how many companies in this day and age still have just the company name in the title tag of product pages). Oh, and product name first in the title tag. Not your company name.

13. Superstition does not work well with Business. What you may feel [to be] unlucky may be lucky for customers ranging from keeping Price Tag, Products, Colors, Day / Time of Shipping etc. [this one was weird]

12. Offer a strong guarantee. Don’t just say this widget is guaranteed x days. Try for something like this: Try this widget risk-free for 30 days — if you don’t see an improvement in widget results — if this is not the best widget you have ever owned — return it to us for a full refund.

11. Add “District of Columbia -DC” to the list of drop down states, you be suprised how many sites are missing it…

10. And don’t forget PR, GU, VI and all the other US commonwealth and protectorates, that the Postal Service can ship to, at cheap postal rates.

9. Don’t forget US Servicemen/women abroad. Include APO/FPO state codes.

8 1/2. Add a 360 degree product view before the rest of the pack.

8. Play with the wording of your add-to-cart buttons. “Add to cart” is a nice non-threatening way to encourage adding items as some feel “order” or “buy” is too much of a commitment.

7. Be careful making a coupon field too prominent in checkout, especially in markets that are based on commodity goods such as electronics. Seeing the field may convince a shopper that was ready to purchase to exit and spend more time hunting for coupons. Consider relabeling as promotion code or something less descriptive (unless you are linking to a promo page with coupon codes to encourage larger sales).

6. Mine referral data of orders for search engine keyword queries encoded in the urls and further optimize for these terms for organic search or consider adding to your PPC campaigns.

5. Encourage impulse buys says a tip I read somewhere on the net, people don’t mind being asked “Do you want fries with that?”

4. If you’re going to ask customers to sign up for your newsletter during checkout, do it AFTER the payment is processed. Before the payment is taken, the customer is far more interested in ordering your product – but once you’ve taken their payment and they’re looking at your “Thank you for your order” screen it’s the ideal moment to get them to sign up…

3. Test. Everything. A lot.

2. Don’t assume the main goal of every commerce site is to make a profit. Publicly owned sites are often more concerned with selling stock and hitting wall street’s quarterly sales goals. That was true in the ’90s and somewhat true even now.

1. Amid all the costly free shipping gimmicks, 365 day guarantees, free return pickups, insanely low prices…don’t forget to actually turn a profit.

June 18th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

 

E-Commerce Times > E-Commerce | Read Next Article in E-Commerce

Bringing Tasty E-Food Safely to Your Doorstep

By Vivian Wagner
E-Commerce Times
12/07/11 5:00 AM PT

Ordering food online and having it shipped home has become commonplace in the 21st century. That food, however, travels a fairly complex route from computer screen to kitchen table. The shipping of perishable food products is a highly regulated industry, to ensure that consumers get food that is safe to eat even after it’s been on the road for a few days.

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Someone in the mood for a steak can always go down to the grocery store or head out to a restaurant to get one. However, some shoppers prefer to stay home, go online, place an order, and wait for a couple of days for a frozen steak to appear on their doorstep, packed tightly in a Styrofoam container with dry ice.

One company that provides this service is the Kansas City Steak Company, a family-owned company that ships more than a million orders each year throughout the U.S.

“We ship high-quality Kansas corn-fed beef that is aged for up to 28 days,” Edward Scavuzzo, the company’s president, told the E-Commerce Times. “And we guarantee that every one of our products meets our high standards — and our customers’.”

The company has had steady business despite, or maybe because of, the recession. Scavuzzo said.

“People still desire high-quality meals, but in this economy, they aren’t going to restaurants at the same pace,” he noted. “They are bringing the steakhouse to their house when they order our products and then have them delivered to their door.”

The Shipping News

Shipping food requires attention to detail — about facts like how long, exactly, that dry ice will last.

Whenever food-shipping company Crystal Creek Logistics gets a new client, a rigorous process of testing ensues to determine packaging and shipping requirements for that product, said co-owner Cathy Hayward-Hughes. This testing includes putting the frozen product in a Styrofoam package with dry ice and using sensors to monitor how cold it stays and for how long.

