Is Ecommerce a "Computer Thing"?

Is your IT Manager also your Director of Marketing? Does your building contractor also pick your carpet and paint for a new store, and then teach your sales staff how to close? Silly questions? Not so long as there are merchants who still believe the first person they should talk to when they decide to sell online is "the computer guy". No, the first person you should talk to is the marketing guy. In this scenario, Mitch Speers is "the marketing guy".

The technology behind an ecommerce store doesn't determine its success as a business any more than the choice between a metal or tile roof determines your store's close ratio. The success of an online furniture store is determined by the same things as your physical stores.

1. A unique selling proposition (USP) that sets you apart from competitors, and a brand promise that builds on that USP to help the right prospects choose your store
2. Advertising and promotion that trades on your USP to cost-effectively drive the right prospects to your store
3. Merchandising--selecting the right mix of vendors, styles, products and price points to appeal to your target consumer and differentiate your store from the competition
4. Store layout and signage that guides prospects through your merchandise mix in a way most likely to result in sales
5. Sales people who can qualify prospects with questions and then use the prospects' answers to close the sale
6. A store manager who can see what stops prospects from buying and can then make changes to increase the close ratio
7. Back-office processes that make it easy, pleasant and quick for the customer to pay and be on his way
8. Logistics and vendor relationships that allow you to set realistic customer expectations for delivery
9. Customer service processes that keep good deals from going bad between the order and final delivery to the customer's home, and encourage repeat purchases

Your customers will never know or care how your product database is turned into a web page.

They want to buy the right product from a store they trust at a fair value. Making decisions about navigation structure and page layouts happens about 10 steps into the engagement, and should be based on empirical research, not gut feel. The days of shooting from the hip and hitting your target in furniture ecommerce are, unfortunately, over.

To persuade prospects to buy from you online means understanding that customer and translating that understanding into a store that they want to buy from. This includes design, layout, product copy, photography, marketing and a hundred other factors that together form a persuasive system to sell furniture online.

Shopping online is nearly as mainstream as shopping at the mall. Don't abandon your hard-won business sense in the face of a new sales channel that happens to manifest as images on a computer screen. You probably don't know how to install an electrical system in a new store either. Who cares? You can turn on the lights and sell furniture, and you can apply most of the same concepts to selling online.