Welcome your customers in through the door

Ecommerce solutions can't provide a face-to-face shop assistant on hand, so customers rely on your ecommerce website content and merchandising to help them feel confident in their purchasing decisions. Ecommerce solutions providers who enable you to merchandise your products to maximum effect are those that will help you succeed.

How we help your customers to choose

As standard, our ecommerce solutions include a powerful and flexible search tool in the front end, enabling users to filter and refine their search by any product variations you offer, and find the products they want to buy.

Let your users do the talking

User Generated Content is one of the most powerful merchandising techniques you can employ. But few ecommerce solutions give clients affordable access to this functionality.

Our ecommerce solutions are different, because we are able to ‘plug’ pre-built Web2.0 functionality into your site, without costly development charges. Plug in user forums, reviews, product ratings, polls, blogs, social media listings – all invaluable content that will help increase your online sales.

Pictures are worth a thousand words

Good ecommerce solutions can not only emulate the experience of bricks and mortar shopping - they can radically improve on it.

By standard, your dotCommerce site will include multiple, enlargeable and zoomable images, helping to build customer confidence in purchasing. Provide us with the images and our ecommerce solutions will enable you to show 3D rotatable images too. Ecommerce solutions from dotCommerce enable you to embed flash video showing your products or services in action, too.

Follow this checklist to ensure you choose an ecommerce solutions provider that helps you deliver great merchandising

1. Ecommerce solutions that enable side-by-side product and price comparisons help to deliver higher conversion rates.

2. Choose an ecommerce solutions provider that offers a stock level indicator as standard. Confidence in delivery is essential for customer confidence.

3. Look for multi-currency pricing functionality in the ecommerce solutions you consider, to open your sales up to overseas visitors.

4. Good ecommerce solutions enable you to categorise your products/services in a number of ways, so you can make it as easy as possible for customers to search the way they want.

5. Look for ecommerce solutions providers who offer 'related product' links as standard. This is the most basic but a highly effective way of offering relevant merchandise to your visitors, to drive cross-sell and up-sell.

6. Make sure your online store can react fast. It's often harder to rearrange the merchandising in most ecommerce solutions than it is to rearrange an actual shop. Make sure you only consider ecommerce solutions that are flexible and allow you to switch, change and test merchandising and offers, quickly and easily.

7. Let's just repeat rule number 6. When we say fast, we mean within hours - not weeks or even days. Your ecommerce solutions provider needs to give you a site that you can proactively test marketing and merchandising initiatives on - without any need for IT or development support.

Don’t just show... Sell!

When you choose an ecommerce solutions provider, make sure you choose one who understands how important marketing is to the success of your site.

Designed by marketers - for marketers, our ecommerce solutions provide a power-house of marketing features to help you increase conversion rates, cross-sells & up-sells, customer retention and ROI.

Powerful marketing features boost your revenue and retention

Effective ecommerce solutions enable online sellers to employ on-site sales promotions, email-to-website and offline-to-online voucher promotions, create product bundles, and generate ‘seasonal sale’ pages. dotCommerce lets you do all this and more.

Email marketing turns online shopping into online selling

No other ecommerce solutions provider can offer you dotMailer - the leading email marketing platform - fully integrated into your ecommerce website. dotCommerce comes complete with a free dotMailer Enterprise user licence plus free monthly email sends worth a total of over £1,000.

It’s incredibly easy to use dotMailer to:

• Set up automatic triggered emails after a customer has registered on your site, or purchased a product
• Automatically send highly targeted upsell or cross-sell emails based on products a customer buys online
• Create customer relationship and retention email campaigns for essential loyalty building
• Produce your own dedicated online surveys, landing pages and microsites to link to your campaigns - for maximum conversion

All these features will help you make more money from your ecommerce website and build stronger, more profitable customer relationships. If that sounds like the solution you need, then contact us.

Ecommerce solutions - guidance for success

Scoping and implementing ecommerce solutions is a skilled project management job.

That’s why we provide a fully managed set up for all new dotCommerce clients. This means we handle all the work and technical issues for you, just like you’d expect from a far more expensive, fully bespoke build.

First we meet with you to learn about your business, your products and your market and to understand your objectives and specific ecommerce solutions requirements.

Next, we amaze you - in a very good way – with just how flexible dotCommerce is at meeting your needs like a tailored solution, but for a much, much lower price.

You’ll get a written, costed proposal with advice and suggestions, a detailed spec including wireframes and a project timeline, with a fixed cost - no hidden extras.

Unbeatable ongoing support

Your ecommerce solutions provider should not be there to simply deliver you a new site. At dotCommerce, we are here to be your ongoing digital marketing PARTNER, to help you grow your online sales both now and in the future.

You’ll have a Project Manager and an Account Manager to ensure you get the right ecommerce site, on time.

This is the level of support you could expect from fully bespoke ecommerce solutions providers charging many thousands of pounds more for their services than dotCommerce.

We can help with your SEO, email, analysis and strategy too, so your ecommerce website works as a key element in your plans for growth. This is how an ecommerce website becomes the driver for your business.

Checklist for choosing an ecommerce solutions provider

Choosing an ecommerce solutions provider can be a confusing business.

To help direct you to the ecommerce solutions provider that suits your needs, follow this checklist when doing your research.

1. Scalability.

Your ecommerce solutions provider needs to demonstrate to you how they will support the growth and development of your business.

Look for a provider who is in it for the long term - not simply to sell you a package and move on. Look for ecommerce solutions that clearly show how they can grow and change as your business needs change - without the need for costly redevelopment.

2. Integration.

Even if you don't require a lot of integration right now, the chances are your ecommerce site will need it sooner rather than later. Look for ecommerce solutions that offer payment gateway integration as standard, and provide the flexibility to integrate affordably with your back office systems and with email marketing, as and when you require this. 

3. Content Management.

Content is king on your ecommerce site. So look for an ecommerce solutions provider who lets you manage your website content as much as possible. Solutions that include powerful and flexible CMS should enable you to add pages, content, images, and even features and functions to existing and new pages, as you require.

4. Analytics and reporting.

An area where online retailers often struggle, understanding who is doing what and where on your site and identifying key metrics are all essential for growing your online business. Look for ecommerce solutions providers who can provide advice and guidance on using analytics such as Google Analytics, and can help you with setting up and understanding tracking and reporting, rather than just leaving you to it!

5. Promotions and discounts.

Marketing functions are a key aspect of good ecommerce solutions. Look for providers who can enable you to quickly and easily to set up and track price promotions, discount vouchers, bundle offers and indeed any form of promotion you may already run offline.

6. Client support.

Critical to helping you grow your online business, seek out ecommerce solutions providers who are focussed on supporting their clients on an ongoing basis - whether new or established online businesses. This should include technical support, strategic support and account management.

7. Web2.0 features.

Successful ecommerce sites use Web2.0 to maximise their visitor and customer engagement and loyalty. Look for ecommerce solutions that build user generated content features into their offerings, such as forums, reviews, ratings, polls, and social media links and feeds.

8. VAT and shipping calulations.

Make sure the ecommerce solutions you are considering calculate shipping and tax costs in the checkout process. Not providing this information can lead to abandoned carts and loss of customer confidence.

9. Multi-currency pricing.

If you can ship there, you should be able to sell there. Multi-currency pricing and billing options for both the seller and the customer should be available in ecommerce solutions worth your attention.

10. Data import. 

Remember that getting data into ecommerce solution is as important as getting website content in. Make sure the providers you consider enable easy import of product and customer data and can advise you on this if you are in doubt.