The Insider’s Guide to Ecommerce is a 196-page compendium of E-Commerce knowhow and the product of Chris Barling’s 16 years’ experience in supplying online stores to SMEs in the UK and beyond.

With 440 specific pieces of advice presented in 9 sections and 33 sub-sections, The Insider’s Guide to Ecommerce touches upon almost every aspect of online selling, from how to generate traffic and sell products to managing fraud and processing orders efficiently.

Presented in a ‘top tips’ format, each nugget of information is numbered and presented independently, making it an easy book to consult as and when required.

“This is an indispensable guide for anyone considering starting a business online,” says Dan Matthews, editor of esellermedia.com. “It’s easy to dip in and out, and is a great reference to help you get going.”

Dan Martin, editor of BusinessZone agrees: “What Chris doesn’t know about E-Commerce isn’t worth knowing so this book should be every business owner’s indispensable guide to making a success of selling online.”

Rachel Miller, editor of Marketing Donut adds, “A comprehensive road map for anyone selling online; full of practical advice that will help launch a new E-Commerce business or transform the fortunes of an existing one. A must-read.”

“In this world of self-professed blogging experts, Chris is that rare beast, a true E-Commerce expert,” recommends Mark Newton, E-Commerce consultant at ECats and PC Pro columnist.

Availability

The paperback edition of The Insider’s Guide to Ecommerce (ISBN: 978-0-9575319-0-1) costs £12.99 and is available for purchase online at sellerdeck.co.uk/insider. A Kindle version (ISBN: 978-0-9575319-1-8) will be available soon in the Kindle Store on Amazon for £6.49.

Contacts

Interview requests, review copies and extracts are available from Jane Lee, Dexterity (Sellerdeck’s PR) on or 01273 470199.

About the author

Chris Barling is a true E-Commerce insider. In 1996 he co-founded Sellerdeck, one of the UK’s first and most successful E-Commerce start-ups. Now called Sellerdeck, the company rode the dot-com wave, growing from a garden shed operation to floatation on the London Stock Exchange in less than four years.

An enthusiastic entrepreneur and business angel, Chris has a passion for helping small businesses take advantage of new technology. He loves to learn his subject matter in depth and is regarded by friends and colleagues as a walking and talking encyclopaedia of E-Commerce.

Recent research* by Sellerdeck (www.sellerdeck.co.uk) found that the top reason given by customers for returning to an online store was a previous good experience, with the second most common reason being promotions, offers and loyalty schemes. These considerations were ranked well ahead of factors such as recommendations from friends and family and positive online reviews, Sellerdeck’s report found.

With this in mind, Sellerdeck advises online retailers to make sure not only that a new customer is impressed by the experience – with a site that is easy to navigate, offers plentiful product information and clear pricing – but to offer them carefully targeted deals after their purchase.

According to figures from the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG), the estimated value of the UK online retail market in 2012 will be £77bn. In the peak Christmas shopping weeks (week commencing 3rd Dec and w/c 10th Dec) £4.6bn will be spent online in the UK.

This means many online retailers will be seeing an influx of brand new customers this festive season – in fact, most should already be seeing a growth in trade, with £6.7bn spent online during October 2012, which represents year-on-year growth of 14%, according to IMRG’s figures.

But for too many merchants, it’ll be the first and the last time that they see that individual customer. This doesn’t have to be the case, though, as every customer that buys something from a site leaves valuable information that a merchant can use to maximise the chances of repeat business.

“The email address that a first-time customer has provided in the run-up to Christmas is worth its weight in gold. A well-focused marketing campaign can work wonders, but don’t spam your customers to death. Keep these offers relevant and simple and don’t be tempted to take a one-size-fits-all approach,” said Phil Rothwell, sales and marketing director for Sellerdeck.

“A customer that has bought a kettle, for example, offer them toasters, food processors, juicers or descaling kits. If they purchased razors, send them a discount voucher on future purchases of blades. Try to get inside their heads and be careful – getting this tactic wrong could consign the marketing emails permanently to the junk folder, or lead to requests to unsubscribe.”