“You have to be careful that you have enough time for the package to arrive and the customer to get it,” Hayward-Hughes told the E-Commerce Times. “The sensor technology has improved a lot. You can pull the sensor out and plug it into your laptop and get all the data points. You can read everything that happens. You can plot out what happens with that particular product and how best it can be shipped.”

The other key to effective shipping is the Styrofoam, which because of its versatility and insulating qualities remains the packaging of choice for many food shippers.

“Styrofoam still is the best product out there for keeping items cold,” said Hayward-Hughes. “So far, I haven’t found anything that is as good as Styrofoam. It’s the least expensive, you can shape it in a variety of ways, and it’s a great insulator.”

There has been a move in the industry to come up with more sustainable and Earth-friendly alternatives to Styrofoam, however. One company working on such alternatives is Providence Packaging.

“New designs have been developed, such as our KoolShield products,” President Bob Menzel told the E-Commerce Times. “KoolShield leverages the insulating capabilities of foam with the insulating capabilities of reflective insulation. There continues to be a focus on sustainability, and Providence Packaging is meeting this need with recycling programs, as well as packaging that features biodegradable insulation solutions.”

Safe Shipping

The shipping of perishable food products is a highly regulated industry, to ensure that consumers get food that is safe to eat even after it’s been on the road for a few days. The primary regulating agency for food shipments is the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

“Under the regulations currently on the books, food must not be shipped in commerce under conditions that could cause it to become contaminated or deteriorate, and that would include shipment by commercial carriers as well as the UPSes and Fed Exes of the world,” FDA spokesperson Douglas Karas told the E-Commerce Times.

Both the shipper and the carrier can be held liable for the safe shipping practices of food, he noted.

“The shipper should provide the carrier with temperature parameters for the food in transport if the food is to be shipped under refrigeration, and the carrier should operate the vehicle to maintain proper refrigeration,” Karas said. “If the food is to be shipped without refrigeration, the shipper should pre-cool the item and provide proper packaging to maintain it cold.”

There are different regulations for different kinds of foods, Karas emphasized, and these are explained in the agency’s food code.

“It is important that shippers know the difference between foods that must be refrigerated for safety, versus those that only need to be refrigerated for quality,” he said. “The former category is termed ‘potentially hazardous foods.’ It is particularly important that all steps be taken to ensure that potentially hazardous foods are shipped under appropriate temperature control.”

E-commerce companies looking for a shipping company should find one that provides the kind of packaging and service required to comply with all applicable regulations and ensure that food arrives safely at its destination, advised Providence Packaging’s Menzel.

“Look for experience shipping temperature-sensitive products and a willingness to provide the transportation solution necessary to your particular products,” he said. “Some products are relatively durable, while some are extremely delicate. The packaging solutions must be designed to meet the challenges of the distribution channel, both in terms of temperature-maintenance and overall quality preservation.”

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Freelance writer Vivian Wagner has wide-ranging interests, from technology and business to music and motorcycles. She writes features regularly for ECT News Network, and her work has also appeared in American Profile, Bluegrass Unlimited, and many other publications. For more about her, visit her website.

Whatcom shipping company moves into former Ocean Kayak facility

Read more: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2011/10/26/2244916/whatcom-shipping-company-moves.html#ixzz1c3BZnbsg

 

September 19, 2011

Crystal Creek Logistics is dedicated to continually improving services for our customers.  To accommodate our anticipated growth and better meet the needs of our customers today and in the future, we have chosen to expand our services to Richmond Virginia, where we have formed a strategic partnership with Richmond Cold Storage.  Richmond Cold Storage (RCS) has 12 locations throughout the eastern seaboard and the south and employs more than 500 people.

