When it comes to ecommerce in Brazil, the future is looking as bright as ever. According to a March 2012 report from WebShoppers (e-bit report – a leading ecommerce data provider of ecommerce in Brazil,) in 2011, the number of ecommerce shoppers reached 31.9 million. Why the growth? Brazils middle class is booming which makes up 61%. As Brazil continues to be an emerging economy, this number will continue to grow through 2012 and hopefully for many years to come.

eMarketer goes on to report, “WorldPay, a global payments consultancy, also considers Brazil a prime market for ecommerce, driven by higher overall internet adoption rates and an increase in “light buyers,” people that go online for small purchases like digital music and toiletries. In January and February 2012, the firm surveyed internet users worldwide who had shopped online in the past six months and found that, on average, online buyers in Brazil spent 27% of their disposable income online, compared to 23% in the US and 17% in Canada.”

Are you currently selling to Brazil? If you’re not, you may want to think about expanding your ecommerce business to be able to serve the Brazilian market as its economy continues to surge and become a power house in South America and around the world.

I came across a great post today from the KissMetrics blog titled, “What The Highest Converting Websites Do Differently.” I think as internet retailers we constantly ask ourselves that question and as much as we ask it, we actually analyze it by looking at competitor’s websites, etc. BUT, my question to you, the reader is this, do you ask yourself, “ what can we be doing differently?”

Let’s look at the key highlights from the post that may inspire you to really get active on the conversion optimization front:

-Companies that take on a structured approach towards conversion optimization are twice as likely to see a large increase in sales?

-61% of companies do less than 5 tests a month.

-You have about 0-8 seconds to make a compelling selling headline or landing page.

-After 8 seconds, majority of visitors will leave your website.

-Approximately 96% of visitors that come to your website are not ready to buy.

-Product videos can increase conversions by 144%!

-A 1 second delay in your website speed can result in a 7% reduction in conversions (ouch.)

ALWAYS MAKE YOUR VALUE PROPOSITION CLEAR

When talking about conversion, we HAVE TO talk about Value Proposition (VP.) This may be the simplest yet most important thing you will have to really make clear and find a way to fit into your design for best optimization. The Value Proposition (VP) of your company is what makes you stand out from your competitors or why customers would buy from me. What value does your company offer customers over the others? That question right there, whatever your answer is, is your VP.
Customers want to know this. This will be the very reason, for the most part, they will buy from you. You have to make sure these VPs are in your most visited pages to sell the customer on purchasing from you and not your competitor.

-Implementing a “Chat Now” button increased free signup form fills by 31%.

-Cars.com recently boosted their conversion rate 2.7% by having a security seal on their site.

-Including discount information in the title (e.g. 15% off Product A vs Product A) increased add to cart conversions by 148.3%.

-Benefits, social proof and credibility indicators led to a 144.1% improvement on landing pages.

-Putting people on your homepage can have a huge impact on conversions.

-Including a pain point in a headline increased conversions by 31%.

-Changing your call-to-action button from green to red has been shown to increase conversions by as much as 34%.

-Try moving around your Buy Now button. Appsumo did this (among other things) and doubled their conversion rate.

-Changing a button from “See Plans and Pricing” to “Get Started Today” increased conversions by 252%.

-Turning CAPTCHA off led to no conversions lost and very little spam mail in this case study.

-Showing testimonials can drive validation.

-Using natural language on forms has been shown to increase conversions by 25-40%.

-Having a nice mobile site can double conversions.

-Segmenting your users can increase conversion rates be giving more relevant content to the user.

-Putting your call-to-action button can really improve conversions.

This illustration gives us a clear view on the impact of shipping rates and promotions on ecommerce websites.

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE AND SEE FULL VIEW)

Of course, the thing that stands out the most is FREE SHIPPING. Do you currently offer free shipping on your ecommerce site? If you currently don’t, why not? If you think it would cut into your margins, add that extra shipping cost to the product and just promote free shipping…see if that converts better for you. 93% of online shoppers say that free shipping would encourage them to make more purchases online! 93% is a huge number and you can’t put that statistic off if you don’t offer free shipping.

