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How To Select The Right Shopping Cart For Your Online Business Store

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What Works for the Buyer

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Keeping an online shop is taking your business to a completely new level. Until you had your online store, your clients were walking up to you to buy your products or services. But now, with an online facility, you are offering them a totally different experience. You are stepping forward and taking the river to the thirsty child! It’s important that the quality be worth it.

There are two things that come into play here:

  1. Your existing clients buy online.
  2. New people come across your site and buy.

In both cases, the user experience has to be great.

Once again, there are two important factors here:

  1. You – the seller
  2. Your shopping cart – for the buyer

Both the factors need to appeal to your buyer. So, your website needs to look and feel authentic – in a way, that your buyer doesn’t feel he’s going to be rugged! And your shopping cart has to be user friendly, comfortable and convenient – to make the buying experience a pleasure!

Here’s how you make it happen by selecting the right shopping cart for your online business:

1. The Look

Your shopping cart should match your website layout, ideally. It should look like your cart, for your buyer! And it should be easy to use. Don’t have complicated tabs; settings features that make the buyer suspect your intensions!

2. The Display

It is important for the cart ot display all the information relevant and important to the user. Along with the products selected, the cart should show the exact price clearly. If you are offering discounts, they should be visible to encourage your user to buy.

3. The Compatibility

Server issues are the last thing you want on your online store. The user can not afford a transaction error or a compatibility problem. If you are launching on the virtual space, you need to take care of technical issues. There’s no cashier sitting on the web page giving out the change! Your server and your cart, hence, need to roll together.

4. The Payment

The above discussion brings us to payment and processing questions. The payment processor on your shop online – cart should support credit and debit card transactions. Checking whether the gateways are working right for you is almost mandatory.

5. The Support

There’s always going to be something that goes wrong! God forbid, but some unforeseen circumstances can lead to problems or concerns. How are you equipped to deal with it? This is an important question that should be answered before you plunge into the virtual shopping scenario. Plus, in case there is a problem, how soon can you resolve it? Support is, hence, something that influences the strength on your online store.

There are various open source shopping cart downloads available for you to select from and install on your website. One of the key features to note here is that the premade software you are planning to use should be easy to edit or should have a template format to suit your requirements. The look and feel should go with the perception that your website creates. So, take time out to evaluate the shopping carts and find the one that suits you the best. After all, turning your e-commerce business into a profitable one could be a matter of only a few ‘right’ choices – for you and for your buyer.

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Author’s Bio: Divya Rawat writes about e-commerce and Website Development at SEO Company inetzeal.com. Divya also writes ezinearticles and other resources.

Thank you, Divya!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Be a Good Citizen

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A Guest Post by
Rosemary O’Neill

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Like it or not, it’s political season in the United States. We must sort through the debates, talking heads, and town halls, and do our duty as citizens.

There are clear rules to being a good citizen of the US. Obey the law and vote, and you’re pretty much good. Throw in some volunteering, and that’s even better.

Online, in the social world, it’s a different story. Depending on where you are, the rules are different, and often unwritten. It can be tricky.

But don’t fear, I’m here to give you some simple tips that will keep you out of the Internet version of Turkish prison. We’ll cover Twitter and LinkedIn today:

Twitter

  • Fill out your bio – it’s the equivalent of politely introducing yourself.
  • Replace the “egg” with an avatar – you don’t walk around town with a mask on, do you?
  • Don’t use auto-direct messages – unless you’re getting hundreds of new followers every day, you can spare 5 minutes to send a personal greeting.
  • Don’t order people to “like” you on Facebook – need I say that this is rude?
  • Vary your stream – don’t just be all retweets, all quotes, all broadcast. Throw in some mentions, replies, original thoughts.
  • Don’t follow hundreds of people at once – it’s best to grow your following organically, over time. Get to know them first, then add more. Also, if your ratio of following to followers is way out of whack, you look desperate.
  • Help people – if you see a Tweet like, “can anyone recommend a good Chinese restaurant in Phoenix” and you know one, jump on it!

LinkedIn

  • Go in with a plan, are you open or not – if you decide to accept invitations from people you haven’t actually met, you are a LION (LinkedIn Open Networker); most people do not accept invitations from strangers, so tread carefully.
  • Be a contributor – when you first join a group, don’t make your first post a “promotion.”
  • Webinar spam – likewise, don’t make your first contribution a webinar announcement.
  • Don’t direct-link your Twitter stream to your activity stream – if I see you in both places, I want different content; come on, it’s not that much work!
  • Answer questions – go to the Answer section and help where you can; remember your manners and thank people who answer your questions as well.
  • Be generous with your recommendations – this falls into the “good karma” category. Spread your good recommendations where they’re appropriate, without expectations. Trust me, it’s good.

