This article originally appeared in our company magazine ‘The Bulletin’ where we write about design, websites and marketing for small to medium sized businesses.  For your free copy please contact us.

An e-commerce website needs careful consideration and planning beyond the normal preparation for designing a website, that is to say what it will look like and how many pages will be needed. The reason being that it will be more than just a “sales and marketing” window on the world, in the majority of cases it will be that business’s only interaction with their customers, so the buying, ordering and fulfilment process must be faultless

So what do you need to consider before setting up an e-commerce website?

What countries or regions will you operate in, i.e. just the UK, EU or globally?
Technically from the web developer perspective it is not a problem. But what tax issues might that raise with Customs and Excise? Do you know which customers you should charge VAT to and those you shouldn’t? Do you understand what tax records you will need to keep and what information you will need to supply to a customer on an invoice/receipt?

Delivery and carriage
This can be a problem, our advice is to keep it simple, but you have to consider your typical order value. Many retailers of low ticket priced items just write off goods lost in transit, or customer claims that goods never arrived, as it is the cheapest option. This may not be something that you can afford or wish to do with a higher price items, so your chosen delivery company will need to offer a parcel tracking facility, and your customer will have to sign for their goods.

Which currencies will your website accept?
The universal Web currency is the US Dollar, but is that appropriate in all your markets?

Language?
If overseas markets are important to your business, should you provide multi language versions of your website?

Consider the logistics of running the website, the areas where online retailers traditionally struggle are:

Order tracking
Website software can include order status information, but for most small retailers that has to be updated by a member of staff.

Returns and refunds
Clear terms and conditions can avoid a lot of problems from the outset.

Stock control
Not realising the space and money required to keep reasonable stock levels, on line shoppers expect next day or delivery in at least 3 to 5 working days not weeks.

Dealing with product enquiries and technical information requests
Failing to provide enough or confusing information on your website at best will generate a lot more work in dealing with questions and enquiries, at worst your customers will go elsewhere.

Credit card fraud
Depending on what you are selling you need to be aware of this problem. Consumer electronics and IT are seen as high risk by the credit card companies and they will charge you a higher fee or impose strict conditions. Do not use the terminal in your shop or office to process website transactions before checking with your card processing company as you may find that you will not be covered for loss or fraud.

Making day to day website updates and adding new products
Most of the sites we build have content management to allow shop owners to update and add products, but most still struggle as they did not appreciate how long it takes to collate the information about a new product, work out its retail price, source and choose the right photographs and then compose the words of the description.

Marketing
Time will be needed on a regular basis to market the site, be that Google Adwords, search engine optimisation or traditional advertising in key journals and the press, it all takes time.

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If you need help with an e-commerce project then contact David Woodroofe on 01962 737989 or david@createdesignstudio.co.uk.

Useful Links:

The unofficial ‘rules’ that make great webpages visitors want to read
Create Design Studio Web Design and Build Services

From the Create Design Studio Email Newsletter, for more great articles like this one sign up on our homepage (in the left column).

There are good reasons why the layout of some web-sites appears to follow an unofficial set of design rules that guides location of the menus and content.

How visitors use your web-pages
Research into the way that people use websites called ‘eyetracking’ has revealed that users tend to scan in the first instance along the top of the web page from left to right and then down the left hand side of the screen from top to bottom.

These places correspond with the usual menu and headline locations and these would appear to be the places people look to gauge content and navigation links. The obvious place for your branding is in this area so visitors can recognise who the site is about and where the information comes from. The amount of time site visitors spend looking for the thing they want is tiny, measured in seconds, so make it as easy as possible for them to find what they want. Clear and concise link titles mean visitors stay with your site rather than moving on to your competition.

Get their attention with a strong headline
The headline is the next thing the visitor reads. It is the most effective way to grab their attention. Writing concise headlines can help visitors find the information they want quickly and keep them on your site pages.

Use typefaces carefully for maximum legibility
The fonts you use should make your text easy to read, legibility is key to helping visitors actually read the text on your site pages. Don’t mix lots of different fonts on a single page, stick to one or two so that all your pages are consistent and look as though they come from the same source.

Colour can draw attention where you want it
Use colour to draw attention to your headlines, or to pull out quotes from customers from the main body text. However, don’t use too many colours on any one page – it’s visually distracting to page visitors. Stick to one or two colours and consider using tints of them if you need variations. Using clashing colours on web pages make it less likely that visitors will read your text and raises the chances of them choosing to go elsewhere.

The designer’s favourite: white space explained
Incorporate blank spaces around your content so site visitors don’t have to struggle to find what they want in a clutter of things. You don’t want your site pages to resemble a jumble sale where locating the right thing becomes a chore because this will drive away site visitors. Clear space also acts to draw attention to the most important things on the page, for example:

Any paragraph of text with wide margins assumes more
importance because it is isolated on the page.

For more impact, just add images
If you add pictures, choose ones that enhance what your story, illustrate your product effectively and show your visitor the thing they are searching for. Beautiful pictures are attractive but on their own they may not hold visitors on your website unless you happen to be selling the images as art. If your business is in the service industry associate your pictures with people, they could be your staff, your clients or stock images of the kind of people who might be interested in your service. This helps visitors to identify personally with your service and guides them to imagine using it.

Show off your business with the best possible images
A professional photographer will take pictures with better composition and lighting than any amateur snapshot, investment in good quality photography will give your web-pages a professional image for your business to present to potential clients.

Finding images that don’t cost a fortune
If you can’t afford a photographer there are sources of professional quality photographs that can be obtained from stock photography websites. Prices can vary, as can the quality of the images, and it is a good idea to check out several sites and browse the images they hold, before making any purchases. Check the terms and conditions of the site and make sure that any images you buy can be used freely on your website or in your printed materials.

Useful links:
Blogpost: Why you should update your website little and often
Blogpost: Your business is unique, let everyone know why
Webpage: The Create Design Studio Website Design and Build Service