Remember, in eCommerce, it’s really all about trying new promotions and strategies when it comes to pricing, shipping, etc.

Do you offer free return shipping? I would say most ecommerce companies don’t. I’m not talking about the big players, for the most part, I’m talking about small to medium size internet retailers. 2 out of 3 shoppers said they buy more online if returns were free.

WHICH OPTION ENCOURAGES CUSTOMERS TO MAKE MORE ONLINE PURCHASES?

If you look at the illustration, the FREE SHIPPING really make all the difference in the world in terms of encouraging customers to buy when it comes time to choose the website of choice, etc. Free returns also plays a major role in purchasing decisions in ecommerce.

IN-STORE PICK UP

I won’t touch much on this because most small to medium size INTERNET RETAILERS won’t offer an in-store (in-office) pick up option. See illustration for these figures.

DON’T COMPLICATE SHIPPING OPTIONS

I have always been a BIG advocate of this very simple theory. Sometimes you’re shopping in a website and when it comes time to check out it gives you about 30 shipping options to choose from. HEY! Make this easy and quick for me, don’t give me too many options,I’ll get lost and want to go elsewhere. Make choosing a shipping option easy for the consumer and most importantly, FAST. Give them a few good options to choose from and that’ll speed up the purchasing decision.

Source of image: Xemion.com

Fortune3 is excited to announce the release of some great new features in our shopping cart and eCommerce platform. These new features are already available to you as a Fortune3 user and can be enabled right away!

Recurring Billing – With our new Recurring Billing feature, you can sell products and services on a subscription-basis in a fully automated way. Customers purchasing a “Recurring Billing” product will only have to place their initial order, and depending on the recurring product’s settings, orders will be placed automatically on the next billing period and come in as new orders to your online store. Recurring billing orders can be fully managed from the Admin Site or Cancelled by navigating to the “Orders -> Recurring Orders -> Recurring Billing Orders” screen. To set up a product as a Recurring Billing product, make sure that you downloaded the latest update to the Fortune3 Wizard, and go to the Product’s Properties screen, and find the last tab on top – Recurring Settings. Select your settings for how to base the pricing of recurring orders and their intervals. Then Save, and upload your site. You are done!

Auto-Ship / Recurring Shipping – With our new Auto-Ship feature, customers purchasing a product with this setting enabled will select every how often they would like the product to be shipped to them, and new orders will be placed in the shopping cart automatically on every interval, depending on the auto-ship settings selected by the customer. Auto-Ship orders can be fully managed from the Admin Site or Cancelled by navigating to the “Orders -> Recurring Orders -> Auto-Ship Orders” screen. The auto-ship feature is also located in each product’s Properties screen, under the Recurring Settings tab.

Auto-Emails – The new Auto-emails feature is a great tool for staying in touch and getting reviews from your existing clients and for increasing conversions with your potential clients. Auto-emails allow you to set up automated e-mails to be sent to customers after a certain amount of time has passed from an action they have taken. For example, you can set up an automated e-mail to send to customers 10 days after their order has been shipped to ask them to review the products they purchased and your site. You can also set up automatic “Abandoned Cart” emails, where customers will receive an email if they abandoned their order and did not finish it, to persuade them to complete their order. Auto-Emails can be configured in your Admin Site under “Manage -> E-m ail Templates”. Please view the last section on the bottom right, titled Auto-Emails for the 4 standard auto-emails that come with the system. You may also set up Custom Email Templates at the top of the screen and assign these custom email templates Auto-Sending options.

One-Click Re-Ordering – With the new Re-Order feature, your customers can now log in to your online store, and in their Order History / Order Status screen, select to easily re-place a previous order. When clicking on “Re-Order”, your customers will be taken direct to your online store’s checkout to complete the order.

StoneEdge Order Management Integration – Fortune3 now has a full integration with the StoneEdge OrderManager software. If you use StoneEdge to combine sales from multiple channels and to manage your orders, you now have an automated full integration with the Fortune3 shopping cart for sending orders and customers to StoneEdge, and updating products and inventory back and forth between Fortune3 and StoneEdge. You may find and set up your integration with StoneEdge by navigating to the Admin Site’s “Setup -> API Integrations” menu and clicking on the StoneEdge Order Manager link.

