Trading successfully online
Understanding what is possible
Modern web development allows a vast range of potential functionality to be integrated into a website. Sites are no longer just 'brochures'.
The four stages of online trading
You can consider your online presence to be a four stage process:
Stage one - you have an email address and you exchange emails with some of your customers. As a result, your customers can contact you relatively quickly at any time of the day.
Stage two - you have a website, and potential customers can find out more about you by reading it. As a result, customers are able to find out about you, even outside your normal trading hours.
Stage three - you have a website that allows your customers to order your products, and otherwise interact with you directly, online. As a result, customers can order your products or services at any time of day, from anywhere in the World.
Stage four - you have a website, and you can interact with both your customers and your suppliers directly through this one interface. As a result, you can order stock directly in the same way that your customers buy from you. You might even have a system that automatically orders stock on a 'just-in-time' basis, saving you valuable storage costs. Other important management systems are integrated with your website, so you can keep on top of business remotely.
Currently, most online businesses are somewhere between stages two and three, but there are businesses throughout the UK at all stages of this process of online development. The advantages of climbing the ladder to stage four are numerous, but most influentially, it provides a higher capacity for trading with less immediate resources, such as stock, staff for packing/handling, and time-consuming manual communication.
Climbing the success ladder
Here at Indicium, we can help you progress through these stages of online trading no-matter what stage you are at currently, and no-matter what stage you want to get to.
To find out more about our services, call us on 0871 900 8407
Business-focused web solutions
Identifying the key requirements
It is common, when investigating a new web project, to envisage a huge range of potential features and assets for the web site. Often, the creative side of a web project can lose sight of the buiness reasons for having a website in the first place - a result of the enormous choice of potential features. It is for this reason that the first stage of any businiess relationship between Indicium and your business will involve us trying to understand your business objectives. This helps us to advise you on which of the many bells and whistles really are really requirements in order to meet your business goals, and which ones are mere distractions.
Turning requirements into action
Once we have identified what the key requirements are for a project, the next stage is for us to turn this information into a viable action plan that fits your budget. Some sets of requirements might only demand a simple 3 or 4 page website. Others are only possible with fully manageable thousand-page multi-functional web sites. It's horses for courses, you might say.
The most important part of achieveing success in the "Grand National" of online business, is to make sure you are on the right kind of horse for what you need to achieve.
Examples of web functionality
Below is a list of example functionality that might be appropriate for your online business:
- A shopping cart, so that customers can buy directly
- A newsletter sign-up, so you can keep your customers in touch
- Enquiry forms, so your customers can ask you questions
- A log-in area, so paying customers have access to private information
- A stock management system, so you can keep just enough stock in hand
- A customer management database, so you can improve customer service
- A supplier ordering interface, so you can manage your supplies from the same interface as your sales
- A quotation system, so you can provide quotations for high-value orders
- A product matching service, so you can offer customers the kinds of products they are most interested in
- A push-content system, so you can alter the content of your site depending on who is reading
There are many other things you can do with a website - your imagination is your only limitation.
INDICIUM WEB DESIGN
James Young House
Drumshoreland Road
Pumpherston
West Lothian
EH53 0LQ
UK
0871 900 8407
