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More and more people are taking to the Internet to open their own entrepreneurial businesses and online stores. There are many advantages to choosing to sell online rather than in a brick and mortar store: not having to pay rental fees on a storefront, not needing to pay for utilities such as electricity or water, not having to pay for maintenance or even a staff to aid in the selling.

Why sell online?

By all accounts, it is simply more cost effective to get started online with a business rather than opening an actual store, as there is ultimately less risk and less capital needed. Nearly anyone can sell online through a variety of shopping websites or even social media pages. Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr now have integrated “buy” buttons and business page options that allow users to easily buy right from the site. You can get started immediately, with very little effort necessary.

However, for individuals, groups, or entities that truly aim to launch an e-commerce presence that is above the regular buying and selling online, it becomes imperative to create one’s own shopping website. As with opening one’s own brick and mortar store, however, the groundwork and the system that you will erect needs to be the best fit for your business.

The two major options

The two of the most popular options available online are between two e-commerce software systems: Shopify and Magento.

Shopify is a licensed software that ultimately gives individuals and brands complete control of the features, look, and feel of their website. The customization options are endless, and Shopify is a near-universal tool available to everyone in the world who requires a more customized user experience for their own e-commerce website. It can be applied to virtually any type of website for e-commerce, from selling individual niche items to businesses that cater to a large base.

Magento is another powerful software, open-source, that has steadily been gaining in popularity as well as quickly becoming the latest standard in e-commerce software. Being open-source software, it means that it’s even more customizable as well as completely open for absolutely anyone to use with or without a license. Users can apply Magento in a variety of ways, even customizing the code to best adapt to what they need it to provide for their online business. Currently, Magento is now in its second iteration at Magento 2.

Which version is right for you?

As with anything, there are pros and cons for either one. These are quite a few differences between them, so let us look into what they have to offer in terms of:

Availability and Setup

Let’s begin with the availability and setup of each one. Shopify, being a commercial and licensed software, will obviously cost you some money to procure for its full capabilities. It is a hosted solution, which means that your store will be based on Shopify’s servers. There is a support system in Shopify that will already have this system installed, setup, and configured as needed.

Magento, on the other hand, is free, being an open-source software. The downside of this means that you will have to find your own hosting, and you will have to install, set up, and configure it yourself before any customization can begin.

This means that if you are a small business owner looking to start up on your own, Shopify would be far easier to use given that it already provides hosting, software, and support built right in. It would cost money, but it’s a lot easier for you to make use of. Magento, on the other hand, being open source, would still require work before you can even begin using it. You may need the help of a web developer who understands this software’s coding for it to be installed and subsequently used as needed. This may be easier for companies who can afford to hire their own developers.

Inventory

Both Shopify and Magento have a large inventory management capability. Users can put any number of products or items in their online store through these systems easily. An e-commerce store lives and dies by what it puts up to sell, so this is one of the major concerns, particularly as many sites that host e-commerce tend to have a certain limit to items being sold and other similar restrictions.

Themes and Templates

Both Shopify and Magento also work with pre-built themes that users can choose from. These theme templates can be changed and customized to better fit the brand of the company or the individual’s business. However, there is a notably larger pool of themes and templates available in Magento rather than in Shopify. Being open source, it makes sense that Magento would have more themes and templates available as many more people would be able to freely create them and make them available for use for anyone who wishes to use the system. Shopify remains restricted to what Shopify as a company intends to produce as a template or theme for its users.

This means that customizing in Shopify might take a little more work than in Magento which, with its mass amounts of custom themes, would probably have what you need already.

Apps and Add-Ons

Magento and Shopify are themselves pieces of software; to make it even more useful, you can add custom add-ons to them. These include things like integration of e-mail marketing, widgets, payment options, and other additions that would not only make the customer experience easier but also make it a lot easier for the company to keep track of customer data.
Again, being open source, Magento has far more offerings in terms of apps and add-ons that can be used, while Shopify’s are extremely limited, as not many people will have access to the code that will allow them to develop them.

Multilingual capabilities

If you expect to reach customers beyond the English-speaking sphere, Magento may be the better bet as it fully supports multiple languages for your e-commerce site. Shopify doesn’t allow multilingual capabilities and restricts you to a single language throughout the website. This may limit your user base, as not everyone may speak the single language on your site.

All in all, both are excellent. Whichever one selected would largely depend on the company’s target, resources, the need for customization, and how many people they want their products to reach. SMEs and entrepreneurs might make a great start on Shopify, but bigger companies who demand more customization and more abilities may be better off with Magento operated by their own web developers.

1. Make Your Site is User-friendly

You need a simple and functional user interface design that would allow your visitors to explore the pages of your site with ease. That is the basic requirement of any website, as there is no use of having an SEO-rich content on your site if users find it hard to navigate or browse through your pages. For instance, make sure your products are very visible, properly labeled with description, and are categorized accordingly, if necessary. It is also important that there is a visible button for every page for when you want to go back to the homepage or proceed to checkout.

