Honey Bee Buzz Marketing Blog

Shopping Cart Checklist

Having an online store is great, but in order for it to bring you money, you must make sure it’s working!

You don’t want to have done a great job starting your company and making your products only to have a messy bottleneck when the orders come rolling in. Or worse, to not have them roll in at all because the shopping cart or online store isn’t working correctly.

Before you set-it-and-forget-it, run through this checklist:

• Buy an item for yourself. Does the process go smoothly?
• Is it easy to find where to add info and where to click to progress?
• Can people find the starting point for shopping easily? Or is it buried on your page?
• Is the discounting system working correctly?
• Are the prices right?
• Are the shipping costs correctly calculated?
• Is the order slated to be shipped to the right place?
• If you’re using an automated delivery system where UPS or FedEx, etc. picks up from you directly through the ordering, is that working correctly?
• Is your contact info easy to find, preferably on every page, in case someone has a question while they’re ordering? Having your phone number, a chat function, or at least your email readily available is important.

How’s your online store? Let us know here at the Honey Bee Buzz Marketing Blog.

Top 5 eCommerce Tips

Selling products and services online is easier and better than ever.

It’s a great way to reach markets that are not locally accessible, or which are very niche and scattered around the world. Selling downloadable products online can be a great source of passive income – like the old RonCo motto: “Set it and forget it!”

How do you go about it, or improve what you’ve already got working?

Check out these Top 5 eCommerce Tips:

1. Save yourself time and hassle and use pre-developed software. Watch this blog for a review of stand-alone options and plug-ins.
2. Test it! Always test your online store. Have friends test for you, too. You can usually give them a coupon, and with it they can shop for pennies, yet still test your shop. Have them actually buy an item and have it shipped. Click here for a checklist.
3. Look at your product lines carefully. Consider what to include, exclude, upsell (package with other products). People are often willing to buy more if the shipping cost doesn’t go up too much.
4. Search Engine Optimize!!!!! The name of the online game is optimization. You must give your products and catalog descriptions good keywords and meta data. Don’t know what those are? Stay tuned to the Honey Bee Buzz Marketing Blog and Newsletters. We’ll be covering SEO in detail. You’ve got to use good SEO and PPC to drive traffic (people) to your site/online store.
5. Use online advertising to your advantage. PPC (Pay Per Click, for instance Google’s AdWords) is especially effective if you list the product price. That way, only people who are willing to pay that amount are going to click on the ad, which you are then charged for.

Leave us some comments about how you run your store, or questions that you’d like answers to. You can also contact us through our handy Chat widget to the right of this post.

Thanks for reading the Honey Bee Buzz Marketing Blog and Newsletter!