1. Considerations for Starting an Online StoreWhat, who, and how| 00:00 | Before starting any type of business
that sells a product, it's important to
| | 00:04 | answer three key questions:
| | 00:08 | what, who and how, or more precisely,
what am I selling, who am I selling it to
| | 00:14 | and how am I selling it.
| | 00:15 | Let's look at these three
questions in relation to ecommerce.
| | 00:19 | The first question is what am I selling?
| | 00:22 | If you think about it, depending on the
type of product you're selling, how you
| | 00:27 | handle that product in your shop,
online or in real life, changes dramatically.
| | 00:32 | If you're selling a physical product,
you have to keep things like stock
| | 00:36 | management and shipping in mind.
| | 00:38 | Of course, if you have a set, stock
or product, you can't sell more than you
| | 00:43 | physically have and once someone
purchases a product from you, you have to get
| | 00:49 | it from your location to their location.
| | 00:52 | And depending on your product, that may
cost a lot of money or very little money
| | 00:56 | and you have to figure out
who's going to offset that cost.
| | 00:59 | If you sell a digital product like an
ebook or some other digital entity, then
| | 01:04 | the stock management is less important.
| | 01:06 | What is important are other elements
like copy protection and stock control.
| | 01:12 | Should the person who purchases the
product be able to download it multiple times?
| | 01:16 | Should they be able to come back
and re-download it later if they lost
| | 01:20 | the original product?
| | 01:21 | And what happens if you make an
update to the product? Should original
| | 01:25 | purchasers get the update for free or
do they have to pay either a portion of
| | 01:30 | the original cost or buy the
product again to get the new update?
| | 01:34 | If you sell a service, you also
have to think about stock management.
| | 01:39 | And yeah, I know that sounds a little bit odd
| | 01:41 | but if you think about it, a service
is really selling time that you have and
| | 01:46 | you only have so much time to sell.
| | 01:49 | So, if you sell a service, you have to
make sure you don't sell more of the
| | 01:53 | service than you're able to provide,
because then you're basically taking
| | 01:56 | people's money and not
giving them anything in return.
| | 01:58 | The next question is, who am I selling it to?
| | 02:01 | I don't mean you need to know the
people you are selling it to personally.
| | 02:05 | What I mean is, you need to understand
your customer's likely behavior on your
| | 02:09 | site and also what they expect from your site.
| | 02:12 | You have to ask questions like, what are
my customer's preferred payment options.
| | 02:17 | While some people trust sites like
PayPal implicitly, other people are very
| | 02:23 | reluctant to provide their payment
information online and for good reason. It
| | 02:28 | seems risky to give away your
payment information to an unknown site.
| | 02:32 | Based on what you think or what you
know your customers' preferred payment
| | 02:36 | options are, you need to provide
different types of payment solutions.
| | 02:40 | It could be a payment gateway like
PayPal or it could be entering credit card
| | 02:46 | information directly into your site
or it could be offering other types of
| | 02:50 | payment options like a check or a
money order or even a direct bank transfer.
| | 02:56 | It all depends on what you're
comfortable with and what you think your customer
| | 03:00 | is comfortable with.
| | 03:01 | You also have to think about whether
your customer is going to buy just one
| | 03:05 | product or several products.
| | 03:07 | If you give them the option of bundling
products together, this may change how
| | 03:10 | you are going to ship the products.
| | 03:12 | And it also may change whether you
want to provide volume discounts or if you
| | 03:17 | want to provide other
incentives to bundle products together.
| | 03:21 | How likely is your
customer to return to your site?
| | 03:24 | This depends on what type
of product you're selling.
| | 03:27 | In some cases people will only buy
one product once and then they'll never
| | 03:31 | buy anything again.
| | 03:32 | But in other cases people may want
to return again and again to buy more
| | 03:35 | products, either the same
product or products like it.
| | 03:39 | If that's the case, you may want to
give the customer the option of setting up
| | 03:42 | an account so they can go back to the
site and see their previous purchases and
| | 03:47 | also so that they can save their shopping cart.
| | 03:50 | And this is really important, many
people like to shop online while they're at
| | 03:55 | work and then they place what they
want to buy in the shopping cart and when
| | 03:59 | they come home from work they go over
their shopping cart and make sure that
| | 04:03 | that's actually what they want to
buy and then they make that purchase.
| | 04:06 | So, giving people the option of setting
up an account and saving their shopping
| | 04:10 | cart may induce people to buy
more of your products or it may not.
| | 04:13 | It really depends on what you're
selling and who your customer is.
| | 04:17 | Is your customer likely to share
your products with their friends?
| | 04:21 | If so, you should make it
easy to share this content.
| | 04:24 | Social sharing like sharing content on
Twitter or Facebook or Google Plus or
| | 04:29 | in particular on Pinterest has become
extremely important in marketing online sales.
| | 04:35 | So, giving people the ability to share
your product on these services can be
| | 04:40 | powerful in getting more customers.
| | 04:43 | But, it requires that your product is
something that is worth sharing, that it's
| | 04:47 | easy to share, and also that is
something that you want them to share because if
| | 04:51 | you want your product to be exclusive
or you have a specific type of service
| | 04:55 | you're selling, you may not want
people to share it on social media.
| | 04:58 | It all depends on your
product and your customer.
| | 05:01 | Finally, you have to think about how
your customer wants to get your product.
| | 05:05 | Again this depends on what type of
product you're selling, but if you're
| | 05:09 | selling a physical product, does your
customer want it shipped by regular mail
| | 05:13 | or by expedited shipping through a shipping
service or do they want to come and pick it up?
| | 05:18 | Do they want to buy it in a store or do
they want you to provide it to them in person?
| | 05:24 | All these things are possible.
| | 05:26 | It depends on what you want to do and
what your customer is willing to pay for.
| | 05:30 | Finally, you have to look at
how you are selling the product.
| | 05:34 | In some cases, you may want to
sell the product online only.
| | 05:38 | This makes it easy to manage stock and
accounting and it also makes it easy for
| | 05:42 | people to know where to get the product.
| | 05:44 | But selling it online only might
not always be the best solution.
| | 05:48 | In many cases, you want to sell your
content both online and in a store.
| | 05:52 | If you do that, you have to make sure
that you keep your stock in order so you
| | 05:57 | know that you're not overselling the
product, either online or in the store and
| | 06:00 | that you have product available.
| | 06:02 | You have to remember when people buy
products in the store, they can see if
| | 06:06 | there are no more products available.
| | 06:08 | However, when it's online, unless you
keep your stock in check you may end up in
| | 06:12 | a situation where people buy more
products than you physically have and then you
| | 06:16 | have to figure out a way of handling that.
| | 06:18 | Some people choose to use a
distributor to sell their content.
| | 06:21 | That way their stock management is
handed over to someone else, they are
| | 06:26 | responsible for selling that product.
| | 06:28 | But it also puts a person in between you
and the customer so you lose a bit of control.
| | 06:32 | This is great if you have large volumes
of product to sell but it's a tradeoff
| | 06:37 | so you have to figure out if
this is the right solution for you.
| | 06:40 | Another popular option when you have an
online store is to also sell person to
| | 06:44 | person or business to business.
| | 06:46 | You'll often see people who sell
things like t-shirts will also sell those
| | 06:50 | t-shirts live in venues or
during fairs and stuff like that.
| | 06:55 | That way, people who are reluctant to
buy things online because they don't want
| | 06:59 | to pay shipping or because they want
to see the product in person are able to
| | 07:03 | buy that product without paying for
shipping and to see it before they buy it.
| | 07:07 | But again, if you're selling it person
to person, you have to make sure you keep
| | 07:11 | your stock in check.
| | 07:12 | And what a lot of people do to get
around this, is when they sell a product
| | 07:16 | person to person, they still register
it in their ecommerce solution as if they
| | 07:20 | sold it online, they just
take out the shipping option.
| | 07:23 | That way their stock management is kept
in order and they can also see all the
| | 07:29 | sales, they'll just put a note saying I
sold this in person instead of online.
| | 07:34 | A relatively new option is becoming
more popular now, is to also sell your
| | 07:38 | product through an online vendor.
| | 07:40 | And here, I'm thinking in
particular of Amazon.com.
| | 07:43 | Amazon.com lets you list your product
on their service and then you can either
| | 07:48 | sell it directly through Amazon.com or
through one of their third party systems.
| | 07:53 | That way you can have your own
ecommerce site and reach your customers that
| | 07:57 | way and you can also reach customers
that are searching for your product or
| | 08:01 | something like your product in the Amazon.
com library, in that way you have two channels.
| | 08:06 | But again, when you do that, you have to
keep in mind you have to keep your stock
| | 08:11 | in check and you also have to remember
that when you sell things through Amazon,
| | 08:14 | they take a cut so you
lose a bit of your profits.
| | 08:17 | Answering the questions of what, who
and how upfront will make the planning of
| | 08:22 | your online store a lot easier and save
significant time when you're setting up the store.
| | 08:28 | Take some time to think these questions
through and write down your answers for
| | 08:32 | later so you have a good
foundation to start from.
