WAHMCart Blog

Whether you sell tee-shirts or televisions, your prime goal as an online retailer is to turn browsers into buyers by driving them to your checkout process. The path to (and through) the shopping cart should be a smooth one, with none of the virtual bumps that could potentially cause items to be tossed out and left somewhere along the road.

With today’s widespread market research and usability studies, most designers of eCommerce sites have a firm grasp of effective strategies for keeping customers on a clear, focused shopping path. Even so, there are still a surprisingly large number of websites that commit grave errors in the design and implementation of their shopping carts.

Below are a few of the most common (and easily avoidable) mistakes:

• Calling it something else. Your site’s sole point of entry into the checkout process is no place to risk confusion by getting overly fancy or “cutesy” with terminology. Resist the urge to be different by calling your cart a bag, basket, or some other alternate label. Just call it what it is, and consider adding an identifying graphic to reinforce it.
• Hiding the “Add to Cart” button. This should be the easiest action for a customer to take, and should require little to no thinking on their part. Make sure the “Add to Cart” button is in a prominent place on the product page, and that it’s in the same location regardless of which item is being viewed. If you have long, text-heavy descriptions that extend below the fold, you might even consider including two “Add to Cart” buttons (as long as you do so on every page, for consistency).
• Forcing customers to register. In keeping with the “smooth cart path” strategy, requiring customers to fill out a registration form prior to adding an item to their shopping cart can be conversion suicide. While you definitely want to make it easy for customers to create new accounts, it should never be implied that it’s a condition of purchase.

© 2008-09 Regina Baker

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Regina Baker is the Ecommerce Advisor at Wahmcart.com, ecommerce solutions for small businesses. Ready to jumpstart your ecommerce business? Grab her free ecourse at http://Wahmcart.com

Internet marketers love special reports. They’re quick to make and easy to sell, which means you can make money from them - fast. Plus, there’s more than one way to earn with special reports. In fact, I came up with a list of 30 ways!

But first, if you think you can’t possibly make your very own special reports, check out the Special Report Club - and use the code “save10” to get $10 off your first month.

So here it is, my super list of Top 30 Ways to Earn with Special Reports:

1. Sell it - and keep all of the profits. The most obvious way of making money with special reports is to sell them.

2. Sell it through affiliates - and keep some of the profits. This is the similar #1, but your affiliates lead buyers to your sales page and pocket a commission from the sale.

3. Sell it through affiliates - and give them all of the profits. How does this make you money? Well, you build a list of buyers plus you can earn money on the back-end, either by promoting other products in the report itself, or as part of the sales process, or both.

4. Give it away - and build your list. Use the special report as an incentive for people to join your list.

5. Give it away - and make affiliate sales. Embed affiliate links in the report, and you can earn commissions by giving it away. Just add a “Resources” page or sprinkle affiliate links where appropriate. (more…)

I looked up the definition of “virtual” in terms of what you and I know as “Internet Land,” i.e., ‘cyberspace.’

Virtual in cyberspace means:

1. “Created, simulated, or carried on by means of a computer or computer network.”
2. “Not real. Something which is virtual has no physical basis itself but mimics a physical object in conceptual terms. For instance, on the Web you’ll find graphical representations of buildings which you can‘walk through’ using your mouse (or mp3 player, or telephone.)”
3. “In the context of computing, not concrete or physical. For instance, a completely virtual university does not have actual buildings but instead holds classes over the Internet.”

I mean really, who has time to physically attend three classes (seminars) per day? Virtually you can and so can your potential targeted audience! (more…)

Wahmcart’s Coupon Feature is now showing on Shannon Cherry’s Breakthrough Strategy: “The One Simple Way to Get a Stream of Clients and Customers - and Media Attention - With Free Publicity Techniques”.

Want to see it in action?

Check out: www.beheardsolutions.com/attractclients.htm [UPDATE 5/27/09: This page is no longer available - the offer has been pulled]

By the way, while you’re there take advantage of Shannon’s fabulous offer!

All the best,

Regina

Wahmcart.com is honored to be an official sponsor for:

The Business and Learning Expo 2009
March 10-12, 2009

Business and Learning is a community made just for the work at home business owner. Many of the members are moms, dads, aunts, uncles, even grandparents. They are also the host of the premier event, the Work at Home Expo.

The Business and Learning Expo is known for launching successful online expos since November of 2006.

What can you expect at the expo?

You can expect a little bit of everything at the Business & Learning Expo! You will make great friends, learn about new strategies to apply to your own business, come up with new ideas, play games and have LOTS of fun.

Business and Learning Expo is proud to announce a new edition to the expo this year: The Expert Forums.

One of the best features of the Expo is the featured speaker program. Each night of the expo, they bring in awesome feature speakers who are the experts in their area. This year are an amazing group of women… (more…)