Option Images & New Option Display Options – Although this feature had been originally released over 6 weeks ago, its full completion and release is now a reality. There are new settings in the Fortune3 Wizard’s My Products section when adding and modifying Groups of Options. These settings will allow you to display option images next to the options on product pages, replace the main product’s image with the selected option’s image, and to lay out your options in multiple columns. To access these settings, simply go to the My Products section of the Fortune3 Wizard, go to the Properties of any Group of Options, and click on the “Option Settings” tab. The 3 new settings are in the middle of the screen.

Admin Site Menu Changes – Fortune3 has made some slight changes to the Admin Site navigation menu and moved some of the links around. The changes to the menu are listed below:
Quickbooks Direct Connect – This link has been moved to the Setup menu, under API Integrations.
API Setup – This links has been moved inside the API Integrations menu under the setup tab.
Affiliate Program Setup and Affiliate Reports – These links have been moved to the Marketing menu.
Mailing List Setup – This link has been moved to the Marketing menu.
We hope that you are able to take advantage of these new features for your online business! More new features and integrations will be coming soon, and version 2012 of the Fortune3 Wizard is on schedule for an early summer release.

There is a reason why there is so much buzz behind social media, because it works. Almost every American consumer, you may even say international now that it’s 2012, has access and interacts through social channels. As companies building brands, we want to engage this way. Actually, brands have probably been wishing for years for this revolution. However, of course, you have those that think the word of mouth is too powerful through these social channels and negative press can be as bad as it has been in history for any one company.

eMarketer reports, “Executives who said their companies had established an extensive social media presence reported a return on investment that was more than four times that of companies with little or no social network engagement activity.”

Let’s look at the effect of social engagement according to senior executives in the U.S. and Canada in Feb 2012:

Social media is a great tool to allow consumers to connect not only with the brand itself but connect with friends and family and have an open conversation about your brand. As eMarketer reports, “…10% of respondents said they had seen a spike in their sales by letting consumers talk about their brands on social media platforms, even if some of the dialogue was negative.”

Let’s look at the value of social engagement according to senior executives in U.S. and Canada Feb 2012:

We think about our websites as really just being the business but it’s just as important as anything else to have structure and other things back up the site. Remember, the website is just a part of what will make your business thrive…there are plenty of other factors that are just as important to actually make your business run smooth and operate so that it grows.

OUTLINE OR WRITE YOUR PLAN

As you launch your business, you need a plan. You need at least an outline of your business and what it is / will be. You need to specify your objectives, strategies, financing, sales – marketing and anything else that you can put together to put the vision on paper to make it happen.

PEOPLE CHANGE….SO DO BUSINESSES

It’s important to note that the game plan above might change. This is actually important to realize and you must be willing to adapt. Your business may change due to several factors such as what competitors are doing, where the industry is headed, etc.

KEEP YOUR EGO IN CHECK AND LISTEN TO OTHERS

I think many veteran business owners, maybe even newbies probably read this and say, “OH YEAH…” You started the business and you’re making your vision come true. GREAT. But guess what, you really don’t know everything and it’s extremely important to have outsider feedback. Even that feedback of your employees can go a long way to help build your business.

KEEP TRACK AND GUIDE BY THE NUMBERS

In order to maximize your business success and take it to the promise land, you need a map. In the business world, this map will actually be your numbers that your bookkeeper / accountant provides to you so you where you’re at and what you need to do to get where you want to be.

DELEGATE WORK TO EMPLOYEES AND AVOID MICROMANAGING

Again, for veteran entrepreneurs and also some newbies, this is gold, right? If you don’t know or want to delegate work and you’re micromanaging everyone and everything, how far can you possibly get with that much focus? Once you start delegating tasks you can focus on the ‘big picture’ task. This is extremely important in order to grow your business.

