OrderItOnTheWeb.com Blog

Want to make an easy $100 for your blogging? We’re looking for a few good bloggers, forum posters, and website owners to participate in our first ever Buzz Builder Contest. In an effort to help us gain some more exposure to a wider audience of shoppers, we’re asking you for a review of OrderItOnTheWeb.com . Please see our contest page for more information on how to participate.

As a small online retailer, we know that every individual can make a big impact for a start-up. We thought it’d be a great idea to give fans of our site an opportunity to win fun prizes just for telling people about us and spreading the word. For our first contest we thought $100.00 US would be fun. We may try iPods, Zunes, Music and Dvds in our future contests depending on the result of this one.

Participating in our contest is so easy, that all you have to do is give us a review in your own words with a link back to our site. Creating a link is easy to do. You could add a link anywhere, even your myspace or facebook pages. After finishing your post with link, please contact us to show us your post. Be sure to visit our Buzz Builder Contest page for the official rules and thanks for participating.

Wanted to drop a quick post and let everyone know that they can keep track of our shopping blog by visiting us at our MyBlogLog community, our Technorati Profile, our stumbleupon profile or they can just subscribe to our feed right in they’re favorite rss readers

We’re always looking for ways to make it easier for shoppers to find what they’re looking for. This week, we’ve added several new features. This isn’t new to shopping per se, but it is new to OrderItOnTheWeb.com. The following new features were just added:

The focus of these features was to allow people to find their favorite brands easier, and to enhance the media selections as books, music and dvds are big sellers for us. This is sure to save shoppers time as well, for example, when I’m shopping for sneakers, I automatically want to see only Nike and Addidas. As a shopper this gives me the ability to turn a mall into a specialty boutique on the fly.

This enhancement not only helps shoppers find what they are looking for while on the site, but it also helps them find what they are looking for using their search engines. We’re very excited about this new feature and will continue to measure the results of its impact.

2007 was a great year for online retail at OrderItOnTheWeb.com , we’ve had our busiest holiday shopping season yet. This year shoppers were very aggressive with their holiday shopping, starting from just a few days before thanksgiving and the shopping frenzy didn’t show any signs of slowing down until Christmas eve. We were pleased to see so many first time customers to our site and many return customers as well. I’d like to say that as a small online business we held our own with some of the largest retailers. With a strong conversion rate of 7.63% for the month, it was definitely a record breaking month for us.

We’ve had fun building up the site this year and look forward to adding in new features for 2008. This December we received just under 50,000 visits. We still have a long way to go, but look forward to another impressive year of sales. I’m not sure if we’ll reach them for inside of 2008, but some goals I’d like to meet would be as follows:

I believe that if we reach each or all of the goals, that we’ll have a stronger online presence and increased customer loyalty. Anyways, those are just a few of the goals we’re going to be working on for 2008.

There are some other sites which our in our e-commerce network which I haven’t had the opportunity to introduce before hand, but I’m going to list them here, as these will be some hot Amazon Associate Websites to watch:

http://www.trueinternetdeals.com
http://www.shoppingdealsmadeeasy.com/
http://www.onlineshoppingwith.us/
http://www.theinternetsupermarket.com/
http://www.savebigshopsmart.com/
http://www.savebigstore.com/
http://www.savebigmegamall.com/
http://www.realshoppingdeals.com/
http://www.theinternetcornerstore.com/
http://www.bettershoponline.com/
http://www.bigstoresavings.com/
http://www.stockmyoffice.com/
http://www.allphonedeals.com/

These new web properties are part of the new E-commerce For Everyone network of sites. Marketing for the other sites is about to begin. I hope to have each one aggressively selling products and being profitable like OrderItOnTheWeb.com was in 2007. I may possible setup shopping blogs and shopping forums on the other sites depending on the success I have with the social shopping community here.

Each one of these new websites gives us the opportunity to test our new designs, target niches, selling tactics, increase customer base, sell some advertising like our Google Adsense, drive traffic between the network, and generate more sales ultimately. It’ll be exciting to see how that all plays out. Check back here on our blog for more updates.