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| Understanding your product| 00:00 | It might sound a bit silly for me to
say you need to understand your product.
| | 00:05 | But having a clear understanding of
what you're selling and what if any
| | 00:09 | competition you have in the marketplace
will go a long way in ensuring your success.
| | 00:15 | These questions and their answers will
help you prepare product descriptions
| | 00:19 | and marketing materials for the web to
increase the chances of your customer's
| | 00:24 | finding, sharing, and buying your products
instead of a product from your competition.
| | 00:30 | The first thing to ask yourself is,
what is the value of my product?
| | 00:35 | I'm not talking about the dollar value here;
| | 00:37 | I'm talking about what is
the value for your customer.
| | 00:40 | How does your product impact a life of
your customer and what problem does it
| | 00:45 | solve or how does it
improve the life of your customer.
| | 00:49 | If you answer these questions in your
product descriptions and in your marketing
| | 00:52 | materials, you are more likely to get
customers simply because when people use
| | 00:57 | the web, they're usually asking
questions, saying things like, "Hey, I have this
| | 01:02 | problem; I need it solved,"
or "How do I get something?".
| | 01:06 | By asking and answering these
questions in your product descriptions and
| | 01:10 | marketing materials, you are more
likely to get hits from search and you are
| | 01:15 | more likely to see people come in from
social sharing sites like Facebook and
| | 01:19 | Twitter because people often ask
their friends these types of questions.
| | 01:24 | When you're describing your product or
if you're developing new products, try to
| | 01:28 | approach it like the music industry.
| | 01:30 | Use the first, best or different
principle to look at how to differentiate your
| | 01:35 | product from your competition.
| | 01:37 | All products should be either first, best,
or different and ideally you want any
| | 01:43 | product to be all three.
| | 01:45 | If you are the first to do
something, you should say so.
| | 01:48 | Make a point out of being the first.
| | 01:50 | If you're the best, it's important
that you explain why you are the best and
| | 01:54 | what differentiates you.
| | 01:55 | You should do this in a way that
doesn't put down your competition but
| | 02:00 | elevates your product.
| | 02:01 | And of course, if you are the first,
you also have to make sure to be the best
| | 02:06 | because anytime you invent something someone
else will try to emulate you and do the same thing.
| | 02:12 | And then, it's important that people
understand that, since you are the first
| | 02:15 | you are also the best.
| | 02:16 | The last part, different, is a bit of a
challenge but it's also important because
| | 02:21 | by differentiating you from your
competition, people will see that there's value
| | 02:26 | in your product because you're
not the same as everyone else.
| | 02:29 | Figuring out the dollar value of
your product can be a bit of a challenge
| | 02:33 | especially when you're selling things
online because you are now competing in
| | 02:37 | a global environment and there will always be
people out there who will try to undercut you.
| | 02:42 | Anything you make, someone else will
try to make and sell at a cheaper price.
| | 02:47 | You have to figure out
what the value is for you.
| | 02:50 | By that, I mean, how much you have to
sell a product for, so that you end up
| | 02:54 | earning money and then you have to figure out
how much your target audience is willing to pay.
| | 03:00 | That means you have to figure out who
your target audience is and how much
| | 03:03 | they're willing to spend on a
product that they're buying online.
| | 03:07 | That way, you can find a balancing
point between what you need to earn and what
| | 03:11 | they are willing to pay for it
and then set the price there.
| | 03:14 | The most important thing here is to not
either undervalue or overvalue your product.
| | 03:19 | If you set the price too low, since
it's sold online and people can't really
| | 03:24 | see it in front of them, they will assume that
it's a cheap product that they don't want to buy.
| | 03:29 | If you set it too high, they'll just
feel like they're being ripped off.
| | 03:33 | So, finding the balance point is important.
| | 03:36 | Like I said, if you're selling products online,
your competition is the rest of the world.
| | 03:41 | So, there's no point trying to
find every single competitor.
| | 03:45 | Instead, try to look at
who's your direct competition.
| | 03:48 | Define your target market and then
figure out where they are going to buy
| | 03:53 | whatever product type you are selling.
| | 03:55 | That way, you'll be able to target
your specific competitors and figure out
| | 04:00 | what they're doing.
| | 04:01 | Once you know what they are doing
try to not emulate what they are doing.
| | 04:06 | Improve on the experience for your
customer, either by adding better
| | 04:09 | descriptions or better photos of your
products, changing your interface on your
| | 04:15 | website so that people have an easier
time finding your products or making it
| | 04:19 | easier for people to share your products online.
| | 04:22 | Finally, consider selling your product in
other venues in addition to your online store.
| | 04:28 | This can be extremely effective in
reaching people you would never reach online.
| | 04:32 | Because no matter how important
ecommerce is getting, there are a lot of people
| | 04:37 | who will never buy content from the
internet, they will only buy products they
| | 04:41 | can see in front of them.
| | 04:42 | Other venues could include adding your
product to a store so a store is actually
| | 04:46 | selling your product in real life or it
could be getting a booth at a fair or a
| | 04:51 | market and sell your products there.
| | 04:54 | Many T-shirt printing companies that
sell online also sell their products at
| | 04:58 | markets and fairs because then they can
sell them directly to people. They don't
| | 05:02 | have to pay for the shipping and they
can charge more at the fair than they can
| | 05:07 | in the online store.
| | 05:08 | Just remember, if you are selling
your product in real life, make sure to
| | 05:13 | include the web address for your online
store so that when people buy it, they
| | 05:18 | can go to your website afterwards and
buy more products or they can share the
| | 05:22 | website with their friends.
| | 05:23 | Because if you're selling something
really cool and people buy it, their friends
| | 05:27 | will want to buy it too and by giving
them the web address to your store, all
| | 05:32 | their friends will be
driven to your online store.
| | 05:34 | Understanding your product and how it
fits into the market and the life of your
| | 05:38 | customer will help you reach your
customer more easily and hopefully help you
| | 05:43 | sell more of your products.
