Drop shippers are a useful bunch. There are a lot of positives that come along with using reliable drop shippers. This is especially true for new merchants who lack the space (and money) to store products and the manpower to deal with packing and shipping arrangements. Some more established multi shopping carts names already contribute integration with at least one drop shipper. ecommerce web hosting shopping cart integration is unusual, though. One crucial thing to be aware of though, is that the shopping cart costs is usually abstracted from the fees for the drop shipping service.

There are a few things you should consider before deciding a drop shipper. These concerns should be addressed early in order to steer clear of problems later…

If you are going to think about the services of drop shippers, you have to comprehends that they are the supply chain to your business. You can either source your own drop shipper(s) or opt for one that is integrated with your multi shopping carts provider. Suffice to say, the drop shipper you pick should not only be reliable but competitive and trustworthy as well. Along with these 3 characteristics, here are some aspects that you would do well to consider:

Inventory

A product needs to be in stock in order for you to make a sale. Needless to say, good and consistent inventory levels are crucial. Therefore, stock information needs to be up-to-date (real-time) and exact.

As such, product information included by drop shippers (to be displayed on the product page) should be sufficient and concrete. The reason being you do not have access to the physical products and so will not be privy to any information save that which is provided by the drop shipper. Commonly requested information: availability of alternative colors, material used, dimensions and weight.

Price

A competitive drop ship price (very close to wholesale, preferably) is the key to selling at higher margins. Remember, you need to take into account competitors’ pricing before you can make a decision on your own. You should also factor in possible future discounts into your pricing calculations.

Just like inventory levels, product prices should be constant.

Variety

It sounds cliched but variety is the spice of life. A perfect drop shipper should have a large database of drop ship products. A person may only buy one T-shirt if a variety of sizes are available, but he/she may buy more if the T-shirt comes in multiple colors as well. Frankly speaking, it also aids a buyer decide by doing a quick comparison.

Return Policy

You have to understand that your drop shipper’s return policy automatically becomes your return policy. Have a very closer look at your drop shippers’ return policies and make sure they are reliable before you select to adopt them. If you agree to their policies, make sure you clearly express these return policies to your customers on your Terms & Conditions, Shipping or Return Policy or FAQ pages.

Customer Support

A professional drop shippers get back to you within 1 business day, 2 at the most. In certain cases things do go wrong, even with the best drop shippers, such as an item being delivered in the wrong quantity, or perhaps in the wrong color. When something like this happens, it is essential that the situation be remedied as soon as possible. A quick response time is vital. The faster you hear back from your drop shipper, the relatively fast you can intercommunicate the latest situation to your customer in turn.

We’ve been writing a lot of articles lately on techniques to build up sales with the useful tools provided with some of the ecommerce solution software in the market. We’ve done so because the festive seasons are just a few months away and we want our merchants to make the most of this shopping season. We’ve touched on cross-selling and up-selling in earlier posts and we will take it a step further here.

There are quite a number things that even the best ecommerce or free shopping cart software can’t help you do. It’s because there’s a lot of psychology related in getting a customer to put in an order for a product, let alone buy or spend more than they originally planned to. Unfortunately, shopping cart technology hasn’t reached such an advanced state…yet.

Cross-selling and up-selling are great ways to show people to more products they might be interested in but had not thought of. Having said that, getting them to actually consider purchasing those products is a whole other matter. The way you go about convincing them is very essential. In order to get customers to accept cross-sell and up-sell products, you have to choose your words carefully.

Here are a few suggestions:

Add A Personal Touch

Try to personalize your product suggestions as much as possible. Don’t just use “We recommend.” But instead, try using “We think you might like this/these.” This gives a much warmer feel. This phrase works perfect with up-sell items or items which are related (same category).

Generate A Need

Instead of making outright suggestions, why not put it in a different way by actually asking the buyer if he or she needs something. If a person has just purchased a digital SLR for instance, you could ask, “Do you need batteries?” or “Would you want this camera bag for your gear?”. This method is excellent for products with lots of accessories. This is why guys go into DIY stores seeking to get a $5 screwdriver but come out with $200 worth of power tools and equipment which will be borrowed by neighbors and never returned. Mind you, have you noticed how fast food outlets cross-sell? As soon as you order a soda and a burger, you’ll automatically be asked, “Would you like some fries with that?” If you agree, the ever-helpful staff will then try to up-sell the product, “Why don’t you try our large fries? It’s just 20 cents more.” Even if 3 out of 10 customers opt for the fries, regardless of size, that’s already an increase in revenue.

Everyone Wants A Bargain

No one prefers to pay retail. If you want someone to buy something (extra) you need to make it worth their while. You need to convey the value of the deal to them. Basically let them know exactly how much they will be saving and emphasize what a great deal this is. And it pays to choose your figures wisely here. For example, given a choice between “Save $1.99″ and “Save 30%”, which do you think would have a bigger impact?

Tell Them The Sky Is Falling

People usually react to urgency. Place some sort of limit or a condition to the items you cross-sell or up-sell. “Available at this price for 15 minutes only” or “Hurry! Last 5 units left” are just some examples of this. Some view cart and checkout pages even employ the use of countdown clocks to emphasize the urgency. This method is excellent for items that are low in stock or end life products.

