IBEC Course March 25th

Colm Griffin, Purchase.ie & E-Commerce Ireland

Online Store Established 2009

Specialise in the sale of products to help people save money.

Over 300 products available through site

Selling into over 30 countries

Green Awards Finalist 2012

What is Purchase.ie?

Set up November 2012 to help Irish online sellers to sell online more effectively

Regular monthly events at which invited guest speakers talk about various aspects of selling online

Over 650 members in the group to date

What is E-Commerce Ireland?

Irish consumers spent €4 billion online in 2012.

€3 billion of this spent with overseas companies

Traditional bricks and mortar stores slow to embrace selling online.

Many that have embraced it have been badly advised and many have given up.

Ireland and Selling online

Online is NOT a case of......

Are others successfully selling similar products online?

Where and how are they selling?

Can you compete? (Costs associated with selling online)

Does an opportunity exist online?

Do google search?

Check Multi-Channel Platforms (Alibaba, Ebay, Amazon, Etsy etc)

Use google tools like keyword planner

Social media trend searches

Run a google alert on it

Are others selling?

How?

Through own website OR Multi-Channel Platforms OR BOTH

Why?

High search engine ranking Customer Endorsements

Good content marketing Good Use of Social Media

Using effective video marketingBest Price

Pay Per Click Campaigns

How and why are they selling well?

Web development cost Email marketing costs

Merchant Fees Video marketing costs

Multi-channel seller fees SEO costs

Pay per click advertising PR costs

Fulfilment costs Social media costs

Warehousing costs

Can you compete? Costs associated with selling online

Opportunity Exists

Short-term

– Sell through multi-channel

Long-term

- Build your own online store

Short term & Long term

- Professional look

- Easy to navigate

- Professional images

- Visible contact number

- Good and clear product descriptions (not copied and pasted from suppliers)

- Product videos embedded on site

- Customer product endorsement published

- Keep site fresh with new content

Get website to Look Right

- User friendly URL’swww.greatshoes.com/mens-italian-black-leather-shoes/

www.greatshoes.com/product2102x

- Good use of Meta Heading tag - Mens Black Italian Leather Shoes

- Good use of Meta Description tag - Italian Black leather shoes for men. Available in size 6 to size 11. High quality Italian shoes with leather soles.

- Install google webmaster tools

- Install google analytics

- Install sitemap to root directory of website

- Register site with google and create google places and google plus account

- Do cross browser checks of all pages on the website

- Ensure site is optimised for Tablet and Mobile traffic

Get website Architecture Right

Meta-Tagging Search Engine Results

Two types

On page SEO – What you on your own website to influence google rankings.

Off page SE0 – What you do externally to influence google rankings.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

User friendly URL’s

Good meta tagging

Good original wording content (use google keyword planner to assist!)

Good use of Heading Tags (H Tags) in product description

Link to new product from home page of your website

On page SEO

Share product page URL’s on your social media accounts. Google Plus, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Stumbleupon, Digg

Creating video link on youtube to product page

Run a PPC Campaign Direct to Product URL

Promote through E-Mail Marketing

Distribute press release about it and publish online News4media.ie, Irishpressreleases.ie prlog.org

Run online competition give-away and promote through competitions.ie

Off Page SEO

Two main types

1: Google Adwords

2: Facebook Advertising

Pay Per Click Advertising

Ensure to direct campaign to the most relevant page on site (NOT HOME PAGE)

Use google keyword planner to decide on keywords to use for campaign.

Offer incentive to encourage clicks (“10% off today”, “best online price”, “free delivery” etc)

Limit daily spend on campaign and length of time campaign runs for.

Set location for campaign to where you can compete.

Consider using only exact key phrases for campaigns.

Google Adwords Tips

Adword Campaign Example

Great for targeting people with specific interests of people in specific locations

Ad will need to be very appealing and best to link to your facebook page as opposed to website

Best to use humour and keep it topical.

Difficult to convert to immediate sales

A high number of followers does give you creditability

Facebook Advertising

Facebook Advertising

Facebook Post Images

Facebook Post Images

Great way to show how product actually works

Upload to youtube, vimeo etc with direct link to product page for referral traffic

Run competition and ask customers to submit product reviews

Video Marketing

Product Video Review Example

Allows you to regularly communicate with customers

Have a sign up facility on your website

Offer incentives to sign up (discounts on orders etc)

Mailchimp recommended

Give useful information not just a sales pitch

Good subject title key

Measure success and make adjustments to improve next time

Don’t overdo it!

Email Marketing

Email Marketing

Email Marketing

Email Marketing Campaign 1

Email Marketing Campaign 2

Email Marketing Campaign 3

Email Marketing Campaign 4

Email Marketing Campaign 5

Build database of relevant journalist contacts.

Build relationships with these journalists.

Ensure press releases you send out are newsworthy.

Persist but don’t overdo it.

PR and Selling Online

Magento – Great but usually big development cost and difficult to self manage thereafter

Wordpress Plugins – eg Woo-commerce, Tribulant – Will probably need developer from outset. Can be self-managed thereafter, great plugins but need to be updated regularly. Good support forums.

Shopify – Getting increasingly popular. Reasonably easy to build but not self-hosted. They charge monthly fee and transaction fees.

Online Shop Platforms

The more options to pay the better (Paypal and / or Credit Card)

Beware of merchant fees!

Beware of fraud!

Beware of charge backs!

Payment Processing and Checkout

The more options to pay the better (Paypal and / or Credit Card)

Beware of merchant fees!

Beware of fraud!

Beware of charge backs!

Payment Processing and Checkout

Catch 22 between how many orders and how much it will cost you!

Signed for orders can be important.

Expect returns!

Expect damaged orders!

Fulfilling your orders

Ensure a real opportunity exists Get site architecture right from the outset The real work starts after site built. Set your SEO right! (avoid the agencies!) WRITE GOOD ORIGINAL CONTENT Be careful with PPC campaigns Video marketing should be given serious consideration Write ups generally offer more value than advertising Thread on side of caution with Merchant fees and

chargebacks Expect returns and damaged orders

Final Tips

Finally....... Be prepared for hard work

Colm Griffinwww.purchase.ie

sales@purchase.ie

@purchasedotie

@ecommerceirelan

@griffincolm

Contact me