If you keep these guidelines in mind, you’re well on your way to being a solid social citizen. And don’t forget to vote.

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Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out their blog. You can find her on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee
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Thank you, Rosemary!

You’re irresistible!

ME “Liz” Strauss

The Top 7 Ways to Motivate Yourself Even on Mondays!

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How to Own Every Day

I used to not like mornings. Monday mornings were the worst. I liked them so little that I thought of Sunday as the impending doom … that made my weekends even shorter.

One day it dawned on me that if I lived to be 70 holding on to this feeling about Mondays, I’d have discounted 10 whole years of my life. Ten years — 520 Mondays lost, crashed, and burned — due to a bad attitude. I had to find a way to get and stay motivated. I had to get back my Mondays. I was pretty sure that I didn’t have enough future left to be throwing away 10 years like a fool.

Monday mornings made feel like a giraffe — all gawky and spotted, all sleepy eyed and too tired to chew my food. I needed motivation. But I wasn’t sure I knew how to do it. It would take some experimentation. I got down to it.

Who wants to sleepwalk through life? I had things that needed doing.

The Top 7 Ways to Motivate Yourself Even on Mondays!

Motivation, without it, we move slower. We’re susceptible to distraction and procrastination. Inside a company or working from home, what fuels our success is motivation — that reason, that determination to make something good happen.

I figured out early that it wasn’t such fun to be unmotivated. In fact, it was both stressful and boring. I didn’t like myself much and maybe that is what struck that match that got the home fires burning. Once I made it a quest to motivate myself, the rest was mostly easy. Here are 7 ways I found to motivate yourself even on Mondays!

  1. Feel all of your senses with amazing experiences. Give yourself the luxury of time to enjoy your shower. Wear clothes that feel good on your skin. Drink delicious coffee. Eat lovely food that smells good while you’re fixing it. Look at fabulous colors. Listen to amazing music. It’s hard not to feel alive when you put your whole body into the experience. Don’t just bring your head into the day show up with every cell of you. Let your DNA have a chance to be part of what you’re doing.

    It’s no accident nature puts on such a great show at sunrise – it inspires, invigorates, and motivates human beings. Try to see it. Don’t just look at walls, windshields, and buildings.

  2. Live every day as a quest. Work is work, but a quest is valiant and noble. Don’t just brainstorm, conspire. Let your fingers dance on the keyboard as you type. Smile while you think. Enjoy your food. Don’t just walk, stride — feel the ground beneath your feet. When you stop for a break look at the sky. Dare yourself to find everything easier, faster, more fun, and more meaningful.
  3. Work at your best learning level — your challenge sweet spot. Beak down your challenges to meet your skills set. Challenges that are too easy are boring. Challenges that are too hard cause anxiety. Neither state moves to action. Challenges that fall equally between anxiety and boredom inspire us. They catch our attention and feed our need to grow.
  4. Know that almost any work can be motivating. Whether you’re copying documents or cleaning up after a party, devise a way to put the task in your challenge zone. Time it. Measure it. Set a standard for your personal performance. Turn the work itself into art form. Make it a game.
  5. Get curious and confident. It’s hard to think of a knot as a problem when you curious about what holds it together and confident that you’ll find the way to unravel it. Be alert. Be aware. Notice things. People who notice things know more than people who don’t. Then choose the things you notice energize you. Let them fuel your day. Ask new questions. Rather than asking, “What will I do to fix this problem?” try “How can this situation be a strength?” “How can go with it and end up with a better than what I had in mind?”
  6. Stop listening to the voices in your head. Those voices undermine determination and focus. Tell them you might have needed them once, but you know what you’re doing today. Lock them away and get on with being productive. You know how.
  7. Appreciate your ability to choose to be in a good mood AND appreciate the people who respond to that good mood in good ways! You’ll get energy from doing both. Let it fill you up. Be liberal with your smiles and your thank yous. Give a few extra smiles and thank yous to the folks who try to steal energy from you. Be confident that they’ll enjoy their bad moods even more if you leave them alone.

The trick to motivation is knowing that every bit of it is in our control. Even if we start to go off track, we can go back to number 7 and choose again to be in a good mood. Then start all over at Number 1 … No day is lost until we give it up.

It’s your day. It’s your life. You’ve got 7 ways to own every day.
Why would you spend a minute in unmotivated and boring?

Be irresistible.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Fire Up a Kindle Fire & Re-Kindle that Resolution to Be Tobacco-less in 2012!

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They’re Letting Me Do This!