With our ongoing expansion and our desire to effectively reach the U.S. population by the most effective means of shipping direct to consumer, our exhaustive research led us the facilities and management team at RCS, where the infrastructure was in place as was a location that could effectively provide a ‘to the doorstep’ service to more than 65% of the U.S. population via 2 day ground shipping.  To many of our customers, this translates to a very sizable savings on freight charges over the course of a year.  We feel that the location is perfect and the climate is such that there will be fewer weather driven shipment delays than some of the other locations we had considered.

The selection of Richmond was based on many factors including our geographic customer concentration.  We also realized in short order that the team at RCS shared the same degree of professionalism and ethics that Crystal Creek has worked hard to establish since their inception. RCS has great facilities and a workforce that clearly understands the issues surrounding pick and pack/ fulfillment.

Crystal Creek,  as of mid September, has shifted a sizable portion of our frozen pick and pack operation to Richmond and as a result,  we will save one of our customers more than $500,000 in shipping charges in 2012 alone.  This also translates to a lower carbon footprint which is always in the back of everyone’s minds.

Crystal Creek will continue to operate our west coast and home office facility in Ferndale Washington along with our other strategic partnership in Hastings Nebraska, where we can effectively ship to nearly 95% of the U.S. population by 3 day ground, again saving our customers significant money and reducing the carbon footprint.  Anything we can do to minimize the freight cost and avoid the more expensive air shipments not only helps the bottom line of our customers, but makes the entire shipping experience a more environmentally sound decision as well.

We are pleased to partner with the folks from RCS and look forward to many prosperous years of working together.  If you have any questions, please call Michael Bradburn, V.P. Business Development at 360 325 8123.

June 20, 2011 – Mike and Cathy have returned from a week in San Diego where they hosted a booth (#638) at this year’s Internet Retailers Conference – IRCE.  We had a great show and met a number of our industry piers.  There were a number of Fulfillment companies at this show yet we were the only company that was in the business of shipping frozen foods.  Attending the show were folks who seemed to be interested in software applications to a great degree, and some who were seeking fulfillment.   These shows are always good, not always in measurable ways but getting our name out there generates more awareness as to who we are, and what we are doing.  Word of mouth referrals are the best darn free advertising a company can get.  Our next show is Expo West – Natural Products show in Anaheim next March – see us in booth number 5019.  This show should be fertile ground for us as there are over 3,400 exhibits and nearly 60,000 attendees passing by.  We are optimistic about this show!

This is a very helpful post created by someone other than a Crystal Creek employee, but worth relaying the message.

What Is A Merchant Account?
Posted on May 19, 2011 by Andrew

What Is A Merchant Account and how can I accept credit card payments from my wholesale dropship product website?

A merchant account is a type of bank account.  It is what allows a businesses to accept payments by credit and debit cards.  It serves as an agreement between a retailer, a merchant bank and payment processor for the settlement of the card transactions.  Your merchant account is where your payments from your customers will be deposited.

Most card transactions are sent electronically to merchant processing banks for authorization, capture and deposit. Various methods exist for presenting a credit card sale to “the system.”  Either the card is read and physically swiped through a credit card terminal or reader or the credit card information is manually entered into a credit card terminal or a computer and website.   For the online transactions with a merchant account and a payment gateway is used.  A payment gateway is an e-commerce service that authorizes payments for e-businesses and online retailers. It is the equivalent of a physical terminal located in most retail outlets.  A merchant account provider is typically a separate company from the payment gateway.   What confuses some users is that some merchant account providers have their own payment gateways but the majority of companies use 3rd party payment gateways. The gateway usually has two options the first is you often have website terminal where you could enter card numbers directly for your transactions and the second option is to have your own website’s shopping-cart connect to the payment gateway via an API to allow for real time processing from the merchant’s website.

In short…if you want to take orders and collect payments from a website you need a merchant account for your payments to be approved and deposited into and you will need to connect your site to your merchant account through a payment gateway. (This is not a technical process…typically you just activate the gateway from your site and enter some basic ID and PW or some other value to identify you as the owner of this merchant account.)

When looking at a merchant account, people often question if they should have a PayPal account or also another merchant account option for card payments, especially when some users have their PayPal account approved for card processing.

