Opening an E-Shop

Internet came into our lives as surely as electricity. It conquers more and more hearts for it by its speed and versatility, by its possibilities that seem to be boundless. We move more and more parts of our lives from off-line to on-line. But human brain is never ready to accept something completely new; it is intended to search for familiar features in everything. That is why majority of things that were moved to on-line world still bear properties of their firm prototypes, even if they are purely conventional. On-line shop is not an exception. The functions are the same. And expectations of customers are basically the same. You are curious what they expect from e-shop. Let’s think together. I am sure, my dear reader, you played a part of customer hundred times. What is important for you when you choose the shop?

Place and accessibility

Managers who plan building of a shop pay much attention to its location. They care about the roads that will lead potential customers to it. Everything shall be done so that more people could get inside and see the goods to be bought. Why do not managers of e-shop think in the same way? Trust me, good managers do think.

What are on-line analogues of that?  Roads of Internet are not inscrutable. The location of e-shop is the cross-road of links that lead to it. The more they are close to thoroughfares the better. The user will eagerly visit a shop that is close to his habitual path, i.e. to the links that are familiar for him. He does not want to wander for hours or to remember a complicated path. He wants to get into the shop with minimal effort, maybe one click. What are habitual paths for a customer? As for me the first place I go when I want something is www.google.com. I just search for an item I want to buy and go to the first shop I find. It is natural for any customer to enter the first shop he sees. What are other paths that can lead me to the shop? Ask yourself where I may go regularly and you will get your answer. Being an ordinary user I go to check my mail-box each day, then I go to see recent news and after a little hesitation allow myself to read couple of articles that interest me and discuss them with my friends through some kind of messenger like Yahoo or whatever is available. If I see any information about goods that interest me on either of those pages I will surely go and see the details. That leads creators of e-shop to an obvious idea of locating their advertisement and references on mail sites, news sites, on message windows of messengers, and also on the sites that attract the interest of target group of customers.

Conclusion 1: The higher is position of e-shop in a search list the more customers it can attract.
Conclusion 2: Investigate the target group and place your references on the sites that attract it.
Conclusion 3: Show a bit of compassion to your customers and imagine where it would be convenient to find a reference to an e-shop.

Sign-board

There are thousands of shops in contemporary city and billions of them on the Internet. Customer can not enter each of them. Even if the shop is on his way he may pass by without paying any attention. Something shall attract him. The sign-board shall contain information that would make the customer think “Hey, that is right what I was searching for!” or “Hey! That is interesting”. It can be the name and design or a brief sentence about the content, but necessarily something eye-catching. From the other hand it shall not be irritating or tasteless or promise something that can not be found in this e-shop. What is sign-board for an e-shop? The lines of the search system, the banners, advertisement on other sites, head of the home page etc. The above expectations are valid for either of those items.

Conclusion 1: The main criterion of a good sign-board is attractiveness and appropriateness.

Design

Customer passed by, saw your sign-board and decided to enter your shop. What does he expect to see? He wants to see a clean and airy room with quiet atmosphere so that he could examine goods and take decision calmly. All this implies that the design of e-shop shall be clear enough, without anything that irritates customer’s eyes with too bright colors or unreadable texts, or constant blinking.

Sometimes the designers forget about the main objective and the shop-keeper gets a richly decorated room where his goods look humble and stay unnoticed. The same sometimes happens to sites, when the content is lost behind sophisticated design. The objective is to sell something, so the design must emphasize attractiveness of goods without becoming the end in itself.

Also the one wants to find the items he needs quickly, get information about the goods, see the price and turn to a hospitable shop assistant if he needs help. So the designer shall think about comprehensive order of grouping goods, for example, by categories and by alphabet inside the category. A search tool will be helpful if the range of goods is waste. Description of each item is extremely important, much more than in real world. Here description provided is the only thing that forms customer’s opinion about the item. Information shall be sufficiently complete, yet brief and attractive. Also it shall be true because no one wants to buy something damaged or inappropriate. And if this happens it brings losses to the shop anyway. If all information given does not satisfy the customer and he wants more he might seek for support. So providing his e-Commerce online store with possibility to ask all his questions would be quite a reasonable thing.

Conclusion 1: The design shall be comprehensive and pleasant for the eyes.
Conclusion 2: The customer shall find goods among others without any problem.
Conclusion 3:  The information about the goods shall be attractive, sufficient, true and easily accessed.

What is the general principle of shop building, business and any other activity that deals with people? Ask yourself what they might want and try to give that to your customers. This simple idea seems to be obvious, yet everyone who uses it right enjoys gratitude of clients and success of his business.