Managing and marketing your store, on-line, in internet age

11 October 2009

Most of my customer asks me for easy and fastest way of marketing their products on web or through their website. They already have a web-site / web-store in place which is selling their products as well. But most of them finds it as challenging as managing a retail store. To some it is like managing two stores. On-line and off-line.

First of all, let us understand that a web-site or a web-store is a visual medium to connect your audience (customers). It gives an overall impression of your retail business. Your web must look clean, tidy, professionally designed and updated. In addition to that, it must be straight forward and clearly communicate the message to the visitors.

The mistake which I see people making is, they ask their techie-neighbour to take care of their website or a cousin who leads IT department in a multi national company. Remember they are not the right choice for your business, they are programmer. To successfully run a web-store, you need a web-marketer who is expert in this.

Here are a few tips to manage and market your retail outlet, on-line, in internet age.

Use a simple yet professional web design. It should be well soothing while someone browses it. Be very specific on choosing themes, colors and fonts. Text should be easy to read and understand. Do not use abbreviations.

Have a strong headline or tagline to your business that communicates your message clearly to your audience.

Avoid animations. It distracts a visitor to focus the area you want them to. Avoid pop-ups opening now and then.

Have your contact information updated on every page.

Create internal links to other pages within your site. Make sure external links open in a “New Browser Window / Tab”. Avoid pages with little or no content. Remember, what matters is quality not quantity.

Use consistent navigation through out the web.

Make return to homepage and order process smooth and intuitive.

Give the “Title Bar” on each page a good name.

Have your content frequently updated like product information, delivery / shipping instructions, contact information.

Most importantly, synchronize your web-store invenotry data with the system you’re running in store. This helps you keep you stock count updated on website as well and also makes your reporting faster. You can mange both online and offline stores efficiently, easily.

Most of my customer asks me for easy and fastest way of managing the process of marketing their products on web or through their web-store. They find it as challenging as managing a retail store. To some it is like managing two stores. On-line and off-line.

Here are a few tips to manage and market your retail outlet, on-line, in internet age.

Use a simple yet professional web design. It should be well soothing while someone browses it. Be very specific on choosing themes, colors and fonts. Text should be easy to read and understand. Do not use abbreviations.
Have a strong headline or tagline to your business that communicates your message clearly to your audience.
Avoid animations. It distracts a visitor to focus the area you want them to. Avoid pop-ups opening now and then.
Have your contact information updated on every page.
Create internal links to other pages within your site. Make sure external links open in a “New Browser Window / Tab”. Avoid pages with little or no content. Remember, what matters is quality not quantity.
Use consistent navigation through out the web.
Make return to homepage and order process smooth and intuitive.
Give the “Title Bar” on each page a good name.
Have your content frequently updated like product information, delivery / shipping instructions, contact information.
Most importantly, synchronize your web-store invenotry data with the system you’re running in store. This helps you keep you stock count updated on website as well and also makes your reporting faster. You can mange both online and offline stores efficiently, easily.

Managing and marketing your store, on-line, in internet age

Nilesh Shah

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