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| Reaching your customer| 00:00 | "If you build it; they will come", is an expression of a
common idea that if you provide people
| | 00:06 | with what they want, even if they
don't know that they want it, they'll
| | 00:09 | automatically find it.
| | 00:11 | While that maybe true for baseball
fields, it is most definitely not true when
| | 00:16 | it comes to ecommerce.
| | 00:18 | Simply building an ecommerce site and
expecting sales is a recipe for disaster.
| | 00:23 | To get eyes on your site and people
putting products in their shopping carts,
| | 00:27 | you need to make a marketing
strategy for the social web.
| | 00:30 | Fortunately, with the onslaught of
social media and social sharing sites, adding
| | 00:35 | a social element to your marketing
strategy is not as hard as it used to be.
| | 00:39 | So let's take a look at some examples
on how this can be done in a simple way.
| | 00:44 | Six Cent Press is a store in
Vancouver, Canada that sells buttons;
| | 00:49 | all those things you put on
your jacket or on your back.
| | 00:52 | This is their ecommerce store where
you can order your own buttons, but to
| | 00:56 | market them, they have created a blog
where they share all the buttons they make
| | 01:00 | for different clients.
| | 01:02 | One of the reasons they're doing this
is they're not actually selling these
| | 01:05 | buttons. You can't go to the ecommerce
site and buy these particular buttons
| | 01:09 | because they're created for different customers.
| | 01:12 | But they still want to
showcase what they're doing.
| | 01:15 | What's cool about this kind of marketing is
when people see these pictures, they share them.
| | 01:20 | And when the customers see the
pictures on this blog, they also share them.
| | 01:24 | Meaning, every time the image gets
shared, either on a blog or on social media,
| | 01:29 | the traffic is driven back to the blog,
and from the blog, you can go directly
| | 01:33 | to the website and buy your own buttons.
| | 01:36 | NCIX is a computer store that
sells products in the U.S. and Canada.
| | 01:41 | They have not one but two YouTube
channels featuring tech tips and also
| | 01:48 | discussions about technology in general.
| | 01:50 | The reason why they have two channels
instead of just one is because one is very
| | 01:54 | focused on just tech tips and how to do
specific things with computers, whereas
| | 01:59 | the other one is focused on more
interesting topics, like discussions around,
| | 02:04 | what's going around with tech, going
to conferences and things like that.
| | 02:09 | As you can see, these
channels are extremely popular.
| | 02:12 | Esther's channel has over 2.5 million
video views and Linus' channel has over
| | 02:19 | 34.6 million video views.
| | 02:23 | All these views are coming from
YouTube because nowadays, a lot of people are
| | 02:27 | using YouTube as a
search engine for information.
| | 02:30 | So by putting up information about
product handling and also what's going on
| | 02:35 | with products, NCIX is able to make
their brand associated with giving people
| | 02:40 | tips on how to do things.
| | 02:42 | That way, if they're searching for
something like, how do I install RAM in my computer?
| | 02:47 | Or, what are the latest
computer events to happen in my area?
| | 02:50 | They might very easily stumble upon
NCIX' content on YouTube and from there,
| | 02:55 | they'll jump to NCIX' site and buy products.
| | 02:59 | London Drugs is a drugstore in Canada
that does much the same thing, but instead
| | 03:04 | of using YouTube, they're using Facebook.
| | 03:07 | If you go to the Facebook page for
London Drugs, you'll see something a
| | 03:10 | little bit surprising.
| | 03:12 | Instead of marketing their products,
what they are doing, is publishing a tip on
| | 03:16 | how to make your life easier, one tip everyday.
| | 03:20 | So by liking London drugs on Facebook,
in your feed, you'll get one tip on how
| | 03:25 | to make your life easier every single day.
| | 03:28 | And this can be really useful for
customers, and it also makes customers
| | 03:33 | associate London Drugs with a brand
that gives you tips on how to do things.
| | 03:38 | So, instead of marketing their
products and saying, "Hey, now we have a
| | 03:41 | promotion for this",
| | 03:43 | they're saying, "Hey, if you got gum stuck in
your hair, here's an easy way of getting it out."
| | 03:48 | Or, like this tip here, which is a
print out that shows you how long
| | 03:52 | different types of products last either on a
counter, in the refrigerator, or in the freezer.
| | 03:57 | Now, of course, this is not a product
London Drugs is selling, it's just a post
| | 04:01 | on Facebook, but it associates London
Drugs with providing quality content.
| | 04:06 | Because of how the online space has
evolved, we are now moving from simple
| | 04:11 | search in search engines to social search.
| | 04:15 | And to rank well in social search, you
first have to get people to share your content.
| | 04:20 | The easiest way to get people to
share your content like this bomber jacket
| | 04:25 | with a big cat on the back from Urban
Outfitters, is to add simple sharing
| | 04:30 | options on your site.
| | 04:32 | Things like a Like button for
Facebook, a Tweet button and also very
| | 04:36 | importantly, a Pin it button from
Pinterest because Pinterest is becoming
| | 04:40 | extremely important when it comes to ecommerce.
| | 04:44 | Pinterest is this new way of sharing
content that is especially appealing to women.
| | 04:48 | And when things are pinned on
Pinterest, you're not just pinning the item,
| | 04:52 | you're actually pinning an image and
people get these large streams of content
| | 04:56 | on Pinterest that they can look at and
whenever they see something they like,
| | 05:00 | they can put it in their
own little pin libraries.
| | 05:03 | By adding features like sharing buttons,
like Tweet and Pin it, you enable your
| | 05:10 | customer to share the content they're
buying or share content they're interested
| | 05:15 | in with their friends.
| | 05:16 | And once it's shared on the
social networks, it gets ranked up.
| | 05:20 | So, when people start searching for
it, they're more likely to find it.
| | 05:24 | So, if you are on the lookout for a green
bomber jacket with a cat on it, or even
| | 05:28 | if you're searching for bomber jacket
and cat, you're more likely to find this
| | 05:33 | product from Urban Outfitters if
someone has liked it, tweeted about it, or
| | 05:38 | pinned it in Pinterest.
| | 05:40 | To sum up, to reach and engage with
your customer, consider starting a
| | 05:44 | blog, talking about your products and also
talking about what you're doing in your company.
| | 05:49 | Consider starting a YouTube channel to
give information about how to use your
| | 05:53 | products or even information
about how the product works or how to
| | 05:57 | troubleshoot things.
| | 05:58 | Start a Facebook page and give people
tips and ideas about how to use different
| | 06:03 | products or how to just make their lives better.
| | 06:06 | Consider adding a Facebook Like box or
Facepile to your site, so when people go
| | 06:11 | to the site and they're logged into
Facebook, they'll see which of their friends
| | 06:15 | already like your site.
| | 06:16 | This is exceptionally effective at
getting more people to like your site.
| | 06:20 | Create a Twitter handle for your
company, so that if people talk about your
| | 06:24 | products on Twitter, you can respond
to them and you can also troubleshoot
| | 06:28 | issues for them on Twitter directly.
| | 06:30 | This is a great way of interacting
with your customers without having to
| | 06:35 | send emails and such.
| | 06:36 | If you don't like to set up a full
blog, you can also set up a Tumblr photo
| | 06:40 | stream where you just
share photos of your products.
| | 06:43 | You can do this if you are making
a lot of products or if you want to
| | 06:47 | share customer products.
| | 06:48 | Just make sure if you want to share
customer products that you get the okay
| | 06:52 | from the customer first.
| | 06:53 | Finally, make sure you have Pinterest
integration in your ecommerce site and
| | 06:58 | also that you have sharing buttons.
| | 07:00 | That way, you make it easy for your
customers to share your content and you also
| | 07:04 | make it easy for people who just
happened to stumble upon your content to share
| | 07:08 | it with their friends.
| | 07:09 | And the more exposure you get, the
more likely people are to find and buy
| | 07:13 | your products.
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| Payment gateways explained| 00:00 | One of the challenges of setting up
an online store is sorting out how
| | 00:04 | to receive payments.
| | 00:06 | You'd think it should be easy, what
with all the payment options available:
| | 00:11 | credit cards, online payment
systems, PayPal, and so on, and so on.
| | 00:15 | But these things have to be considered
carefully for your store to be successful
| | 00:19 | and for you not to run into trouble.
| | 00:21 | The key to taking payments online is
to have a secure system that doesn't
| | 00:25 | compromise your customers' personal information.
| | 00:28 | Think about it, when you take
payments online, the customer has to send you
| | 00:33 | personal information as well as credit
card or other bank information, and there
| | 00:37 | are plenty of people out there on the
web that will do whatever it takes to
| | 00:41 | steal that information.
| | 00:42 | It's your job to ensure that doesn't happen.
| | 00:45 | One way of handing that responsibility,
or at least part of it, over to a third
| | 00:50 | party is to use payment gateways.
| | 00:53 | If you've ever bought something online,
you probably interacted with the payment
| | 00:57 | gateway like PayPal or Google Wallet and
they all work pretty much the same way.
| | 01:02 | In a nutshell, here's what happens.
| | 01:04 | The customer makes a purchase on
your website and the website asks for a
| | 01:07 | payment information.