Curiosity Killed The Cat, But Not The Sale

I read somewhere that you should persuade and not inform when trying to sell. However, Amazon has started utilizing analytic as part of its up-selling function for some of its products. Lets just say you select item A to purchase. Amazon will list that item along with a few more similar items and state the percentage of people who bought them. Basically, you’d find out that most people bought products that cost more than the product you chosen. Substantially, yours would be the only one not to hit 2 digits percentage-wise. You would then start to have doubts about purchasing product A and start browsing through all the other costlier alternatives. Genius, huh?

Many of us completely love the act of going on random shopping trips. The idea of walking about long isles of good looking items seems very satisfying and calming. Shopping for clothes is generally seen to be topping the list when talking of shopping spree’s. It is seen that it is mostly casual clothes that one goes around buying most commonly. People try to opt for casual clothing that serves a number of purposes and occasions. The old mantra of ‘mix and match’ is back in our shopping strategies . There are some simple tips and tricks in a general Shopping Guide which when followed and kept in mind can aid you with your shopping. Natural fabrics, such as cotton, wool and linen never go out of style. There are so many styles provided by them that you need not think about the palette getting boring or dull. While your favorite color may be sky blue, try to get in various colors, to attain an illusion of a much larger wardrobe. Fashionable patterns and color combinations, made of synthetic fabrics, tend to become out-of-date within a year. Neutral colors, such as light brown gray, navy and your basic black are good choices for the pant and skirt department, since they go with almost every other color. Mixing color with pairing separates gives you choices in a casual, but fashionable collection of outfits.

If you’re determined on maintaining a stylish look that still looks up to date more than a few years down the road, choosing casual clothing of natural fibers will get you there. Costume jewelry, stylish belts, bags and scarves are another good way to add dimension to your versatile casual clothing wardrobe.
Apart from clothing it is seen that electronics and other gadgets too are very popular with people. Shopping for television sets, music systems, phones etc is very popular in the consumer market. Speaking of TV, it is observed that now a days the craze is all towards LCD or Plasma TV sets. The buzz here generally seems to be around the use of 100Hz or 200Hz in Plasma LCD TV’s. An average PAL TV would refresh the picture 50 times per second or at a level of 50Hz. The Frames Per Second (FPS) are the amount of frames needed to make the illusion of movement. Our eyes are often aware of this level concerning the speed of the figure, the quality of darkness, along with the quality of brightness. Accordingly, you would occasionally detect the figure sparkle on a 50Hz TV. Furthermore the more massive the screen is, the more apparent the sparkle is.

At 100 FPS (100Hz), a plasma or LCD TV operates at two times the Frames Per Second by making a duplicate of each frame and placing it in following the previous one. On a 50 FPS (50Hz) Cathode Ray Television (CRT), because the figure is created by an aroused particle scan, there is an evident sparkle that could be viewed by the human eye. There is no doubt that a LCD or Plasma TV would go about enhancing its features much better than that found in an ordinary old set.

This is the time when hosted shopping cart providers report an increase in sign-ups as well.

So what do you need to do to get ready for the virtual holiday crowd?..

Before we go into store preparations per se, here are a few more attractive notes about holiday shopping:

* Men outspend women by as much as 15% during holiday shopping
* Rural shoppers are more likely to visit online stores than urban shoppers
* Consumers search for characteristics rather than prices

Keep those points in mind as we go on to store preparations.

Product & Packaging

It seems dull, but it’s really true: consumers usually look for gifts this time of the year. Now, you can’t redesign your products but you can alter the way you package and market them to accommodate customer needs. Digital cameras, portable MP3 players and watches make wonderful gifts and are usually hot sellers for the holiday season.

But what happens if, for example, you own an online shoe store? It gets a bit challenging because shoes don’t actually come across as natural gifts, and various brands measure sizes differently, making shopping for shoes for someone else a bit of an art. So how about selling special holiday gift certificates, complete with holiday packaging? Make sure the designs for men and women are different but equally eye-catching.

However, most shoe stores do allow exchanges for different sizes. Fortunately, you can still work on making the packaging as perfect as possible so that you are able to market your products as bona fide holiday gifts.

SEO & Marketing

Once you have an idea of what the market wants with regard to your products, you need to make certain your site is fully optimized with all the essential keywords (What does this mean? We’re not going to go into this here, but check out our other posts about keyword research and usage for more information). Consequently, you should go all-out with your marketing campaign to take full benefit of this once-a-year buying phenomenon (well, of course there are other holiday periods throughout the year, but the year-end holidays are still when most shopping is done).

Ensure that you make full use of the tools your top website ecommerce hosting carts has to provide such as newsletter broadcasting, a basic piece of shopping cart. A relatively large number of hosted shopping cart providers offer this feature for free. Start the ball rolling with your present customers by enticing them with early bird promotions, invitation-only discounts, recommend-a-friend deals and tie-ins.

And just because the holidays are over does not mean the shopping season is over. The only thing shoppers love more than holiday sales is post-holiday sales. According to statistics, over 60% of shoppers make purchases during this period. So be sure you are ready for that. The truth is, if you were a bit late with your holiday prep, you can still make up for it by well equipped your store for post-holiday sales.

Reminder

With all the excitement (and maybe even panic while you ruminate over the points presented above) in the air, its easy to miss out on one very essential factor – the inventory level. Ensure that the items you are heavily promoting are properly stocked. If you are using the services of a drop shipper, ensure you have enough stock during this period. You must give this special attention because your drop shipper might be shipping the same products for other merchants as well. Not being able to deliver what your customers have ordered before the holidays will cost you customers and any hope of future sales, so make sure you have enough inventory.