We would recommend using a merchant account provider or using PayPal and a Merchant Account provider if possible.

Why?  Well, PayPal can make it difficult if your customer does not already have a PayPal account. That leads to a higher percentage of shopping cart abandonment. For example, if your customer does not have a PayPal account, and PayPal is all you offer them, many customers will back out of the purchase even if you tell them they can use PayPal without an account.  If they continue, PayPal prompts another time if they want to setup an account or just continue on with the order.  While it does not sound like a huge hurdle, when you have a customer who is trying to pay you, that is not the best time to start asking them additional questions or fill in additional forms.  If you have a credit card payment option through a Merchant Account they will simply as the card type and get the payment details and complete the sale.

We have people that sell every day while only offering PayPal on their site and we have others who only use a merchant account, but there is nothing wrong with presenting both options from your site and let your customers pick the option they want. Those who have PayPal accounts and like to use them will appreciate the convenience, and those who don’t will appreciate not being hassled.

Getting a Merchant Account does NOT have to be expensive and difficult to set up. In fact, we have developed a process with Ecommerce Exchange, our recommended merchant account provider that could not be easier with a quick and simple application process.  We have worked with them for years and are happy to help you get setup with a new merchant account regardless of your shopping cart platform.  Click here to Learn More.

What should go through the mind of an Online Retailer when they are considering making use of a fulfillment company?

Ok, so your online business is beginning to take off, you are seeing the type of sales volume that you had hoped for, now what?  You now have numerous hats to wear, you have to continue to ensure that your products are being produced, and per your specs.   You are thinking – how do I find time to take orders, process these orders, make sure the customer’s credit card is even good, buy shipping materials, figure out where to buy dry ice (in some cases), create a packing line, pack up the orders and see to it that it gets picked up by FedEx or UPS on time to make sure the customer gets his order in a manner that meets their expectations, while still managing to run and grow my business?  How will we handle late/ spoiled/ damaged shipments?  What is our policy for returns?  What are my true costs?  So much to think about….

Is a fulfillment company appropriate for you?

In order for you to succeed with outsourcing your fulfillment, you will need to ship at least 40 orders/ packages each week at the low end, and closer to 100 and above, is better.  The lower the quantity, the more challenging it is to develop an understanding of the sku descriptions and establish a rhythm in the picking and packing line.  The more you ship; the opportunity for errors diminishes greatly.  Why? – Familiarity, among other things.  Your fulfillment company can find the resources to streamline the processes from a number of angles; your fulfillment company can negotiate better pricing on supplies and because of volume, obtain better shipping rates for you.  They typically have established relationships with a variety of carriers and packaging suppliers to best meet your needs at much more affordable prices than you could otherwise get if you were on your own.

Why outsource this facet of your business? Because a good fulfillment company can save you money – they are experts and they have the systems in place for optimizing this component.  Most have spent countless hours in negotiations with the packaging suppliers and carriers, they have learned what works and what does not.  They can typically offer a variety of different products to best match the needs of each customer.  A good fulfillment company learns from experience and shares those ideas with the next company that comes along.  New products almost always need testing in the form of packaging, durability, time in transit for optimum condition upon arrival, all for affordable ship methods.  In your case, the trial and error period can be costly whereas the professionals know how to cut to the chase and streamline without all the headaches.  Just add up the cost of boxes, styros, dry ice, packing materials, tape, calling FedEx, then factor in the monetary value of your time – in most cases, you have more productive and better aspects of your business on which to focus your time.  After that, factor in the cost of the added space in your warehouse or even having to rent a warehouse to accommodate your inventory and create a packing line – this becomes downright daunting to most folks

On your end, your products need to be shipping regularly in order for fulfillment to work efficiently and in a cost effective manner, this does not mean that you cannot have variables in shipping frequency.  Fulfillment companies are scalable and agile – able to withstand the highs and lows and seasonal spikes.  Everybody wins if the company with whom you contract can spread the highs and lows with their other customers as most peaks and valleys come at different times, thus minimizing the impact.