For more information about Sellerdeck, or to set up an interview with Phil Rothwell, please contact:

Ben Camm-Jones

ben@clarity.pr

+44(0) 20 7100 1333

+44(0) 7515 877 621

Sellerdeck, formerly known as Sellerdeck, will be testing version 12 of its software within Sellerdeck’s own community of online vendors and plans to launch the full version of Sellerdeck 2013 later in the year.

While the previous two versions of Sellerdeck’s products focused on streamlining the checkout process, customer service and SEO performance, Sellerdeck 2013 adds a swathe of enhancements that are designed to turn browsers into happy customers.

Vendors will be able to offer visitors an improved product search function with merchant-defined filters, meaning customers can quickly narrow down their search to items in an appropriate size or colour, for example. Dynamic pricing and product option features mean that visitors won’t be shown items that are out of stock and will always be aware of the price they’re paying – not getting a surprise when they reach the checkout stage.

Sellerdeck 2013 also improves SEO performance with its automated pagination feature, with merchants able to specify the number of products appearing on a page. Though these pages are automatically generated, they are static HTML pages with a proper filename, allowing search engines to index the page.

“While driving traffic to a website is often touted as the be-all and end-all of online marketing, in reality the biggest challenge to E-Commerce vendors is actually converting a visitor to their website into a paying customer. Sellerdeck 2013 will help online vendors achieve with its improved product search function and dynamic pricing features,” said Ben Dyer, CEO of Sellerdeck.

“We’ve also made sure that Sellerdeck 2013 is true to the same core values previous versions, offering ease of use, flexible designs, easy integration of services such as hosting, customer feedback and fraud protection, and giving merchants total control of their online assets.”

“Implementing Sellerdeck 2013 is a smooth experience, with only setting changes required – merchants won’t have to overhaul their databases or front-end design. This means that deploying Sellerdeck 2013 in good time for the Christmas rush won’t be a problem at all,” Dyer added.

For more details about the Sellerdeck 2013 Beta, an interview with Ben Dyer or images please contact:

Ben Camm-Jones
e: ben@claritycomms.com
t: +44(0) 20 7100 1333
m: +44(0) 7515 877 621

Easy navigation and detailed product information were found to be the most important aspects of an E-Commerce website from the customer’s point of view, according to Sellerdeck’s survey of 500 online shoppers.

The next most important factor affecting a consumer’s purchase is information about whether or not an item is out of stock, with a previous good experience with the retailer’s website in fourth place. Having a professional-looking website was ranked as the sixth most important factor in the customer’s buying decision, with positive feedback from other customers seventh.

Perhaps surprisingly, offering the cheapest prices is only the fifth most important consideration for an E-Commerce company, according to the survey, while having a fast-performing website is in ninth place. The ability to compare products side-by-side is rounds out Sellerdeck’s Top 10 Ecommerce Turn-Ons.

When it comes to the Top 10 Ecommerce Turn-Offs, though, having a site that looks insecure is the most likely thing to put off potential buyers. Bugs and technical issues with the site are the second biggest turn-off, while insufficient product information and product images come in third place.

Difficult shopping carts, long checkout forms and poorly-designed, slow websites also feature on the list of Top 10 Ecommerce Turn-Offs, with a lack of customer feedback and reviews, non UK-based retailers and poor choice of delivery options bring up the rear.

When it comes to retaining customers, though, providing promotions, offers and loyalty schemes was ranked as the second-most important factor behind a customer having had a previous good experience on the site, Sellerdeck’s survey showed.

“Ecommerce sites that get the basics of navigation and providing plenty of product information are best placed to succeed, while factors such as providing the lowest prices aren’t necessarily as important as some may think,” said Phil Rothwell, sales and marketing director of Sellerdeck.