Your eCommerce site should reflect the overall theme of your business, taking into consideration your target demographic. This would help you formulate a good layout that would result to an enhanced user-friendly experience.

2. Include Testimonials of Satisfied Customers

Customer testimonials reflect credibility, and credibility is important to gain your potential customers’ trust. People interested in your products want to know how happy your previous customers were with your product. Testimonials may be that much-needed push to turn interested and indecisive browsers into paying customers who would want to try your products out for themselves and see why other people were pleased.

3. Go for a Minimalist Approach for Your Landing Page

The average web browser has a very short attention span of only four seconds going over your landing page before deciding whether to move on, or just leave. In this short span of time, how can you grab their attention and keep them hooked?

Remember, some of your website visitors are very busy people thinking about a couple of other things while browsing your site. Some are a very distracted bunch- easily losing their focus when their phone rings, or when their boss suddenly chats them up. It is therefore important that your landing page is simple yet engaging, having only one call-to-action button that would allow your potential customers to proceed to the sales cycle without any distractions.

4. Use Auto-suggest

Some of your visitors may just be browsing through, still unsure of what they want to get from your site. It could also be that they already know what they want, but are undecided of what particular design they want to get. For instance, a potential customer might be looking for bags, but still don’t know yet whether to get a red one or a blue one. With auto-suggest, you can help them decide and proceed to buying by giving them an array of related products to choose from based from their keyword.

5. Make the Checkout Process Simple

Finally, your potential customer is about to make the purchase. Just one final step, and it’s done. But alas! Just as she is about to checkout, she leaves her shopping cart hanging.
This occurrence called shopping cart abandonment is a common problem to eCommerce stores. There are a multitude of reasons as to why it happens- paranoia with regards to website security, limited payment options, exorbitant shipping fees, or simply because there’s too much going on in the checkout page.

Ideally, what we want is to keep the checkout process simple. As much as possible, all the information needed to be filled up should be in one page, and confirmation of the order on the second page. Just like shopping in grocery stores- nobody wants long lines and too many questions, right?

Img c/o pixabay

Online shopping has never been so convenient as it is nowadays. As a shopper, you can buy almost anything without having to physically drive to a store to purchase the item you want. As an e-commerce business owner, the idea of not having to work in an office environment as well as not being stuck to an 8-hour shift five days a week because your business can be run through the internet is such a rewarding thought.

The ease of online shopping has paved the way for multiple e-commerce sites to open and make themselves available to the millions of consumers ready to spend their budgets on products that satisfy both their wants and their needs.

Build on Trust, Turn Visitors into Customers

One of the best ways of boosting a site’s credibility is by investing in site seals, which works by placing a seal on a particular e-commerce site to inform visitors that a third-party web verification company has found the site to be reliable and trustworthy for web browsing, has ample security measures for secure online transactions, and is a legitimate business with no history of complaints.

One particular web research agency, called Baymard Institute, conducted a survey this year that tried to take on a very critical task, which is to determine which among the top site seals are the most trusted by consumers.This action was prompted by their previous research, which found out that majority of the web users have limited knowledge regarding the technical details of website security, which means that they rely mostly on their observations and gut feelings.

Visual clues such as security seals inform shoppers that whatever personal information they provide a website will remain confidential at all times. According to the survey, which obtained answers from 2,510 individuals from January 9-11, 2013, tested eight most popular website seals, namely:

• McAfee Secure
• Norton
• TrustE
• BBB
• thawte
• Trustwave
• GeoTrust
• COMODO

The survey respondents, who were adults currently residing in the U.S., were asked to choose which among those mentioned above gives them “the best sense of trust when paying online?” The question highlighted online payment because their focus is on checkout usability, so Baymard provided respondents with an online payment scenario.

The results were not surprising, as Norton got the highest vote, getting 35.56% of the respondents’ votes. Next in line is McAfee (22.87%), followed by TRUSTe (13.24%). In fourth place is BBB Accredited with 13.16% of votes, while Thawte got the 5th position at 6.03%. At the end are TrustWave (3.21%), GeoTrust (3.09%), COMODO (2.84%) with 6th, 7th, and 8th places.

Decoding the Results

So what does this mean for business owners and customers alike? Well it seems that majority of the survey respondents chose known internet security companies such as McAfee and Norton as their first choice, primarily because they are wary of fraudulent sites. By investing around as low as $30 to as much as $300 monthly for McAfee Secure and around $80 to $400 for Norton.

Next in line is TRUSTe, which deals with privacy management, which explains why a significant number of individuals chose this over the others, because they want personal details to remain private and secure even after they make a purchase. The good news about getting a TRUSTe seal is that it only costs almost $6 monthly to $70 a year.