Online shopping has evolved, become more refined and still continues to shake up the established retail industry. One of the exciting new changes we’ve seen over the past few years has been the increase in retailers implementing some form of shop online with in-store pickup. Another noticeable improvement (and the one we’re discussing in this post) is the number of online retailers growing out of affiliate or associate programs, OrderItOnTheWeb.com for example isn’t just your typical retailer for online shopping.

Developed with the help of EcommerceForEveryone.com (an amazon associates storefront developer), OrderItOnTheWeb.com has been using the Amazon Associates Web Service (A2S) as it’s e-commerce platform since it’s launch.

We operate no differently then any other online retailer, however, we have the added advantage of being Amazon Associates.

Just like every other retailer this year, we we’re gearing up for holiday shopping sales and trying to add value to our web properties. We launched a new online shopping forum to provide a social shopping experience for our growing community of shoppers and deal seekers.

What exactly is the added advantage of becoming an Amazon Associate or using Amazon Associates Web Services (A2S)? It means that our customers get the world class order fulfillment from the best in the online retail industry. When orders are placed on OrderItOnTheWeb.com , Amazon’s product fulfillment warehouse is preparing the product to be shipped out. For web shoppers this means that they receive their product on time and at the best possible price. This is one of the exciting new movements of what I’ll call e-commerce 2.0, the second round of e-commerce where the limits and barriers to large scale e-commerce are removed by the use of affiliate and associate commerce.

E-commerce 2.0 means that affiliates and associates can compete for sales head to head with large scale fortune 500 companies. Consider that Target.com is using Amazon’s e-commerce platform, the same platform that is available via Amazon Associates Web Service. Add in e-commerce website marketing and an amazon associate could end up inside of the first 3 pages of search results for something like online shopping deals (example), or other popular search terms, beating not only some of the top companies for search results but even the product manufacturers themselves.

What does this all mean? It means that in a short amount of time, more and more associates will begin to beat fortune 500 companies for search engine results and sales. If you think affiliates can’t rank well for search placement, then you obviously haven’t read search engine optimization for amazon web services. In any case, I’ve seen an increase in associate shopping sites and I think its great. Not only does it give consumers more options, but more business opportunities for small companies and individuals.

OrderItOnTheWeb.com has just launched an online shopping forum. The forum was created so that online shoppers could share shopping deals, post reviews, informative how-to articles and just socialize with other online shoppers.

The forum will provide shoppers a place to socialize with other shoppers. Find out the last info about deals, coupons, clearance items, or just find out what the hot gift of the moment is. There are sections where shoppers can ask others in the community about certain items that might be tricky, for example, what might be the best digital video recorder to use for a hi-def television, or what blender is better for making frozen mixed drinks.

Reviews represent one of the most influential factors for many online shoppers today. A review can make or break a sale. Even stronger then the traditional product reviews is the recommendation or referral from a friend. Recommendations carry even more weight for shoppers if it comes from people they know or trust. Generally buzz created between friends can have a greater impact then a review from a total stranger. A movie might have been given a horrible review from critics, but if your friend tells you it’s great, and that you’ll love it, chances are you’d give it a chance despite the negative review.

Our goal is for people to be able to ask specific questions about a product or item, and get genuine feedback good or bad, with no added sales pitch. Thus helping the shopper to buy in confidence, or avoid a bad deal. Registration for the forums is currently free and open to the public. If you’ve been considering purchasing a new item online, please feel free to stop by and ask our community what it thinks. Also, if you’ve purchased an item and would like to leave some feedback, please stop by and tell us what you think.

We hope that the launch of this new shopping community will help shoppers find the best deals, help shoppers get good feedback on the items they’re interested in, and also to create a fun atmosphere to lounge and socialize. Visit our new forum today at http://forums.orderitontheweb.com thanks.

Has setting up a forum on your e-commerce site helped? Please tell us about it. Leave us a comment on our blog.