You might recall a post I wrote called Mission: When My Mom Died and Who Saved My Life. Since then, I’ve been a fan and an advocate of Safe Cig. I’ve joined their team and have my own Safe Cig battery charger in the USB of my computer. I’m proud to be working with them.

Today, I’m teaming up with the folks at The Safe Cig to move the mission to see a tobacco-less world. And I get to offer anyone over 18 in the US a chance to win:

  • a The Safe Cig micro kit [in the most popular flavor] which includes
    7 refills,
    2 batteries,
    and a charger
  • three more refill kits –
    the 2nd most popular flavor
    the third most popular flavor
    my favorite flavor – Columbian – go figure.
  • AND a brand- new, full color, 7″ multi-touch display Kindle Fire which includes
    Movies, apps, games, music, reading and more, plus Amazon’s revolutionary,
    cloud-accelerated web browser

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Here’s what you do to enter and get a chance to win!

Post your entry by midnight Pacitic time on January 25, 2012

1. Choose a who, a what, or a where that refuels you, that fires up your life.
2. Take, make, or find a free image to represent . Write a caption starting with words “Dear Safe Cig, My life is fired up by … ” no longer than 50 words.
3. Post it on http://www.facebook.com/thesafecig/
Share it on your wall too.
SEE: the sample entry picture and caption that follows.

SAMPLE ENTRY


Dear Safe Cig My life is fired up by the color and music in the people, places, and things that inspire me.

ENTER a new image of something you love EVERY DAY if you like.

_________________________________________________________________

Here’s how we’ll pick …

  • A board of judges comprised of me will view and read every Facebook post as they come in.
  • I’ll look for those that inspire, ignite, and fire up my love of life.
  • Then I’ll worry and fret for hours on end.
  • Until … a random choice will decide it in the end.

The winner will be announced on The Safe Cig Facebook page by noon Pacific Time on January 27, 2012

What a great way to start off the New Year again.
Do this for yourself or for someone you love … for life.

Any Questions??

Be irresistible.

Liz

Making Sales for Small Businesses More Predictable

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A Guest Post
by Cynthia Kocialski

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Seeing Sales as a Solution

Every business needs revenue and the more the better. Most don’t have cash reserves or access to capital like the big corporations to shore up operating expenses, and so getting sales right is crucial. What every small business wants to know is how they can increase sales with minimal effort and how their sales can be more effective.

I have to admit I didn’t begin with a background in sales. I had to learn it by doing. Everyone does it this way. As far as I know there aren’t any college degrees in sales. As I’ve gone through many start-ups, my view of sales is far from where I begin on my first start-up.

Without a sales background, I had an immediate dislike of this business function. It seemed a necessary evil. If someone mentioned sales to me in those early days, I’d cringe. I had visions of a sleazy used car salesman that would lie and cheat his way to closing the sale.

Now, I have a completely different outlook. Why? I looked at the sales from the customer’s point of view. As any customer, I have many problems in desperate need of solutions. Most of my issues don’t have easy-to-find answers. I want to know if someone can fix my problems. I want them to tell me about their solution. I am tired of dealing with the problem and I want it to go away forever, never to come back to bother me again.

Let’s flip back to the sales side, your customer wants you to tell them the solution to their problem. You are doing them a favor. You aren’t bothering them; they want to talk to you. It’s only when you are trying to sell them something they don’t need or want that you’re acting like a sleazy, greedy, unethical used-car sales person.

Once I was able to see myself as not becoming the used car salesman, I was able to embrace sales and learn how to do it much better.

Focus on the Customer

The first place to start is to begin by reviewing your sales of the past several months and to conduct some customer interviews. You want both the good and the bad customers, but focus two-thirds of your efforts on the satisfied customers. For your existing customers, answer the following questions among your staff before conducting any interviews. Then look for similarities among customers.

  • What problems are your customer trying to solve and what are they hoping to accomplish? There is a difference; the later are bigger customer goals.
  • Is your customer using the product in the way you intended?
  • Is there a specific feature to your product that they are using to solve their problem?
  • What is the financial cost if the problem is not solved?
  • Whose job is it to solve this problem? Who are your contacts and what are their titles?
  • What problems are blocking the customer from accomplishing their goal?

Customer interviews are important. You hear established business talking about how they have lost touch with the customer all the time. If your company doesn’t have any customers or your closing rates are low then customer interviews are immensely useful. I’ve sent my staff back to call on failed sales to ask questions. Most former prospects or potential customers will spend 15 minutes on the phone with you. You don’t need many phone interviews, 15 or 20 are enough. Patterns emerge quickly.

When conducting customer interviews, add a few more questions to the list above. Prepare the questions you want answered ahead of time, but always be prepared to let the customer take the conversation where they want it to go.

