Automation Insights into Ecommerce Business

Written by Strand Davis Saturday, 21 May 2011 07:26

What is ecommerce, and what does it have to do with you? Combine home business, product sourcing, and the Internet, we have ecommerce--the buying and selling of goods and services online. If you currently use a website to advertise, market, and buy or sell, then you are engaged in ecommerce. One of the great paradoxes of our current economic time is that the general state of the retail and manufacturing economy may be suffering, but business on the Internet--that is ecommerce--is doing very well, indeed.

What is ecommerce, and what does it have to do with you? Combine home business, product sourcing, and the Internet, we have ecommerce--the buying and selling of goods and services online. If you currently use a website to advertise, market, and buy or sell, then you are engaged in ecommerce. One of the great paradoxes of our current economic time is that the general state of the retail and manufacturing economy may be suffering, but business on the Internet--that is ecommerce--is doing very well, indeed.

One of the keys to running a successful ecommerce site is the appropriate use of automation. That is, using software--and this doesn't have to be terribly complicated--to automate many of the repetitious, rote tasks that can take up so much of your time. For example, much of your communication with customers can be automated through the use of an email auto responder. Another example would be your shopping cart platform. The shopping cart is crucial as it automates almost every aspect of your customers' experience with your website and generates records of customer email, telephone, address, and financial transaction.

If you have already established a website on your own hosting, you may find that your hosting company offers push button installation of a choice of shopping carts. This would allow you to set up the shopping cart, integrate it with a payment processor (such as PayPal), and have it all within a single day, depending on the complexity of your home business and products you are selling. Many carts, such as OSCommerce are open source and free to use. I don't want to over simplify this and make you think that there is no learning curve, but my point is that the technology is available, often free to use, and can reduce your work load significantly, especially when you have large product offerings.

Once you do have your shopping cart online, it is important to upload your product information and test the command line of the site. That means you want to simulate the experience of a customer from time of arrival, product selection, check out, and purchase of the products. This also means that you must be confident of your inventory and product sourcing. Home business success means never running out of stock. So it is also important to "test" your suppliers to be sure they are reliable.

Finding sources of product supply is often seen to be a major obstacle to going into business on the Internet. Actually, this is less a problem than a perception characteristic of newcomers to online business. Product sourcing for home business is important whether you selling products on eBay, in a flea market, from a dorm room, or out of your kitchen. I think that after you do a little business planning, questions of where to find products will start to answer themselves. One of the biggest product sourcing secrets is that manufacturers will generally tell you who their product distributors are.

Once your ecommerce "machine" is set up and tested, you should be able to let it take care of itself while you concentrate on more important aspects of business, such as advertising, marketing, and researching new products and niches. One caution: Always remember that your business and your ecommerce site are not necessarily the same thing. I view the site as a means of production for your business. This is just a suggestion, and now I urge to get to work and become successful beyond your wildest dreams.