| | 01:08 | The customer's then sent to the
payment gateway and provides the payment
| | 01:13 | information to the payment gateway.
| | 01:15 | The gateway verifies the payment, sends
the money to you, and then you send the
| | 01:22 | product to the customer.
| | 01:23 | Let's look at that in the little more detail.
| | 01:25 | The first thing that happens is the
buyer initiates a purchase. So, they put
| | 01:29 | products in their shopping
cart and click the pay now button.
| | 01:32 | Now your site takes them to a
page where they can put in their
| | 01:35 | personal information.
| | 01:36 | That would be their own information
and also the shipping information and
| | 01:39 | whatever else information you
choose to collect about your customers.
| | 01:44 | Once they fill in that information
they need to select a form of payment.
| | 01:48 | Once they select a payment option,
they are sent to the payment gateway. The
| | 01:52 | payment gateway then, collects the
credit card information or whatever other
| | 01:57 | payment information that's necessary.
| | 01:59 | This is all done in the secure
servers of the payment gateway and is done
| | 02:03 | away from your site so you are no longer
responsible for the security of this transaction.
| | 02:08 | Once the information is sent to the
payment gateway, the payment gateway
| | 02:12 | handles the transaction and sends the
information to whatever payment portal is necessary.
| | 02:18 | Once that payment has been verified,
the payment gateway sends this customer
| | 02:23 | back to your site and tells the
customer that the purchase has been completed.
| | 02:28 | As you can see, using a payment gateway,
you hand the responsibility of handling
| | 02:33 | credit card information or other bank
information over to a third party who
| | 02:38 | specializes in securing that kind of
data and that third party is responsible
| | 02:43 | for communicating with the credit card
agencies and other financial entities and
| | 02:48 | ensuring that the payment takes place.
| | 02:51 | This is great because it hands over a
lot of the responsibility to a third party
| | 02:56 | but it also has some drawbacks.
| | 02:59 | First of all, it cost you money, you
have to actually pay for this service but
| | 03:04 | that isn't necessarily anymore expensive
than if you used your bank as a payment
| | 03:09 | gateway, for example.
| | 03:10 | The only difference is you're handing
off the responsibility because payment
| | 03:14 | gateways are independently insured.
| | 03:16 | So, if something goes wrong, they are
responsible for handling it, not you.
| | 03:20 | The other problem with payment
gateways is that, occasionally they'll hold
| | 03:24 | payments back. They'll say that
they're not sure that what you were doing was
| | 03:28 | right or that the customer made a
mistake or something like that and they can
| | 03:32 | hold your payments back for a very long time.
| | 03:34 | I've seen this happened and it
can be extremely frustrating.
| | 03:37 | There is another issue.
| | 03:38 | Some people inherently
don't trust payment gateways.
| | 03:42 | I have run into people who don't ever
want to pay anything to PayPal or to
| | 03:47 | Google Wallet or anything else. There
are many reasons why they may not trust it
| | 03:51 | and you have to be aware of that.
| | 03:53 | So, if you use a payment gateway you
might want to consider offering another
| | 03:57 | option as a payment option
if people don't trust it.
| | 04:00 | And the last problem, which isn't
really a problem with payment gateways as
| | 04:04 | much as it is a problem with online payments in
general is that, not everyone has a credit card.
| | 04:09 | If you don't have a credit card, you
can't use any of these services and
| | 04:13 | because of that, you're
automatically excluding a portion of society from
| | 04:18 | purchasing your product. Again, the
only way to get around that is to accept
| | 04:22 | other types of payments.
| | 04:23 | But other types of payments have
other issues that come with them.
| | 04:27 | Thinking through how you're going to
take payments from your clients without
| | 04:31 | compromising their security is a vital
step in planning your ecommerce site.
| | 04:36 | One way to solve this is by using a payment
gateway, but it has its drawbacks as you've seen.
| | 04:41 | Which option is right for you, depends
on your circumstance and other factors
| | 04:46 | which will become more
apparent in the next movie.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Securing your site| 00:00 | Providing security for your clients when
they submit information to your site is
| | 00:04 | imperative when dealing with ecommerce.
| | 00:07 | And this doesn't just relate to payments.
| | 00:10 | If you're collecting personal
information like full names, addresses, shipping
| | 00:14 | addresses, and so on, you have to ensure
that people with nefarious intent won't
| | 00:19 | be able to access that information.
| | 00:21 | For enterprise ecommerce solutions,
there is something called PCI compliance.
| | 00:26 | PCI stands for Payment Card Industry
and the compliance standard was put in
| | 00:31 | placed to ensure that online
payments through credit cards are secure.
| | 00:35 | To achieve full PCI compliance with
WordPress is complicated, but it can be done.
| | 00:40 | But even if you can't get full compliance,
you can get pretty close by following
| | 00:44 | some simple guidelines and
setting up your site correctly.
| | 00:47 | The first step in securing your site for
ecommerce is to get an SSL Certificate.
| | 00:53 | SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer and
it basically provides encryption between
| | 00:59 | the server and the browser.
| | 01:01 | So, when your customer enters their
private information and it get sent to
| | 01:05 | server, it travels across a
secure line that's encrypted.
| | 01:09 | So, if anyone is snooping in on that
communication, and trust me that does happen,
| | 01:13 | all they'll get is encrypted
nonsense that they can't decipher.
| | 01:18 | SSL certificates are sold on a yearly
basis and you have to pay a fee for them
| | 01:23 | and they can be expensive or they can
be cheap, it depends on what you buy and
| | 01:28 | you have to keep them up to date.
| | 01:30 | You've probably encountered SSL
Certificates when you're logging into social
| | 01:34 | networks or buying things online.
You'll see that in the address bar, it
| | 01:38 | changes from http to https.
| | 01:40 | And you'll often see a little padlock
on your address bar indicating that you
| | 01:46 | are now on a secured site.
| | 01:47 | The next thing you need to do is get a
secure host and preferably you'll want to
| | 01:51 | get a virtual private
server or a private server.
| | 01:54 | When I say secure host, I mean a host
that is known for securing WordPress sites.
| | 02:00 | There are many, many host
out there who do a great job;
| | 02:03 | there are also many hosts who don't do a
great job. But it's also important that
| | 02:07 | you get a host that gives you a lot of
space and doesn't let you share your site
| | 02:12 | space with a lot of other people. That's
why I'm saying preferably, you want the
| | 02:16 | virtual private server or a private server.
| | 02:19 | Because if you are sharing space,
meaning you are on a shared host and someone
| | 02:23 | else gets hacked, there's a high
chance that you might get hacked too.
| | 02:27 | So, even though your site is secured,
the server isn't secured and the hack
| | 02:31 | distributes through the server.
| | 02:33 | By being on a virtual private server or on a
private server, you won't have this problem.
| | 02:38 | But it comes at a price and
that price can be pretty high.
| | 02:41 | So, if you're not quite ready to invest
in virtual private servers or a private
| | 02:46 | server yet, make sure that the hosting
provider you have has secure hosting and
| | 02:51 | that they're always up to date.
| | 02:53 | Later in the course, I'll give you a
list of some hosting providers that are
| | 02:57 | well known for providing good WordPress
hosting. You can check those out and
| | 03:00 | compare them to other hosts.
| | 03:02 | You also need to make sure you
have a secure WordPress install.
| | 03:05 | Out of the box, WordPress is pretty
secure but you can make it a lot more secure
| | 03:11 | by configuring it in a proper way.
| | 03:13 | To get all the information on that,
I suggest you check out two sources.
| | 03:17 | First, go check out WordPress 3:
| | 03:19 | Developing Secure Sites right here in
the Lynda.com Online Training Library, and
| | 03:24 | then go download the free eBook called
Locking Down WordPress from codepoet.com.
| | 03:30 | Combined, these will give you a lot of
information about how to make WordPress
| | 03:34 | more secure and ensure that it's very,
very hard to hack your WordPress site.
| | 03:39 | In case you get hacked or, more likely, if
something goes wrong on your site or on
| | 03:44 | the server, you want to
have automated backup set-up.