ADAPT TO CHANGE, AS FAST AS IT COMES

If you look at many companies who were once successful end up failing because they don’t adapt to change or look to future trends to set their businesses up for success. A great example is the Polaroid camera company. Ecommerce, I should say the internet, changes almost on a daily basis with news that we need to be updated with. Make sure you keep on top of trends and make sure you’re not staying way behind your competitors in any aspect of the business.

Are you a tablet user yourself? How much time do you spend on your tablet? What about on your phone? What do you do on your mobile device? Whatever your responses are, think about the amount of people who do the same thing as you. Then, think about the amount of people who are probably using mobile devices more than you. Some may use less.

The highlights and facts described in this post are from an article posted on eMarketer about consumers turning to tablets for research in purchase decisions. The important thing to really note, and you may have already known this, is that people are really using tablets for this, so, what does that mean? If you aren’t really doing Pay-Per-Click marketing around night time when most Americans get to sit down after a hard days work and browse the tablet, you may be missing out on consumers searching to purchase your product.

“Overall, tablets were found to be an ideal device for researching and vetting product purchases. Half of tablet users in the study said they turned to the device to research products prior to a store visit. The same percentage also strongly agreed the tablet was an ideal tool for researching products prior to purchase, and 42% said the better viewing experience on tablets made them want to shop more on this mobile device.”

Let’s look at some ways that can help you optimize (IMPROVE) your PPC campaign:

AVOID BROAD MATCH KEYWORDS

There are three ways you can bid on keywords, they can be broad match, phrase match or exact match. What do these mean? Just as the words suggest. One mistake many advertisers do is bid on keywords that are broad and leave them as ‘broad’ terms when setting them up in the search engines.

For example, let’s say you have an ecommerce website that sells socks. Now, you want to drive as much traffic to your yellow socks section (category,) etc.

If you bid on just the word yellow socks, the search engine may bring your ad up for anything that a user can type that has to do the with color yellow or socks. If you use phrase match, your ad will show up only when someone types in “yellow socks” and any other word or if it’s used in a sentence. If you bid exact match on [yellow socks] your ad will only show up on yellow socks. You may be asking yourself, OK, why would I not just bid on everything exact match?

Yes, you can bid all exact match and that may prove to be more cost effect and may you can have either a higher click through rate on higher conversions. HOWEVER, by not bidding phrase match you are missing out on valuable traffic.

Do I recommend bidding on broad match? Yes. However, you have to monitor this very closely and make sure you are looking at conversion rates constantly on broad match.

SPLIT OF SEARCH AND CONTENT

If you look at your PPC settings, you’ll see that you’ll have the option to choose where you want the campaign to show. You can choose search and content. Search basically means the search engine and content means on websites that are related to your keyword.

Hopefully, you have conversion tracking set up in your PPC campaign.

You want to create two different campaigns that are identical to one another. However, you want to make sure that one is just for search and one is just for content. This way, you know what channel is working better for you and more cost effective.
ADD NEGATIVE KEYWORDS TO CAMPAIGN

Every business has negative keywords? What are negative keywords? These are keywords that you don’t want your ad being shown to users that type them in the search engine.

Let’s use an example. Let’s stick to the yellow socks ecommerce idea. Now, I am searching in Google for yellow socks but I am typing in “free yellow socks” and as I type that, your ad shows up. I will click on it because as the searcher, I am thinking that the almighty Google is serving up ads that are exactly what I am searching for. Guess what? I just clicked on your website and that just cost you X amount of money.

Want to avoid that charge? Easy. In your campaign, whether Google Adwords or Microsoft Ad Center, they have the option to ad negative keywords. Use this tool to add keywords you dont want your ads to show. This is where using broad match or phrase match can be good if you set up the right negative keywords.

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE RIGHT LANDING PAGE TO THE AD

If you are sending traffic to the wrong page, your campaign will be a failure. Period. You need to make sure that the right keywords and ads are driving traffic to the most relevant page as possible.

If you are driving traffic to a general socks page of all colors when someone just typed in “yellow socks” in Google, you are now making the user search through your website when you could have driven that user to just a page of yellow socks.

For ecommerce, if you don’t have specific pages set up for certain things, you can always drive traffic and set up ads to drive traffic to search results pages of your own website.