  • When your customer was in the process of buying your product, what concerns or questions did they have during this process?
  • What do your customers think of your competitors? Is there anything you could learn from them?
  • Have your customers interacted with your customer service and what did they think of it?

Why did you do all this work? Sales is a search for the customers that are most likely to buy. The shotgun approach of talking to anyone and everyone, hoping that someone will buy is not effective. You need to know who your most satisfied and happiest customers are and why they are buying. For example, if your happiest customers are using feature X with benefit Y, then why is this tenth on the list in your marketing materials. You want to find more like them, and not waste your time with the others.

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Author’s Bio:
Cynthia Kocialski is the founder of three tech start-ups companies. In the past 15 years, she has been involved in dozens of start-ups. Cynthia writes the Start-up Entrepreneurs’ Blog and has written the book, “Startup From The Ground Up – Practical Insights for Entrepreneurs, How to Go from an Idea to New Business.”

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Thanks, Cynthia!

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Are You Using History Strategically … to Claim Your Business and Life Future?

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History Invents Itself

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The town I grew up in had a population of 20,000 people. The school I went to kept the same kids in the same classes all through 8 grades … then many of us went to the same high school.By third grade the first week of school held few surprises. I suppose that way good in some ways.

But in one way that situation made for a terribly skewed view of how the world worked.

We grew up in a universe where the people rarely changed. That was true in too many ways.
We rarely changed in that

      we were the same individuals with the same names.

 

      we were the same in our relationships to each other.

 

    we were the same in that we couldn’t change or outgrow the stories we knew about each other.

The “kid who wet his pants in first grade” was still that “kid who wet his pants in first grade” on the day he graduated high school. And I can still tell you his name today.

Anyone who’s ever attended a family or school reunion knows what this means. We live up to the stories that define us and sometimes when we get back to the people who were there when those stories first came to be, we revert to being who we were when the story happened.

We believe that our history defines our present.
Don’t believe that. Claim the right to define your business and your life.

The Place of History in Business and in Life

We’ve all heard that history repeats itself. That those who don’t pay attention to it’s lessons are bound to end up learning them again. But not all of histories lessons remain important and relevant. And staying tied to them when situation, skills, and experience change isn’t always a good thing.

That boy who had a bathroom accident at age 6 is now quite successful business man. The people he meets today never see him as that “kid who wet his pants in first grade.” Part of the man’s success is that he knows that story from the past might be true, but it’s irrelevant. He doesn’t let it define the person he is today.

The gorgeous cheerleader named “Cookie” who had straight As, personality, and the coolest crowd going for her in high school is now working as bartender in that small town of 20,000. She still tries to live the old stories, but they’ve faded.

History can be dangerous in it’s ability to keep us stuck in the past. Like a fifteen-year-old hairstyle, if you’re still telling a story from the past to define why your life or your business isn’t good — the story isn’t working for you.

Wisdom comes when we learn from history and use it to write a new and more successful story now. That’s true of business as well as life.

Using History Strategically to Claim the Future

Once SEARS was the World’s Largest Store and named a radio station WLS to celebrate that. The catalog won that title is gone. ABC bought WLS in 1960 and the SEARS Tower was sold in 1994.

Sears story of past success is irrelevant, unless they look at how a future SEARS might apply what they did in the context of a 21-century Internet environment. Even with the same vision and mission, Sears is in a new position with new conditions. They’ll need to make new decisions, build new networks, and new systems to find the unique opportunities to build success — much as they did in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

Numbers are important and useful, but they are not as deep as the questions we ask. All numbers we have — sales numbers, revenue numbers, even responses to commercials, ads and blog posts — report history, the success or failure of we did in the past. We can set new goals and build new plans with numbers to measure them, but once we execute to where the measurement occurs that action is past. Those mile markers on the road, at best, show us how far we’ve come.

History can’t drive the present into the future. The right questions will lead to our best true story now. A typical view of history and numbers will inform that, but the right questions will ask:

  • what were missed opportunities.
  • what behaviors always led to your successes.
  • what you’ve learned from wrong turns.
  • and what you want to learn to make your future stronger, faster, easier, more meaningful.

In other words, use history to benchmark how you’ve grown and to guide your path. But make your one true story about who you are and where you’re going and why your history doesn’t draw the picture only adds nuance to the colors.

Research and mine your history to know what was and might have been true once. Then interpret and reapply that lesson to the new situation, skills, and experience to use history to invent a new future — combining what you wish you knew then, what you know now, and the two offer unique future opportunities for you to go.

Are you using history to claim your business and life opportunities?

–ME “Liz” Strauss