| | 03:48 | There are hundreds of
different ways you can do this.
| | 03:50 | You can use free plug-ins or for pay
plug-ins or services that'd do it and
| | 03:55 | sometimes the host will do it too,
but I recommend you use a service that
| | 03:58 | specializes in backups.
| | 04:01 | A popular option is to use VaultPress.com.
| | 04:04 | This is a service from Automatic, the
company that manages WordPress.com, and
| | 04:09 | they do specialized backup and
security services for WordPress sites.
| | 04:14 | It's a yearly cost and depending on
the size of your site and how much backup
| | 04:19 | you want, it can cost a bit of
money but it's a worthwhile investment.
| | 04:22 | On the topic of security, you may also want to
invest in security monitoring for your sites.
| | 04:28 | This is kind of like having an alarm
system with monitoring on your house, so
| | 04:32 | someone is constantly monitoring your
site to make sure nothing is happening
| | 04:35 | that shouldn't be happening.
| | 04:37 | There are many services that provide this.
| | 04:39 | One of them is a company called Sucuri.net.
| | 04:42 | They provide specialized services for
monitoring WordPress sites and they're
| | 04:46 | pretty good, but again, it cost money.
| | 04:49 | It is a worthwhile investment and it's
something you need to consider very carefully.
| | 04:54 | Finally, update constantly.
| | 04:56 | WordPress is evolving very quickly
right now and there's a new version of
| | 05:01 | WordPress or a new update to WordPress
coming out pretty much every two months.
| | 05:05 | These updates usually include a lot of
security updates and plugs of holes or
| | 05:10 | other things that make it harder to
get access to WordPress for people who
| | 05:14 | shouldn't be getting an access.
| | 05:15 | The same goes for plug-ins.
| | 05:17 | Plug-ins also update constantly and if
you want to secure your site, you have to
| | 05:21 | make sure everytime you see that update
button on your site, make sure you click
| | 05:26 | on it and keep up to date at all times.
| | 05:29 | Investing in proper security when you
set up your site is a bit like putting
| | 05:33 | locks on your doors and
installing an alarm system in your house.
| | 05:36 | The difference though is that in the
case of an ecommerce solution, the valuable
| | 05:40 | asset in your house belongs to other people.
| | 05:44 | They entrust you with their
personal information and it is your job to
| | 05:47 | protect that information.
| | 05:49 | Doing this upfront is quite
simply a sound investment.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Greatness and craziness: Some examples from the web| 00:00 | You are not the first person to build
an ecommerce site and for this reason you
| | 00:05 | can use what others have
done before to guide you.
| | 00:08 | Let's take a look at some examples of
good ecommerce implementations on the web
| | 00:13 | and how they work. And for kicks,
let's also look at some bad ones and learn
| | 00:18 | from their mistakes and see how, surprisingly,
some of them are still really successful.
| | 00:23 | When you talk about ecommerce, the first
brand that usually comes to mind is Amazon.com.
| | 00:29 | Amazon.com was out really early on in
the ecommerce game and they are still one
| | 00:35 | of the primary ecommerce providers in the world.
| | 00:39 | If you live in the United States,
Amazon.com provides pretty much anything
| | 00:44 | under the sun. What they don't
provide themselves they have other people
| | 00:48 | sell through Amazon.com.
| | 00:51 | The problem with Amazon.com is that
they are trying to sell everything to
| | 00:55 | everyone, so it's kind of unfocused.
| | 00:58 | You can find a lot of really great
stuff there but it's all over the place and
| | 01:03 | the design is not exactly where it
should be. It's very old school and user
| | 01:09 | experience is not great.
| | 01:11 | The reality is, the only reason Amazon.
com gets away with their user experience
| | 01:16 | is because they're Amazon.com.
| | 01:18 | To give you an example, we can go
and take a look at a pair of shoes.
| | 01:22 | I recently bought a new pair of
boots, so I'll show you. They are Dr.
| | 01:26 | Martens, and they're called Pier.
| | 01:30 | So, I'll go in here, and I'll just search Dr.
| | 01:32 | Martens Pier. Here we have the shoe;
its right there. It's the wrong color
| | 01:37 | and I can also get the right color.
| | 01:39 | And here I can get information about the shoe;
| | 01:41 | I can see pictures of it;
| | 01:43 | I can scroll down and read about special
offers and then, I can see all the other
| | 01:49 | shoes that are related to that shoe
and I can read product descriptions and
| | 01:53 | details and reviews.
| | 01:55 | As you can see, it's very vertical
and there's a lot of information here.
| | 02:00 | In contrast, take a look at Zappos.com.
| | 02:03 | This is a store that specializes in
shoes and bags and things like that. So,
| | 02:08 | it's much more focused;
| | 02:09 | their user experience is a lot better.
| | 02:12 | If I go here, in their
search box and I just type in Dr.
| | 02:15 | Martens and pier, which is the
name of the shoe and I click Search.
| | 02:21 | I'm taken straight to that shoe because
I searched for the right name. Here
| | 02:26 | again, I have a picture and I have other
pictures on the bottom and there's even a video.
| | 02:31 | And at the top, you see the
information is pretty much the same, you have the
| | 02:36 | product images, you can buy the shoe and
as you scroll down, you have the same thing.
| | 02:40 | You have related shoes and you have reviews.
| | 02:43 | But as you can tell, this is a much
prettier user experience and it has things
| | 02:48 | like top positive review versus top
critical review and you can really get
| | 02:53 | immersed into this in a much better way.
| | 02:56 | That way, because this is a
specialized store, you get information you're
| | 03:00 | actually looking for.
| | 03:01 | Things like whether or not the shoe
runs large or small or it has great support
| | 03:06 | or poor support and things like,
aren't highly related to the specific topic.
| | 03:11 | If you start a store, you shouldn't be
really competing with Amazon.com. They're
| | 03:16 | too big and they're also too general.
| | 03:18 | What you should do instead is compete
against other companies that are selling
| | 03:22 | the same type of product you do.
| | 03:24 | Like, if you were selling shoes,
you'd be competing against Zappos.com.
| | 03:28 | To look at something completely
different and also to show you how you can use
| | 03:32 | social services and incorporate them
into the shopping experience, we'll take
| | 03:36 | a look at ThinkGeek.
| | 03:38 | ThinkGeek, as the name suggests, sells
weird stuff for geeks like Doctor Who
| | 03:43 | watches and unicorn sandals
and other interesting things.
| | 03:49 | So, if I go here to Portal, and I look
at this Portal 2 Plush Turret with Sound,
| | 03:56 | I again get a standard shopping experience.
| | 03:59 | We got pictures of the product; we
have the price; you can buy it right away;
| | 04:03 | you can see related products.
| | 04:05 | But if I scroll down to the bottom
here, you'll see something interesting.
| | 04:08 | Instead of having a comment system
that's based on ThinkGeek's own system,
| | 04:13 | they're using Facebook comments and this
is ingenious because if you incorporate
| | 04:18 | Facebook comments into your site, what
will happen is whenever someone comments
| | 04:23 | on a product, that comment
automatically appears in their Facebook stream.
| | 04:27 | So, all their friends see that they
comment on that product and if someone likes
| | 04:31 | the comment on their screen, that
like pops up inside the site and they get
| | 04:36 | directed to the site.
| | 04:37 | It's a way of incorporating social
media and selling stuff in a very clever way
| | 04:43 | that works really well.
| | 04:44 | Of course, you're handing off your
comments to Facebook and people can only
| | 04:48 | comment if they have a Facebook
account but it can be extremely effective at
| | 04:51 | driving people to your site.
| | 04:53 | Another way of getting customers in a
smart way is doing what Kobo is doing.
| | 04:57 | Kobo sells eBooks and only eBooks
and they sell eBook readers too.
| | 05:02 | And they have a very aggressive
marketing campaign that's built around their
| | 05:07 | newsletter and built around coupons.
| | 05:10 | So if you sign up for a Kobo account,
you are incentivized to sign up for their
| | 05:15 | newsletter. If you do, you keep
getting deals in your inbox all the time
| | 05:20 | saying, hey, you can get 10% off or 25%
off or 50% off, certain books at certain
| | 05:26 | times, and that's the trick.
