Business Calcium Blog

In 2000 I launched BuyOnlineNow.com, one of the largest online retailers for brand name office products, from my house. Since then, we’ve relocated to an actual office (which pleased my wife) and grew to a staff of over 25. We maintain monthly visitors of around 100,000 and convert at almost double the average. Here are a few of the lessons I’ve learned over the past few years in eRetailing.

Conversion Online is Low
Average online conversion is around 2 percent. While BuyOnlineNow more than doubles that rate, anyone would like to see those higher. It’s hard for me to imagine why 95 percent of our visitors don’t buy anything. Because some people online are strictly browsing and others like to comparison shop, you need to remember that low conversion is common and expected. For this reason you must find something that your company can do for consumers that sets you apart from the competition: offer the best selection, offer great prices and give them added value. We offer free shipping of orders over $99, for example.

Don’t Go Crazy Over Stats
I don’t worry about too website stats. If you’ve checked the page rank for my site, you’ve done more than I have in the past few years. You can make yourself nuts with these stats. What’s really important is if you are converting those that come to your site. It’s also good to look at where users are dropping off – there might be an error in the check-out process or misleading instructions.

Focus on Your Customers
In these tough economic times it’s important to keep one thing on your mind – valuing your customers. It’s easy in online business to get away from this. To anyone considering starting an online business, my advice is to focus less on technology side and focus more on customers. The stores that struggle most aren’t focused enough on customers. Some of my competitors could talk for hours and they wouldn’t once mention customers. It’s important to me to remember that every visitor to our site is a human and has basic service needs and wants. I’m a broken record on that subject – that’s why we’re here.

Attention to Detail: Start Early
In the early days we didn’t pay much attention to detail in the accounting department. When we grew large enough to be able to support an account, it took a lot of effort to get caught up. It’s a great idea to start with the end in mind – knowing that although there isn’t much going on in the early days and you will one day be buried in paper. It’s much harder to catch up than to start off right. You never know when you will have a huge boom in vendors or customers.

In closing, it’s also important to remember you need to keep a balance: family and home life deserves just as much love and attention as does your business. I hope these tips help on your journey to success.