BBB, on the other hand, came in at second place as well. This is because more and more businesses are finding this independent, non-profit organization very dependable in terms of informing consumers about scams and bad businesses. In 2011, a Louisville, Kentucky business with three employees is required to pay around $34 a month under the monthly pay plan plus a one-time membership fee of $50 dollars.

Despite having to pay annual dues for a BBB certification, businesses can get them back through the added revenue brought about by the influx of new customers influenced by the BBB seal of approval.

Companies that came in at fifth to eighth, as per the respondents’ perceived security, are Thawte, Trustwave, GeoTrust, and COMODO. Both Thawte and Trustwave cost around $4 to $50 a month while GeoTrust and COMODO’s prices start at more or less $8 a month or around $90 to $100 a year.

Ultimately, what businesses need to know is that majority of customers or would-be buyers choose site seals based on their perceived security. So in this case, the survey tried to discover which particular seal made consumers more confident about a site, and not to actually gauge which among the seals provided the most accurate representation of a website’s credibility.

If you consider yourself as one of those perpetual online shoppers, then you know how much impact a website trust seal has on convincing you to buy from a certain online shopping store. When all is said and done, no amount of design or layout can match the amount of credibility a site seal can give a website.

On the other hand, if you’re the business owner who is planning to set up a shopping site to sell your products or feature other brands, then it is crucial for you to ensure that your site is not only providing visitors with outstanding user experience, but also getting the right amount of conversions within a specific timeframe.

One of the biggest considerations of online businesses is building and maintaining credibility, not only of their brand, but also of their website. This is particularly the case when it comes to e-commerce sites with hundreds, if not thousands, of products to sell. Why, you ask? This is because online shoppers will hesitate to purchase a product when they see that the website does not have any form credibility, even if they like the item being offered.

What Exactly is a Trust Seal?

A trust seal is a type of recognition granted by a web verification company to a particular website or business, in the form of a seal, that is meant to be displayed or “stamped” on a website for visitors to see. It acknowledges three main aspects of a brand or company’s credibility, which are the following:

• Privacy – A privacy seal basically informs site visitors that a particular website responsibly employs exceptional privacy practices.
• Business Identity – A business verification seal or a verified existence seal among other names, serves as a reliable, third-party verification of a business’ existence and legitimacy. It gauges a company’s credibility through various parameters, which includes primary business information, number of complaints, management details, and more.
• Security – A security seal, on the other hand, make up the most of trust seals. There are two types:
  • One that verifies the server on which the site operates , usually performing regular scans of the host server so make sure that the site is well-protected and can withstand security attacks.
  • And the other verifying the site, ensuring the domain is owned by the business and that customers are protected from common website security vulnerabilities.

The requirements vary depending on the company providing the trust seal, but mostly concerns strict privacy policies, safe and secure methods, and legitimate use of business and/or product name/s. Trust seals are sold to online businesses for a certain fee, which will be discussed later on. These are then validated after creation and will be effective for a limited period of time, which has to be re-validated once expired.

Businesses Need Trust Seals More Than They Realize

Many of the seasoned internet buyers and bargain hunters are likely to bail out from their orders if they find out that a website is either suspicious, or has incomplete contact details. Sites without trust seals or those that make use of their own checkout process are more likely to lose potential customers than those with verified website trust seals.

This is particularly why the demand for trust seals among web companies is steadily increasing.

More and more have fallen prey to internet fraud, with over tens of thousands of websites being created by hackers every week. It is easy to get fooled by sites that claim to be legitimate banks when they are indeed clones. Some also pretend to be e-commerce sites that are affiliated with Western Union and eBay.

Despite the continuous efforts of search engines to remove these fraudulent sites, these hackers remain steadfast in deceiving innocent consumers. The only solution that business owners can take advantage of is by utilizing website trust seals to further establish site credibility.

Consumers are getting wiser, learning from past mistakes and beginning to recognize fake websites and seeing beyond overindulgent marketing campaigns that tend to fool many. With a trust seal, web shoppers can now determine whether a website is worth investing their time and money on. Not only will business owners see an increase in sales and conversions, but they can also protect their customers’ assets.

A third party stamp of approval is much more reliable and trustworthy than a company’s own assertions of quality and dependability. Even client testimonials won’t work as effectively to influence a buyer from actually purchasing a product as much as a website trust seal.

Entrepreneurs who have spent so much time growing and cultivating their e-commerce business would greatly benefit from a site seal, as it has become the modern-day and web version of a first impression. If you want to send a firm, honorable handshake to your would-be clients the moment they land on your homepage, a trust seal is your best option.

They say it takes years to build a reputation and only seconds to destroy it, so it would make a lot of sense for business owners to invest in the best marketing strategies and credibility boosters that are available for them. Once you have convinced visitors that you are indeed trustworthy, then they are more likely to become new customers. There is, after all, no such thing as too much trust.