| | 05:28 | You see here, it says,
| | 05:29 | "Get 10%-75% off selected eBooks".
| | 05:33 | What they do is they get deals where
they have certain books that are for sale
| | 05:37 | at a certain time and then they give you
only discounts on those specific books.
| | 05:41 | That way, they can move
volume and control that volume.
| | 05:44 | So what they'll say is, right now, we
want to focus on, only selling books from
| | 05:48 | a certain publisher or only
selling books of a certain topic.
| | 05:51 | And then, they'll target a marketing
campaign with a discount towards that
| | 05:55 | particular stack of products
and then people buy more of them.
| | 05:59 | And trust me, I use Kobo to buy my
eBooks, and it's because of their original
| | 06:03 | pricing that I started. But now, when I
keep getting discounts all that time, I
| | 06:07 | just can't stop myself.
| | 06:08 | I keep buying new eBooks all the
time, even if I never read them.
| | 06:12 | I have to buy them because I get such a
good discount on buying these products.
| | 06:16 | So it really, really works and it's so simple.
| | 06:19 | All they do is they send out discounts by
mail and people sign up for the newsletter.
| | 06:24 | And they just get these
constant discounts in the mail.
| | 06:27 | To show you something very
different, I wanted to show you this site.
| | 06:31 | It's a site from a Norwegian guy; his
name is Frithjof Arngren. This is a
| | 06:38 | shop I used to go to when I lived in
Oslo. They have what has been described
| | 06:43 | on the internet as the worst
ecommerce experience of all time.
| | 06:47 | The reason why I want to show you
this is because there's a back story to it.
| | 06:52 | When you see this, it just looks like
total chaos, there is stuff everywhere
| | 06:56 | and it's a huge mess.
| | 06:57 | And the worst part about it is you have
to scroll sideways to see all the content.
| | 07:01 | Not even -- and there's more content
underneath--it's just a terrible type
| | 07:05 | of ecommerce website.
| | 07:07 | The reason why it's like this though
is because the owner wants it to be this
| | 07:11 | way and also because this is an
online version of their printed catalogue.
| | 07:16 | They print a catalogue it looks exactly
the same, except it's not interactive.
| | 07:21 | And that's kind of how they decided that
they were going to have their identities.
| | 07:25 | So this clustered, very messy
catalogue look is the identity of the site and
| | 07:30 | that's why it's made like this.
| | 07:33 | So, they made a conscious decision to
make a user-unfriendly ecommerce portal
| | 07:38 | because people recognize the look of it.
The fact is, when you go in and you
| | 07:43 | actually start clicking on things,
you'll see there is ample information about
| | 07:47 | the products but it looks absolutely horrific.
| | 07:49 | Even so, people buy products from them
because they know what this is and they
| | 07:54 | recognize it immediately
because of their recognizability.
| | 07:58 | A final example is one I have to open
right now when I talk about it, it's
| | 08:02 | LINGsCARS, lingscars.com, and be prepared.
| | 08:07 | Yeah, I'm going to stop that.
| | 08:19 | lingscars.com sells cars online.
| | 08:23 | What's interesting about LINGsCARS.com
is that this is an unbelievable website
| | 08:31 | full of all sorts of incredibly random
things that are very hard to understand
| | 08:37 | and it's all over the top in anyway possible.
| | 08:42 | This is hugely successful because
people know the site because it's so extreme.
| | 08:47 | So, they've taken everything that
people have ever learned about ecommerce and
| | 08:52 | they're doing the exact opposite of everything.
| | 08:54 | It's hard to use, it's hard to
understand, it's really noisy when you go to
| | 09:00 | pages, there's videos that come in
and block things and there's a lot of
| | 09:04 | music playing on top of other music
but the experience itself has made
| | 09:08 | lingscars.com famous.
| | 09:11 | And therefore, when people want to buy
cars, they go to lingscars.com just to see
| | 09:15 | what they have and that results in better sales.
| | 09:18 | And the really funny thing is they've
actually won awards for this web design,
| | 09:21 | because it's so extreme and it's so
effective that inspite of breaking every
| | 09:26 | single rule, they end up getting successful.
| | 09:30 | And that's what you have to walk away with.
| | 09:32 | Of course, you can do it properly, like
Zappos does and make it excellent user
| | 09:36 | experience. That's what I
recommend you do, but if you have a really
| | 09:41 | distinctive company identity, or
product identity and you want to do something
| | 09:46 | different, don't say you can't do
it just because it's not proper.
| | 09:51 | Try it and see if it works because for all
we know, you might be the next LINGsCARS.
| | 09:56 | Taking elements from successful online
stores and learning from the mistakes
| | 10:00 | of others will be make you better informed
when deciding how to layout your ecommerce site.
| | 10:05 | Just keep in mind the one true
rule of the web, things always change.
| | 10:10 | So, if you want to do something
new and different. Just do it.
| | 10:13 | You might be redefining
the way ecommerce is done.
| | 10:17 | Just stay within reason.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Using WordPress for EcommerceMaking a plan of action| 00:00 | Before picking a solution and setting
up an ecommerce site, it's a good idea to
| | 00:04 | define some baseline parameters for your store.
| | 00:08 | That way, you're able to compare
solutions in more detail and also layout a plan
| | 00:13 | of action for how you're
going to build the site itself.
| | 00:16 | To help you along I've created
an ecommerce site questionnaire.
| | 00:20 | This is very similar to what I
provide to my clients when I build sites for
| | 00:23 | them and it helps you ask the right questions
about your site before you start working on it.
| | 00:29 | By answering these questions, you'll
have the answers to a lot of the questions
| | 00:33 | that you will encounter when
you start setting up your site.
| | 00:36 | Things like, how are you going to
receive payments and manage shipments and how
| | 00:40 | are you going to manage your stock and so on.
| | 00:43 | So, take the time to fill this form out
and I'll help you along by talking in a
| | 00:48 | bit more detail about each of the questions.
| | 00:50 | The first three questions we've already
talked about previously in this course:
| | 00:55 | what are you selling, who are you
selling it to and how are you selling it?
| | 00:59 | Here, I want you to describe your
product, is it a physical product, is it a
| | 01:03 | service, is it a digital product?
| | 01:06 | How are you going to manage stock, how
are you going to make sure you're not
| | 01:10 | over or under selling stock?
| | 01:11 | How are you going to handle the actual
product when it leaves on the website?
| | 01:16 | You also need to define who your
customer is. Who is this person who is going to
| | 01:20 | buy the product? Is it someone who is
going to buy several products or just one?
| | 01:24 | Do they want to save their information?
Do they trust PayPal? All this kind of
| | 01:28 | information should be in that box.
| | 01:31 | And finally, how are you selling it?
| | 01:32 | Are you only selling it online or
are you also selling it in stores or at
| | 01:37 | events or other things. If so, how
are you going to manage your stock to
| | 01:42 | insure that you're not selling out
all your products at a renaissance fair
| | 01:46 | while at the same time you're selling
products online so you will end up having a
| | 01:50 | back log of products you need to sell.
| | 01:52 | Next, how are you receiving payments?
| | 01:55 | Figure out how you want the payments to come in.
| | 01:58 | Do you want to use a payment portal
like PayPal or do you want to link your
| | 02:02 | ecommerce site directly to your
bank and use their payment system?
| | 02:06 | Do you want to take payments by check
or money order or direct bank transfer or
| | 02:10 | even in person or do you want to
take payment in some other way?
| | 02:15 | You have to define this right at the
top so that you'll know exactly how you're
| | 02:19 | going to set the site up.