This holiday season many online retailers are making a mad dash to get everything just right to increase sales and customer satisfaction. With plenty of competition, website owners are not leaving anything to chance. One such retailer OrderItOnTheWeb.com launched an array of new shopping tools to help their clients find the perfect gifts for the holidays. Built on the Amazon E-commerce Services api, OrderItOnTheWeb.com is just another example of successful companies being built around Amazon Web Services.

The first new feature we are proud to launch this year are the video product reviews (example). A revolutionary tool for the e-commerce industry, the use of video for product reviews is not fully adopted. Many companies are currently testing out and implementing video on limited verticals. We felt shoppers would enjoy not just being able to read reviews, but we felt that videos might engage web shoppers who might want to view the way a product works, and can actually see the product in use. This can help shoppers who are trying to determine if a product may be difficult to operate. The value of the user generated video reviews that OrderItOnTheWeb.com is offering to its clients has not yet fully been measured.

“It’s definitely increasing the amount of time that shoppers are spending on our web properties. We felt that it would be a fun way to shop. The other web 2.0 elements that we added into the site were just another way we wanted to make our visitor’s shopping experience more enjoyable”,

says Genesis Font lead developer at E-commerce For Everyone.

“This holiday we expect to see lots of growth. The first few weeks of this quarter have already shown a growth of 27% higher sales then the entire fourth quarter this time last year. Needless to say we’re happy about the upward trend in online shopping. We believe that more and more shoppers will opt to spend they’re holidays enjoying time home and the convenience that online shopping brings to our customers instead of the frustration that looking for parking spots at the mall and standing in long shopping lines bring to those less fortunate.”

We got to spend a few minutes with Genesis to ask why he choose to become an Amazon Associate and build on they’re platform.

“Like many other startups, we’re a pure-play web retailer, we wanted to work with an innovative company. We didn’t know of another retailer that has more experience, innovation and high levels of customer satisfaction then Amazon.com. They enabled us to offer our shoppers a wide range of product offerings, without having to go through traditional drop shippers, being competitively priced would only be the start of it. Amazon not only handled the order fulfillment and all of the logistical issues that warehousing, stocking and shipping product entails but because Amazon also handles the final sales transactions on their servers, we don’t have to worry about storing credit card numbers, and developing anti-fraud technologies, not to mention high merchant processing fees.”

“As far as we are concerned, being an Amazon Associate means you’re taken care of. I think Jeff Barr (Amazon’s Web Services evangelist) said it best when he said we want people to be innovative and build on our platform. We’ve tried to do exactly that and it’s freed us up to think about things like product merchandising and marketing, developing value and engaging our customers, not worry about building server infrastructure, and making financial investments in products, shipping and storage. Being associated with Amazon is a beautiful thing. This holiday season will be a proving ground for the new technologies we’ve introduced. So far the response from our shoppers has been very positive and we’re very excited about that. We hope to learn some lessons and implement changes as we get feedback.”

In addition to adding video product reviews, which is a huge feature all on its own, OrderItOnTheWeb.com has recently finished a site redesign and has been building up an opt-in mailing list for shoppers who want to stay current with new product releases and special pricing offers. Mailing lists are, an inexpensive way to build a new sales channel as well as a great way to add value for shoppers.

This holiday shopping season is going to be one of the largest online shopping seasons ever, breaking all prior records, so it will definitely be interesting to see the results. We’ll be posting the results of our enhancements on our blog ( http://blog.orderitontheweb.com ) once the holiday shopping season is over.

As more and more people turn to the internet to do their daily shopping, websites are scrambling to make their sites more attractive, easier to use and most importantly one that streamlines the conversion or sales process. A conversion is when a website visitor turns into a new lead or a new client.

Making conversions happen is not an easy task. Conversions will take time and patience to make sure that all of the elements your visitors will be looking for are in place. Part of the pre-sales process is making sure that the web visitor is at ease with their ability to make returns and exchanges in case there are any issues with their order. A site that doesn’t clearly state its return policy is not satisfying a very basic need for a shopper.