TEST AD COPY. TEST AD COPY. AND OH YEAH…TEST AD COPY.

The reason why I have to repeat this so much is because this is the one thing that most individuals, maybe even companies, fail to really test. It’s SO important to keep testing different variations of ads because the better the ad, the cheaper you will pay for the click and the higher it will rank, even bidding lower than most competitors.

Keep a close eye on the CTR (click through rate) of these ads and keep rotating them and eliminating the worse performing ad.

Also, try to use seasonality and events to really get better CTR during a certain period.

You can leverage Twitter and more than leverage it; it NEEDS to be part of your social media strategy. Hopefully, if you’re not JUST starting your ecommerce business, you have a social media strategy.

As you use Twitter and get familiar with it, it’s important to understand exactly how it works and how YOU, as a company / organization, should and can use Twitter to engage with consumers.

MOST ENGAGING TYPES OF TWEETS

The most engaging types of tweets include:

-Questions to Followers

-Information Sharing (content – links)

-Self Promotion

*using humor is said to work well with the Twitter community.

WORSE TYPES OF TWEETS

-Presence Maintaince (status like “Hello, I’m here.)

-Check-Ins

TIPS FOR CREATING MORE ENGAGING TWEETS

• Offer context in tweets. Don’t be cryptic.

• Include personal commentary — especially if you retweet a news source.

• Don’t over-stuff tweets with hashtags and @ mentions. Consider direct messaging someone over @ messaging them.

• Don’t whine or complain. Happy sentiments, the report says, are valued more than negative tweets.

• If you ask a question, use a hashtag so you and your followers can track the conversation.

**This article was written based on a study collected by Who Gives A Tweet and reported by Entreprenuer.com.

See these awesome links on Twitter to help you:

Best Time to Post on Twitter Statistics

Twitter Updates for Ecommerce

How we all wish ecommerce was that simple, right? In order to have a successful ecommerce business, it’s important, I would say IMPERATIVE you do your research on what it is you will sell.

So, how do you decide what to sell online? What will you sell on your new ecommerce website?

PASSION IS ALWAYS THE BEST FIRST CHOICE

People will always tell you or you will always hear the famous line, “do what you love,” or “do what makes you happy.” I will tell you this…”SELL WHAT YOU LOVE…SELL WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY.”

Think about products or something that you really love and really try to get into that niche. If you sell what you love, you’re more likely to be a lot more engaged in the business and really enthused about it which will create a good positive energy to start building your business.

WHAT IF I CAN’T SELL WHAT I LOVE OR WANT?

As cliche as this may sound, if you want to do it, you probably can’t. But let’s say you can’t start an online business selling your first option…what to sell now you ask? Go to websites like Amazon, Zappos and other big players and look for best sellers. Browse through their gigantic website and see what is popular, what is trending, etc.

IT’S BEST TO GO NICHE – NICHE WEBSITES PERFORM WELL.

If you’re just starting an ecommerce websites, especially for the first time, it’s always best to go niche at first…maybe even stay niche. Take Zappos.com for example. The company that got bought out by over 1 BILLION dollars started as just an ecommerce shoe store before it sold everything under the sun.

If you find a product, try to focus on just that product and start a website and all its content around that product. This may even go over better with consumers shopping through your websites as consumers like speciality sites…there is more trust there.

RESEARCH AND KNOW YOUR MARKET.

Once you have your product, the key ingredient to the success of your ecommerce store will be how well you know your market. Research and study your competitors and know the following KEY elements:

-Price point of products you are competing with
-Keywords they use to promote and market their website
-Promotions they use

IN THE END, IT’S ALL ABOUT PROFITABILITY

You never want to go or start any business before you analyze some numbers. Granted, it’s very important to note and realize that any business takes money to launch. It can be as little a $100 to a few thousand, depending on how you want to launch, the type of website you want to design, etc.

However, for long-term durability and to really build a long-term ecommerce business, it’s important to analyze your margins of the products you sell. Will you be profitable after all the fees you incur as a business (i.e. credit card fees, marketing cost, etc.) ?