Depending on your payment options you'll have
| | 02:23 | to do different things to make it all work.
| | 02:26 | Then you have to think about how you
are going to manage your inventory.
| | 02:29 | This is important if you are selling
your product in more than one location.
| | 02:33 | So if you're selling it only online,
you are, of course, going to manage your
| | 02:37 | inventory with the online shop,
because that's the easiest.
| | 02:40 | But what if you're also selling your
product in a store, or if you're selling it
| | 02:44 | in a store and at fairs
or conferences or whatever?
| | 02:48 | In that case you need to figure out where the
primary inventory management is going to live.
| | 02:53 | Is it going to live in the ecommerce
solution? So, when you sell a product in
| | 02:57 | person you'll go into the ecommerce
solution and add that sale in. Or are you
| | 03:01 | going to manage the inventory somewhere
else and then transfer the information
| | 03:06 | from the ecommerce
system over to that inventory?
| | 03:10 | That depends on how you run your
business and what kind of product you're
| | 03:13 | selling but this is a very important
decision that you have to make up front
| | 03:17 | or at least be aware of so that you'll
know how you're managing what you are selling.
| | 03:21 | Then we get to shipping.
| | 03:23 | How are you going to ship the product?
| | 03:25 | Get the product from your
location to your buyer's location.
| | 03:29 | This all depends on how far you're
willing to ship it, maybe you only want to
| | 03:33 | sell products to people that are in your
neighborhood or close by you. Or you may
| | 03:37 | want to sell products internationally.
| | 03:39 | If so, you need to figure out how the product
is actually getting from you to your customer.
| | 03:44 | That could be by mail, it could be by
courier, it could be by some other means,
| | 03:48 | but you have to stipulate this.
| | 03:50 | Do you want people to come
to your house and pick it up?
| | 03:53 | I wouldn't recommend doing that.
| | 03:54 | If you want to do delivery or pickup,
you should really have a business location
| | 03:58 | but some people choose to do it that
way and that's fine. You just have to
| | 04:02 | think about it ahead of time.
| | 04:04 | If you choose to do a shipping, how are
you going to charge for that shipping?
| | 04:07 | This gets quite complex depending on
what kind of product you're selling because
| | 04:11 | you can charge based on volume,
you can charge based on weight.
| | 04:15 | If you combine products, the weight
maybe increasing without the volume
| | 04:19 | increasing. Or, you may end up shipping
a very small component in a huge box to
| | 04:23 | save because there is some sort
of deal with the shipping company.
| | 04:27 | You really have to think about how you
are going to package your product and how
| | 04:31 | it's going to get shipped out and
how much it's going to cost you.
| | 04:34 | And then, you'll have to figure out,
are you going to offset that cost in the
| | 04:38 | product price or are you going to add
the cost onto the product price. Then,
| | 04:42 | you have to answer questions like, do
you charge tax for shipping and do you
| | 04:46 | charge handling fees and all these other things.
| | 04:48 | So, write that down and really think
it through and look at your product and
| | 04:52 | figure out how many of them fit in
small box, in a medium box, in a large box
| | 04:56 | and that way you'll be able to provide
good shipping options for the customers.
| | 05:00 | Finally, and quite importantly, make sure
you know how to apply taxes to your products.
| | 05:08 | This gets really tricky when you're
working online because different states have
| | 05:12 | different tax laws and a different tax
rates with in the states also applies.
| | 05:17 | So, in some cases, if you want to sell a
product from one region of a state to
| | 05:22 | another, you have to pay one type of
tax but if you send it somewhere else, you
| | 05:26 | may not have to pay tax or you
may have to pay a double tax.
| | 05:30 | You need to figure out exactly how you
are going to apply taxes to your products.
| | 05:34 | The best way of doing that
is to hire a tax professional.
| | 05:38 | Trust me, ask someone who actually
knows what they're doing about this and find
| | 05:43 | out how to do it right.
| | 05:45 | The worst thing that could happen is
they have a hugely successful online
| | 05:48 | store and then the tax authorities
come to you and tell you that you've been
| | 05:52 | breaking some obscure tax law the whole time and
you'll end up having to pay a huge fine for it.
| | 05:58 | Do the homework up front, hire a tax
professional to help you figure out how to
| | 06:02 | charge taxes for your products;
| | 06:04 | you'll be much better off.
| | 06:06 | Answering these questions and writing
the answers down now will help guide you
| | 06:10 | through the set-up of your site and
will also help your business because as you
| | 06:14 | can see, these are questions you'll need
to address anyway, so it's better to do
| | 06:18 | it right off the bat than
wait until they become pressing.
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| WordPress as an ecommerce platform| 00:00 | As you can tell by the title, this
course is a preparatory course for setting up
| | 00:05 | an ecommerce site with WordPress.
| | 00:08 | As such, its time we address the
question of how well WordPress works as an
| | 00:12 | ecommerce platform and what, if any, issues
are going to arise when you make this decision.
| | 00:17 | WordPress is one of the most popular
web publishing platforms out there today
| | 00:22 | and its popularity is growing everyday.
| | 00:25 | That means there is a lot of
information out there. There's also a lot of
| | 00:29 | development and progress being made
using WordPress and that include using
| | 00:34 | WordPress as an ecommerce platform.
| | 00:36 | If you want to use WordPress for Ecommerce,
you need to do so by adding a plug-in.
| | 00:41 | It's true, there are some themes that
come with ecommerce built in, but I don't
| | 00:46 | recommend using these because you may
want to change the appearance of your site
| | 00:50 | and that's done in the theme.
| | 00:52 | So, if your theme is also managing the
ecommerce component, it gets kind of
| | 00:56 | tricky to work with.
| | 00:57 | So, having the ecommerce handled by a plug
-in and then using themes to style your
| | 01:01 | site makes more sense.
| | 01:03 | There are many different ecommerce
plugins available, and you have to keep in
| | 01:08 | mind that each of these plugins
handles products differently and in many
| | 01:12 | cases, very differently.
| | 01:14 | That means if you start off with one
plugin and then you build an entire site
| | 01:19 | around it and then you decide down the
road that it's not the right one and you
| | 01:23 | want to switch, that might be a really
difficult thing to do and it might take a
| | 01:27 | lot of time and effort.
| | 01:28 | So if you pick a plugin, you should
really do your research upfront and then
| | 01:33 | stick with it for as long as possible.
| | 01:35 | Like I said, there are many different
plugins available and they also vary
| | 01:38 | quite a lot in quality.
| | 01:40 | So before picking a solution, make
sure you've done your research and make
| | 01:44 | sure that the plugin you picking is currently
supported and that it has a plan for the future.
| | 01:49 | There is one important thing to
remember when you publish content online and
| | 01:54 | it's also true for WordPress sites.
| | 01:56 | WordPress sites like any website
can get hacked and if you don't pay
| | 02:01 | attention and if you don't do proper
security setups, it probably will get
| | 02:06 | hacked if it gets popular.
| | 02:07 | This is easily avoided by doing proper
backups, staying up to date, adding the
| | 02:12 | right security features and
locking down your site the right away.
| | 02:17 | All of which I've talked about in
this course but it bears repeating; if you
| | 02:21 | don't maintain your site, there's a
good chance you will get hacked. Once
| | 02:26 | you get hacked, getting all that
stuff back to the way it should be, can be
| | 02:30 | really challenging.
| | 02:31 | So, make sure that you are up to date
and that you are willing to take on the
| | 02:35 | responsibility of managing the website.
| | 02:37 | Before you choose WordPress as your
ecommerce platform, consider alternatives.
| | 02:43 | Managing an ecommerce platform
on your own, can be a lot of work.
| | 02:47 | And you have to expect to spend quite a
bit of time on this both in setting it
| | 02:51 | up and also in managing it from day to day,
especially if you're doing a lot of sales.
| | 02:56 | But that's the case for any ecommerce solution.
| | 02:59 | If you're not ready to commit 100% to
WordPress and setting aside the time
| | 03:03 | necessary to manage an ecommerce site,
you may want to look at alternatives
| | 03:08 | like Shopify that provide the complete
solution for you. All you have to do is
| | 03:13 | put in the products and they will
manage the products. They will give you the
| | 03:16 | money, everything else is handled on
their end so you don't have to set it up
| | 03:20 | and you don't have to worry about the
server configurations and the security
| | 03:24 | and all this other stuff.
| | 03:25 | It may have more operating expenses,
but at the same time you off set a lot of
| | 03:30 | the frustration of
handling aside from day to day.