Your volume and cost analysis should be carefully analyzed prior to deciding to outsource your fulfillment.  If you don’t have proven sales, you really should have an approved marketing plan.  Some fulfillment companies will request to see this because they can offer quality feedback relative to your likelihood for success.  They can often point out issues that can provide a more positive outcome for the sales of your products, thereby saving both you and them time and money.  It takes time and resources for a fulfillment company to take on a new client, and both of you need to be sure that there is a good chance that your products will sell online.  Advertising is crucial; a good Google Adwords account can help to ensure that the search engines have a better chance of finding you.  Both PPC (pay per click), and SEO (search engine optimization), must be utilized.  This is a science within itself and in most cases, professionals should be consulted.  You can have a great product but if nobody can find you, you are dead in the water!   Nowadays, good advertising includes a good Social Media campaign (blogs, facebook, twitter, etc.), and press releases.  A functional and user friendly website will be the most critical part of your success.  A good measure of the value and quality of your website is to have it critiqued, there are a number of sites that can provide worthwhile feedback for you, a good one that I’ve found is; www.websitegrader.com enter your URL into the window, hit enter, and it will offer feedback on a number of criteria with great detail.

After you have determined your product mix and your price points, you will need to factor in the associated additional costs of the fulfillment component – Your price to your customer must reflect the added cost of; delivery of your product to our facility, SKU setup, our receiving and put away costs, our monthly storage costs, your monthly costs for participating in a good “Order Manager” software program – (your orders are typically received by a fulfillment company via a text file (CSV/ XML, etc.), or EDI for example, in batch form or individually – the integration of which is sorted out by each company’s I.T. dept.).  Then add Pick & Pack costs, and your shipping costs.  Once you have factored in these costs and combined them with any and all of your other costs, you will have a better idea of your price point and profit structure.  If everything continues to ‘pencil out’, then your chances for success have improved greatly and it might be time to consider outsourcing.  Another important consideration is “is this location a sensible location from which to send out my products?”  Often an online retailer chooses a fulfillment company because the shipping point is near them and they can spend time at the facility and watch their products ship, another might be that a fulfillment center is near the manufacturer of their products, yet another is that it is close to the port in which their container arrives – thus saving added shipping costs.  Yet another reason is that their location might be centrally located in that they can effectively reach most every customer via an affordable ship method.  If none of these apply to you, don’t worry – you chose this company because you trust them and believe you have established a great partnership.  A good fulfillment company will do everything in their power to help you to grow your online business – because your success is their success.  After your assessment of your situation, if your sales volume is still small, you can do it yourself and you can save money, but this money you save is not free – it takes your time away from sales and marketing and the best way to grow your company is for you to  focus on your strengths.  It’s important to find that tipping point, consult the pros when making this assessment!

Written by Michael Bradburn and Cathy Hayward Hughes of Crystal Creek Logistics.   www.crystalcreeklogistics.com

Understanding shopping cart abandonment

As an online customer, are you sometimes abandoning your online shopping cart before you complete your purchase? If so, you’re not alone. Abandoned shopping carts are a common problem. According to a Forrester Research report published earlier this year, nearly 90% of online shoppers say they have abandoned a shopping cart without completing the transaction.

Reasons for abandoning online shopping carts vary – High shipping costs and comparison shopping are two common reasons for shopping cart abandonment. Some folks are simply conducting their own research for future purchases, some have a desire to find more information about a product or to read reviews, and some are searching for coupons.  These are a few reasons why consumers and business customers may leave your site without making a purchase. Some shopping carts force visitors to register or that make it hard to find what you need to click to complete your sale and check out.

