Hello and welcome to my post on eCommerce, sales and online marketing for spares and parts. After reading this post you should be more aware of a few of the key things to consider when setting up eCommerce websites and servers, monitoring web based key performance indicators, developing a cognitive interface, user accessible features and maximising conversion and interaction.

Most of the points I make will apply to you, however some of the discussion will be geared towards eCommerce for sales and distribution of spare parts. For example, a vehicle breaker selling car parts or gas boiler and heating spares supplier.

Why am I making the distinction here?
When buying an off the shelf product, like a laptop or tablet, you don’t necessarily have more options then the colour, you cant go wrong. However, when looking for a spare part you need a bit more information to assure you are buying the correct part for your product. You want a product schematic or spare parts diagram and a list of all available spares for your item.

Small modifications to how your eCommerce software displays products in a category and product attributes can help achieve this. UK Spares have done just this, take a look at their ZIP spares page, structured to allow you to pick your product item, show you a schematic diagram of your product and list all the available spare parts. A good example of this is the ZIP Hydroboil HS spares page.

How about if you mainly supply to the trade? Your customers tend to order the same parts again and again. If this is the case add a favourite and re-order feature. After login the customer can create a favourite product list and easily re-order items they have ordered in the past.

Its also good practice to display related items and accessories on the product pages for the o so important add-on sales.

Do I trust you?
Trust is more important then ever, the Internet is quite anonymous. You don’t get to walk into a shop or have a face to face so how do you show you can be trusted? The answer is, but not limited to, a trusted and signed security certificate accompanied by Internet presence, landline phone numbers, location maps, associations, accreditations and testimonials.

What do I mean Internet Presence?
By Internet Presence I mean your social media, search engine, blog and paid advertising profiles. All already, hopefully, part of your core Internet marketing strategy. The more they see of you, the more likely they will buy from you. Search engine optimisation, SEO, pay per click, PPC, networking and social media marketing are among the most highly recommended internet marketing disciplines. Oh don’t forget email marketing, and for goodness sake make it easy for a potential customer to get in contact with you!

What are the Key Performance Indicators and how do I measure them?
I think this should be a post in its own right…. coming soon! xD

Live chat, on my website?
Like it or loath it, the ability to ask your potential new customer if they need any help can greatly increase your chances of converting your website footfall to sales.

I want to know more about social media, Facebook in particular!
I found this video to be helpful, Shoemoney – Facebook soup to nuts, and comes recommended.

Ok, you’ve chosen your website address, your ecommerce software and your designer has your logos and graphics approved and ready to go. You need a web server to host your website. Don’t cheap out on this bit; it’s arguably the most impacting factor on your customer’s experience. Simply put, a slow website is usually that way because the webmasters server has exhausted its resources and you have in my experience much less then 20 seconds before the user navigates away to your competitors.

£5 a month hosting is likely to have a 1000+ websites on a single server. A dedicated server is likely to cost you £1000’s in the first year but take heed of this point, get a decent server and an experienced webmaster to take care of server set-up and maintenance.

Once you have your server in place its time to install your eCommerce software and configure your store, depending on your skill set your Webmaster may set this up for you. If you have heard of IIS, Apache and MySql you might consider getting yourself a dedicated server, although these can be costly.

In order to accept payments online you will need a payment gateway like Paypal or Worldpay. To change the eCommerce website look and feel you will need your company logo, colour scheme and any additional graphics, depending on the eCommerce software you are using you may also need basic HTML, CSS and PHP knowledge to edit the template.

Additional things to explore when developing your interface, so much to reference, more coming soon! xD

Eye tracking & Heat maps
Youtube Link

I like spreadsheets!
Now your store looks great and is branded with your cool new company persona. You just need to add the 3,000 products you stock. Well, with just a few products you can do this manually, or most likely in this case you should use spreadsheets. This usually takes the form of a CSV upload so check your eCommerce feature’s list or ask your Webmaster.

Remember the long distance selling act when writing your terms of sale and you should include a privacy policy for good measure.

Let it roll!
Having addressed these points Its now time to launch your new website, implement your Internet marketing strategies and organise your sales team, cough, cough, CRM, hem, excuse me.

Kind Regards,
M&WT