| | 03:32 | But on the other hand if you want
complete control and you want to use a
| | 03:37 | platform that makes sense and
that's easy to work with, WordPress for
| | 03:40 | Ecommerce is a great option.
| | 03:42 | Finally, consider this, currently as I
speak there are people working on managed
| | 03:49 | WordPress Ecommerce solution.
| | 03:51 | That means, just like wordpress.com is a
managed solution for having a WordPress
| | 03:56 | blog, there are people that are
working on solutions that serve up WordPress
| | 04:01 | Ecommerce as a service.
| | 04:03 | That way, instead of setting up your own
site, you simply sign in to that service
| | 04:07 | and pay whatever fee it cost. Then,
you can set up your own site through that
| | 04:11 | service and it will be a WordPress
Ecommerce site, meaning it will work just
| | 04:15 | like WordPress on your server
except someone else is managing it.
| | 04:19 | The bottom line is, if you want
to build it yourself and you'd like
| | 04:23 | WordPress, move forward.
| | 04:24 | If not, investigate
alternatives and make an informed decision.
| | 04:29 | WordPress can be a great ecommerce platform,
but it requires some serious work on your end.
| | 04:35 | If you're ready for that and the
prospect of building an ecommerce site that is
| | 04:39 | completely under your control
appeals to you, jump right in.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Ecommerce in WordPress does not come free| 00:00 | WordPress is open source and free by definition.
| | 00:04 | Based on this people often hold two
misconceptions about working with WordPress.
| | 00:10 | A, that everything associated with
WordPress is free and B, that WordPress
| | 00:14 | services should be free
or at least really cheap.
| | 00:17 | Though it would be awesome if
these were true? They are not.
| | 00:21 | If you think about it, it makes
sense that you have to pay for
| | 00:24 | WordPress services.
| | 00:25 | After all, someone built all
this stuff and they have to eat.
| | 00:29 | When setting up an ecommerce site with
WordPress, you have to expect to invest a
| | 00:34 | lot of time and some money to
make it all work and work well.
| | 00:38 | It's a worthwhile investment but it's an
investment you should be aware of upfront.
| | 00:43 | Looking at the infrastructure, there
are three things you need to invest it, an
| | 00:48 | SSL Certificate, Secure
hosting, and backup and security.
| | 00:53 | The SSL Certificate is a must.
| | 00:56 | If you're setting up an ecommerce site,
you need to get an SSL Certificate.
| | 00:59 | Now I know a lot of people want to avoid
getting this extra expense because they
| | 01:04 | feel like it's not necessary or not
that many people are going to visit the
| | 01:09 | site, but it is incredibly important
that you have proper security for the
| | 01:13 | transactions that are happening
between your customer and your server.
| | 01:17 | Because if you don't have proper
security, anyone can snoop in on those
| | 01:21 | transactions and get information
out of it. This becomes even more
| | 01:25 | important if you're using a payment
portal that doesn't have SSL built in like,
| | 01:29 | for instance, Stripe that builds into
your site so that if you don't have SSL
| | 01:35 | Certificates, people can actually see the
credit card information being passed back and forth.
| | 01:40 | You also need to invest in secure hosting.
| | 01:43 | I said before that I was going to
mention some companies that provide secure
| | 01:46 | hosting and I'll do that now.
| | 01:49 | You can look into getting hosting from
page.ly, it's page.l-y (http://page.ly),
| | 01:54 | you can get hosting from DreamHost
(http://dreamhost.com), from site5
| | 01:57 | (http://site5.com), from bluehost
(http://bluehost.com), rackspace
| | 02:03 | (http://rackspace.com) and
WPEngine (http://wpengine.com).
| | 02:06 | These are all well established
WordPress hosts that specialize in hosting
| | 02:10 | WordPress and that also
contribute to the WordPress community.
| | 02:14 | There are many, many, many other options and
I'm not saying that this is an exclusive list.
| | 02:19 | What I am saying is that these six hosts
are well established in the industry as
| | 02:24 | great and secure WordPress hosts.
| | 02:26 | So, they are options you should consider.
| | 02:29 | They have services that range from
relatively inexpensive to extremely expensive.
| | 02:35 | You have to really look at what
they're offering and what it's going to cost
| | 02:39 | you and how much you are willing to
spend. Then, do the research and figure
| | 02:43 | out which service fits you best.
| | 02:45 | Finally, for infrastructure, you
have to invest in backup and security.
| | 02:49 | Yes, you can get free backup options
and they may work really well for you. In
| | 02:53 | that case, by all means, use them.
| | 02:56 | Investing in a backup service and
a security monitoring service for your
| | 03:00 | site will take the load off of you and
hand it off to someone else. Then, someone
| | 03:05 | else is responsible for backing up your
site. When something goes wrong, you
| | 03:08 | can go to them and say, "Hey, I'm paying
you money, so you need to give me what
| | 03:13 | I'm paying you for."
| | 03:14 | The same goes for security. You can do
it yourself but if you hire someone else
| | 03:18 | to do it and something goes wrong, you can turn
to someone else to get your site backup again.
| | 03:22 | When we look at the solution there are a
couple of things that kick in that will
| | 03:27 | cost you some money.
| | 03:28 | While the ecommerce plug-ins them self
are usually free, the extensions cost
| | 03:31 | money. Extensions are things like
adding new features to your cart or
| | 03:36 | adding new features to your site or
adding a shipping module or a new payment
| | 03:41 | portal, things like that.
| | 03:43 | The extensions usually vary in
price from anywhere from $20 to $60 and
| | 03:48 | sometimes they're even more. You
have to look through the extensions that
| | 03:51 | are available for the solution you
have chosen and see what you need for you
| | 03:56 | site and add them on as you go.
| | 03:58 | I recommend starting with adding very
few extensions and then start adding them
| | 04:03 | in if you really feel you need them.
You can easily get it into a huge
| | 04:08 | thing where you have tons of
extensions and you are spending a lot of money
| | 04:11 | upfront and then it turns out,
you don't need all of it.
| | 04:14 | You also need to take into
consideration that payment portals cost money.
| | 04:19 | Just like if you have payments through
your bank, it will also cost money.
| | 04:23 | You have to find out what is the
cheaper option and what is the more secure
| | 04:27 | option and how much are you
willing to spend on taking payments.
| | 04:31 | If you are building a professional site
and you are not a theme developer, you
| | 04:34 | may want to either buy a premium theme
from the same company that's made your
| | 04:39 | ecommerce solution or is a specialized
theme for that ecommerce solution or even
| | 04:44 | getting a professionally built theme.
| | 04:46 | This can easily cost a lot of money,
but you are setting up a website for your
| | 04:51 | company, so investing in making that
website work properly may be a good idea.
| | 04:56 | Chances are, if you find someone to
professionally build your theme, they
| | 05:00 | will also be able to due all this
other stuff, do the security and the
| | 05:04 | extensions and hook everything together.
| | 05:06 | Just be sure that the person you are
hiring actually knows what they're doing
| | 05:10 | and that they're not ripping you off.
| | 05:12 | Finally, consider the shipping fees.
| | 05:14 | When your selling stuff online, you
have to ship it somewhere and you have to
| | 05:18 | figure out the best way of shipping it
that cost you the least amount of time
| | 05:22 | and money and that costs your clients
the least amount of time and money.
| | 05:26 | If they want to spend extra on shipping,
that's fine but to be able to provide
| | 05:30 | your product to as many people as
possible you should provide shipping options
| | 05:34 | that are relatively inexpensive to
avoid people saying, "I want your product but
| | 05:39 | I am not willing to pay for the
shipping so I'm not going to buy it."
| | 05:43 | Just as when you open a real life store,
you have to factor in a significant
| | 05:47 | investment in time and money
when opening a WordPress store.
| | 05:51 | Yes, WordPress is free but running an
ecommerce solution in WordPress and making
| | 05:56 | an online store successful is a full time job.
| | 05:59 | Investing in the right components and
sending things up right off the top will
| | 06:04 | cost you a bit extra but will
also pay for itself down the road.
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