Although some of the factors that cause shoppers to leave your site without completing a purchase are beyond your control, there are things you can do to reduce lost sales. Here are several to consider:

• If practical, offer free shipping or free shipping to one location for purchases over a set dollar amount.
• If you do charge a shipping and handling fee, keep your fees as low as possible by negotiating discounts on packaging materials, streamlining fulfillment procedures, and using the shipping company with the best rates for the volume of shipping you do and the weight and locations to which you are shipping.
• Post information about expected delivery times. Customers want to know how soon after they place an order their merchandise will ship, and what the expected delivery time will be.
• Make sure your shopping cart isn’t confusing to use. Can customers easily find the add-to-cart button? Can they easily find a way to view their cart when adding multiple items, and how to checkout when they are ready?
• If customers are asked to register to make a purchase, is there an easy way for them to opt out of registration and still complete the transaction?
• Make sure your company name, location, hours of operation, and a telephone number are clearly visible on every page of the site.  Customers who buy online often want to call the company to ask questions or even to make sure the company is “real” before entering credit card information online.
• Provide multiple payment options. Yes, certain credit cards charge merchants more to process, than others, but by refusing to accept them, you could very well lose the sale and the customer plus any money you spent on advertising to get the customer to find your site.
• Provide a way for customers to print an order form, submit a purchase order, or mail in a check. This is particularly important if you sell to businesses.

One other tool you might want to have in your arsenal to save the sale is a newsletter or other way of getting customers to identify themselves and leave contact information so you can follow up with them in the future.  The person who leaves your shopping cart today because they are just starting to research their purchase, may be ready to buy tomorrow or next week.  An email offering them a discount or other incentive to buy may be all it takes to get the prospect to buy from you.

What is important to know about sending or receiving food in the mail?

Holidays are a time for giving and receiving food through the mail. Whether you ship delicacies from your own kitchen, or receive food gifts in the mail, there are important considerations when it comes to perishable food, especially meat, poultry, fish and things like cheesecake. These foods must be handled carefully and in a timely manner to prevent food-borne illness.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service offers the following safety tips to help senders and receivers know if perishable food has been handled and shipped properly:

Mail order food

The mail order food business is a big one. If you receive a package containing perishable food, take note:

• If it’s perishable, be sure it was sent cold or frozen, complete with a cold source, and was packed in foam or heavy corrugated cardboard.

• Overnight shipping is best, with the package marked “Keep Refrigerated.”

• When you receive a package marked “Keep Refrigerated,” open it immediately and check its temperature. The food should arrive frozen or at least partially frozen with ice crystals still visible.

The food should at least be refrigerator cold — below 40 degrees as measured with a food thermometer.

Even if a product is smoked, cured, vacuum-packed, and/or fully cooked, it is still perishable and must be kept cold.

• If a perishable food arrives warm, above 40 degrees measured with a food thermometer, notify the company right away. There is likely an 800 number in or on the box.

Do not consume the food. Do not even taste suspect food!

• When sending commercial food to others, tell the receiver if the company has promised a delivery date, or at least, tell them that “a gift is in the mail” so someone can be there to receive it.

Do not send perishable items to an office unless you know it will arrive on a work day and that there is refrigerator space for keeping it cold.

When sending gifts of perishable foods prepared at home, follow these guidelines:

• Ship in a sturdy box.

• Pack with a cold source such as dry ice or frozen gel packs. Dry ice is available at some grocery stores, it’s best to call first.

• When using dry ice, don’t let it come in direct contact with food, or hands. Warn the recipient of its use by writing “Contains Dry Ice” on the outside of the box.

• Wrap the contents in two layers of brown paper.

• Write “Keep Refrigerated” on the outside of the box.

• Alert the recipient of its expected arrival.

• Do not send packages at the end of the week. Ship at the beginning of the week so packages won’t sit in a post office or mailing facility over the weekend.

• Whenever possible, send non-perishable food.

Food is holiday favorite, but be sure the items you send or receive are safe for consumption. For more information, go to www.usda.gov and type “mail order food safety” in the search box. Bon appetit!

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We’ve attempted to take the complexity out of direct to consumer shipping (or Fulfillment), watch our video and come away with a good overview of how we can help you to reduce your day to day workload and help you to focus on growing your business.