web site design – ebay stores design – small business websites

Heard from one of our customers that President of eBay Marketplace, Laurie Norrington, commented on the  fine eBay Template work we did for eBay’s Daily Deals configuration. Not entirely sure what she said, but heard that it was a nice review.

The eBay template in question (below) is our latest creation for Allure-Jewelers who has over 29,000 listings on eBay right now and is also featured as a seller in the Daily Deal section of eBay.

This template is part of a set of eBay templates that are in our Premium Design package which has been modified to fit the criteria for eBay Daily Deals Guidelines. In other words: It’s the simple version.

See more of our eBay Templates here

There are many different types of pages for websites, some more complex than others. Here are two examples of web pages that vary from the simple to the extensive.

Basic Web Design: This one is a simple site without a styled logo and with a basic left navigation. No mouseovers, no slides, no flash banners just simple text and some graphic elements. This type of design is a great start and can be modified later to enhance and improve it.

Premium Web Design: This one has a styled logo, top header, flash images, styled left navigation, mutliple banners, etc. This is an example of premium design.

One of the most important aspect of successful e-commerce selling is a goal list. Believe it or not, retailers need to make a list and stick with it. Some of our most successful sellers abide by it. Sit down and plan, make a list and go about methodically taking the time to put it into practice in 2010.

Here is a basic ecommerce plan for new sellers and small shops with limited budgets, that will set you going on your Goal list.

Increase e-commerce sales by 50% this year:

Go through design and evaluate user-friendliness, make adjustments

• Focus on one or two products and make them shine, pick your most popular products
• As a customer, navigate your site in dumbed down mode, what do you see? Does your customer find the information they need to purchase your products?
• What are the benefits of those who shop with you? Put them right in front of the customer. ie: Fast Shipping, Easy Return Policy, etc.

Learn about SEO and make changes to Product Names, pages and improve content on pages.

• Don’t try to bite off more than you can chew. Start with products and label them with proper keywords, then proper content. Subtle changes like this can really make a site noticeable to search engines.
• Get the word out. You should at the very least have your items in Googlebase, which is free. Do one feed at a time and do another one next month.

Set up at least one Pay-Per-Click Channel, give it a budget of at least 1% of expected revenues.

• If you don’t have a few dollars to advertise, you should completely re-evaluate your plan here. This is a business. It requires getting the word out or going viral. If you are not a guru marketeer, then pay for some basic advertising in targeted places.

Set up and maintain an email list, and send out those emails once a month!

• Probably the biggest mistake the new site owners make is to fail to collect emails of interested parties. Our most successful clients use an email list religiously.
• aSending has a great, and inexpensive tool for gathering emails and shooting out marketing materials to your prospective customers about offerings, sales and new products. Use it!

Good Luck on a Great and Prosperous New Year!

An interesting article appears from 2007 demonstrating that Sprint had more kahunas than most frustrated customer service reps when it “broke up” with a group of high maintenance customers. The note went like this:

“Our records indicate that over the past year, we have received frequent calls from you regarding your billing or other general account information. While we have worked to resolve your issues and questions to the best of our ability, the number of inquiries you have made to us during this time has led us to determine that we are unable to meet your current wireless needs. Therefore after careful consideration, the decision has been made to terminate your wireless service agreement effective July 30, 2007.“

Sprint explains that these customers impact the service given to other customers causing long delays in service.

This leads to the question of the day. Especially during this recession. Should you break up with high maintenance clients?

You know the old addage that 20% of your customers provide 99% of your income and I’ll add to this that at least 10% of your customers demand 100% of your attention at one time or another and don’t care how many other customers suffer because of this. It’s difficult to offer good customer service with these types of clients.

But more importantly the provider has to set the tone for the expectations of the relationship. Nobody likes fine print but when it comes to customer service and support, it seems to be a necessary evil. There is always at least one of your clients that is going to abuse the privilege and skew the system.

During this recession, some of our clients have reported that a good percentage of people  are willing to abuse the system most likely out of lack of funds and desperation to get things without having to pay for them. Certainly on their side they can claim that something is wrong with your service or product, but the fact of the matter is that for some people it’s time to lay down the law or cut your losses.

Life is too short to let a few bad apples to ruin the bunch. If you find that more than 1% of your customers are taking advantage of you, it’s time to write a bit of fine print and put that out in the view of your customers so they understand what you will and will not do to please them. This is especially true of first time customers.

Even Zappos.com has tiered their services for loyal customers vs. new customers.

The retailer had typically upgraded both first-time and repeat customers to overnight shipping even though it wasn’t advertising that perk. But starting in 2009, Zappos will no longer offer overnight upgrades to first-time visitors. Instead, CEO Tony Hsieh is moving those dollars into a new VIP service for Zappos’ most loyal shoppers. [1]

Sprint may have raised eyebrows when they “fired” their high maintenance customers, but in these hard times it ’s becoming more and more important to cut costs and cut your losses early with problem customers.  This provides you an opportunity to provide the type of customer service to the rest of your loyal customers that is needed to survive in the current business climate.

ProStores recently improved their eBay interface to offer template design that is unparalleled from previous versions.

The image on the left is an actual eBay listing template we tested for one of our clients listing both to their website and eBay. Once the template is installed in ProStores, you simply click a button on the product in the backend that say “List to eBay” using this template (or any other variation you create).

So YES – ProStores does now have eBay templates that can make your eBay listing stand out in the crowd.

There has been a fair amount of discussion about how ProStores can help your business grow and how friendly it is to use. With the recent changes, we say that ProStores has adapted to become a formidable platform for online sellers with ease of use in many ways.

Check ProStores out here

Many sellers who are trying to list to eBay and an online store will find the new feature easy to use and an all-in-one place to sell online. Not only does ProStores feature this new ditty, but it also feeds directly to many of the shopping portals like Googlebase, Shopping.com etc. This means that in one place you can list your items and sell multi-channel without much effort at all. I’d say that is worth the price of admission.

aGenius offers a store design package that also integrates all the elements of the eBay listing template and Prostores Web Design to make it easier to get up and running beautifully.

I love this RGB color picker to easily identify the color and find the RGB code for it. Simple and straightforward. Funny but we have so many clients that ask for Blue, and we say, “What Blue” – there are so many variations of a color. Next time you ask for something from a web designer, take a check here to find out the RGB equivalent and make your web designer happier.