How to know if it is time to upgrade your store design

Published on August 19, 2012 How to know if it is time to upgrade your store design

The current economy is an opportunity for smart businesses to start and grow in the online economy. The window is open now, but it won’t last – when the economy gets better, there will be even more startups and it will make it tougher to build a loyal base of customers. If you’re an existing online business, now is the time to start thinking about whether your current online shop compares to the top ten in your industry and if it doesn’t, what you can do to give it a boost. It may be time for a change.

Why there’s an opportunity

With millions of dollars wiped off the share market in recent months, it’s clear that for businesses and consumers alike the Australian economy is doing it tough at the moment – in spite of what our government will tell you. The tough retail economy has been good news for the online economy however, with consumers shopping around more carefully before they buy and taking a lot more into consideration before parting with cash.

That’s good news for online shops, because a great shop that offers great prices and a useful shopping experience will be able to build a following of users at at time when fewer of your potential (larger) competitors are starting up.

How do you know if your business’ website cuts it in the modern economy?

You’ll probably already know if your website compares to the top ten in your industry and whether your site is well placed to sustain the entrance of a bigger, better-funded competitor. Ask yourself the following questions:

• What type of security does your website have? Does your website have measures to protect against “cross-site-scripting”? Is it easy to guess your admin username or admin URL? Do you have all the up-to-date security patches recommended by your script vendor?
• What type of hosting does your website use? Does your ecommerce provider take care of it and keep it up to date, or do you have to? Can the ecommerce provider attest that the environment that your website sits inside can pass a “PCI DSS” security scan (a mandatory requirement by Visa and MasterCard for accepting credit cards online)?
• Did you pay $2,000+ for a design that looked its best in 1995? Sometimes you have to throw out your old jeans, no matter what they cost you…..
• Does your design use the latest in shopping cart technology? Drop down menus? Instant add-to-cart? Cross selling of products? Buy one get one free offers? Gift Certificates? Reward Points? Returns Management?
• How Australian is your shopping cart? Does it use Australian spelling for error messages? Does it automatically produce ATO-compliant invoices? Does it use Australian date formats? Is your currency in Australian currency? Does it support Australia Post’s live shipping calculator and can it handle Australia Post satchels and the Express Network postcode calculations too? Does it have calculators for Trans Direct, eGo, Fastway? Does your Fastway calculator exclude label colours you don’t want to use? Can you accept any Australian payment method you want (Suncorp? Westpac Payway? St.George? e-path? iPay? ANZ eGate? Bendigo Bank MIGS? eWAY? Camtech? BPAY? Stratapay?)
• What is the performance of your existing site like? How long does it take pages to load? A site that’s too slow will have your customers leaving you. Sometimes a really fancy design might take so long to load, that nobody even sees it.
• Does your shop have features to help you sell like abandoned cart management and a one-page checkout?
• Does your store have marketing features like Facebook sharing, Twitter feed links, social media sharing and product reviews?
• Can you offer store credits for returns or do you have to just issue refunds?
• Does your store have search-engine friendly URLs? (e.g. /your-product.html instead of /index.php?page=product&pid=5839&options=colour&sizes=10233)
• If you do want to switch, can you import your customers and products into the new system?
• If you do want to switch, how much will you have to pay to get the design personalised to your business colours and graphics? (Or will you be stuck with a do-it-yourself editor that you have to either learn or pay someone else to use)

The steps you’ll need to think about to switch are:

• How will I get out my customers and products? Can I export my customers and products to a comma-separated file or tabbed-delimited “Excel” file?
• How many products will you get on the new system? Does the package have enough allowance for your budget?
• What happens when you outgrow the package you choose? Can you upgrade?
• What type of support will you get from the new provider? Do they speak good English?
• What else will the provider give you? Do you get free search engine marketing reports every month or do you have to do your own research into what you could be doing to help your site rank better in the search engines?
• What design features do you get in the new system and what will it cost you to get the graphics and colours how you want them? Interactive sliders, banners and header graphics can cost thousands of dollars unless you make the clever choice
• Does the new provider have any contracts? How much will you have invested if you decide you don’t like it? Will you spend another $2,000 to only move from 1995 to 2005? In 2012 with a tough economy, you need a 2012 design that suits your brand. In 2018, you need the technology from 2018 and a modern mobile responsive 2018 design.

It’s time to get on with selling online…

If you want to refresh your existing store with an Australian cart that’s built on a certified secure platform, is affordable, is packed with useful Australian business features, is mobile compatible, has custom designs, and does not take a cut of your earnings, then we would be delighted in talking to you about how we could help. Try our admin demo or contact us to find out more.