The same way you will see a clearly marked section of a local retail store called customer service or returns, is the same way that you should find it on a web site. Before a visitor will be satisfied enough with your site to part with their money, a few questions need to be answered to assure them that they are making a great decision when shopping on your site. You have to make them comfortable enough to know that they have assistance and a course of action if they need help.

Setting up a frequently asked questions section on your website is a great start. Taking steps to be proactive and giving your website visitors self help or self serve tools, will not only make your website a smarter place to shop, but you will actually reduce the amount of assistance requested to your representatives, directly freeing up resources and saving you man hours.

Visitors want to know that they can safely exchange or return a product for a refund if there are any issues, and that there will be service available online and offline to help them. Having the pleasure of working on many different websites, I’ve had the chance to see firsthand how following a few simple rules of the game can greatly increase your conversion rates.

1. Trust Factors
Shoppers want to feel comfortable with shopping on a website. Displaying various trust factors on your site can help shoppers make a decision. Shoppers want to be sure that shopping on your site is secure.

2. Professional Design
Having a well designed webpage with a proper balance of graphics and content is important to your website’s professional image. The number of people that will convert from visitor to satisfied shopper is directly affected by your website’s image. There is no substitute for a great first impression.

3. Customer Service
The provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase as define by Wikipedia. Providing customer service can be in the form of service provided by a person, or in a more automated fashion called self-service. Shoppers want the control of helping themselves

4. Interactive Shopping Tools
Customers want useful tools to compare and keep track of products. Shopping tools should be easy to use, while educating the shopper about a product and encouraging purchases.

5. Landing Pages
Landing pages are designed for visitors to land on after coming from a search engine or clicking on an advertisement or banner. Landing pages give you the ability to directly communicate your service, ideas or product directly to the website visitor. This is called a reference landing page. For most e-commerce sites, you will be building a transactional landing page, where the measurement of success will be determined in actual conversions.

6. A/B Testing
A/B Testing is the process of comparing different versions of your content and its effectiveness at referring conversions. By using techniques to display different versions of your content, you can determine which method drives you the most conversions and make improvements to the site as a whole. To do this, many websites will rotate their landing pages based on the keywords a visitor searched for, or switch landing pages based on the number of visitors and times of the day.

Conclusion

It’s time to take a good hard look at your site. If you are not converting at least 3 to 5% of your traffic, it’s time for a site overhaul. Go back and reread these 6 website recommendation again and think about how you can start applying these conversion techniques to your web sites. Remember, every time you double your conversion ratio, you double your income. And who doesn’t want a pay raise like that?

Ok, thats it for now… I hope I’ve opened your eyes to some important considerations in e-commerce. Internet retail can be a rewarding and exciting venture. Be sure not to lose focus, and always make sure that you view your site in the eyes of your customer, the most important point of view.

Hello and welcome to our shiny new blog. This blog is dedicated to our new website OrderItOnTheWeb.com. The site has been developed to provide a fresh new approach to shopping. Because we are affiliated with Amazon.com , we can provide you a hugh selection of products and categories that are brought to you securely, affordably priced and in most cases with free shipping.

We are working hard to add new features and services for our site visitors. A fun new feature just added to the list is our “Find It Local” feature. When you are looking at a product detail page, you will actually see local stores where you can purchase the product. Be sure to update the zip code to your local area for your local stores. This is an interesting new feature and not one that you’ll see on many e-commerce sites. This is because most sites don’t want to refer shoppers to local competitors. We feel that by showing you not just the prices online but what’s local to you, you can make the shopping decision that works best for you.

OrderItOnTheWeb.com uses many exciting technologies to bring shopping convenience to you. Our website is a mashup of several web services (Amazon Web Services, Yahoo! Local Web Services, Yahoo! Shopping Web Services, Google Maps API), and use of open-source technologies such as ajax and php.

We will continue to add in new features into the site and make it an even better place to shop. Visit our blog frequently to learn more about the site’s progress or news.

thanks,
Staff
OrderItOnTheWeb.com