“Although retailers may feel a lot of price pressure, providing it at the cost of customer service is likely to be a false economy. It’s much more important to make sure the site looks professional and feels secure, while offering customers a smooth experience from the minute they enter the site to the point at which they receive the goods. This not only means happy customers, but increases the likelihood of them returning again and again.”

For more information about the survey or to arrange an interview with Phil Rothwell, sales and marketing director of Sellerdeck, please contact:

Ben Camm-Jones

ben@claritycomms.com

+44 (0)20 7100 1333

+44 (0)7515 877 621

The Sellerdeck Responsive Design is both a smart and modern page layout and also detects and responds to whatever device the visitor is using, re-displaying the store content in the appropriate format automatically (see image below). For example, visitors using a desktop PC will see the usual design, but anyone using a smartphone will see the page content laid out in a single column, with larger links and buttons.

Phil Rothwell, Sellerdeck’s marketing director says, “We wanted to find a simple and low cost way for Sellerdeck users to be able to start selling effectively online to all their customers, no matter whether those visitors are in their office, at home, in a coffee shop or on the bus.”

He adds, “Many other E-Commerce solutions offer a completely different set of pages for mobile customers, but this gives you the headache of having two sets of pages and two designs to worry about. The Sellerdeck Responsive Design means you just have one fantastic design and just one set of pages for Google to focus on.”

Rothwell also advises all e-tailers to, “take a close look at your website analytics to see the different devices your visitors are browsing and buying on. This dictates how quickly you need to adapt your site design for mobile users. But there’s no doubt now that the trend towards shopping on the move is an unstoppable one and you may well be missing out on sales already.”

Sellerdeck’s Responsive Design has the following features:

• Automatically adapts your design based on the visitor’s browser screen and resolution
• Customisable to support your own branding, look and feel
• Hides content that doesn’t work on smaller screen sizes
• Flags up phone and email fields in the checkout so handheld devices show the appropriate keyboard
• Tightly integrates with PayPal’s speedy checkout options.

The mobile-friendly design can be implemented via three services:

Contacts
For more information, contact:
Sellerdeck’s PR: Jane Lee, Dexterity, sellerdeck@dexterity.co.uk, +44 (0)1273 470199

About Sellerdeck
Sellerdeck supplies E-Commerce software and EPOS systems to small and mid-sized companies that want to be in full control of their online business. The company’s desktop application gives merchants control over key components such as hosting, payments, fraud detection and customer feedback without having to rely on third-party, cloud-based solutions.

Established in 1996 as Sellerdeck Software and rebranded in 2012, Sellerdeck is the oldest established E-Commerce developer trading today and has enabled tens of thousands of UK SMEs to make an estimated £11bn in sales over its 17 years.

Twitter @Sellerdeck
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Sellerdeck
Google+ https://plus.google.com/102442605679015134459

Sellerdeck, formerly known as Sellerdeck Desktop, has a range of products that will suit online merchants wanting a greater deal of control over hosting, payments, fraud detection and customer feedback.

The cloud is often cited as a low-cost, low-maintenance solution for small companies that want to get online, but in reality, it has several drawbacks too. Issues of data privacy and legal compliance must be considered when choosing a cloud provider, while businesses also need to consider what happens if their website is knocked offline.

Sellerdeck’s product portfolio – Sellerdeck Catalog, Sellerdeck Business, Sellerdeck Business Plus, Sellerdeck Enterprise, Sellerdeck Designer and Sellerdeck EPOS – will help businesses that want to keep their online activities under their own control.

With 16 years of experience in the E-Commerce space, Sellerdeck has processed more than £10bn in transactions and a new version of the platform, version 12 – to be known as Sellerdeck 2013 – is due to launch later this year.

“If a cloud provider suffers a major outage, as we saw with AWS just last month, a business can be knocked offline for hours with no indication about when it might be back online. And while this can mean thousands of pounds worth of lost sales, how high up the provider’s list of priorities will it be to get the site back online? And what if the site is lost forever?” said Ben Dyer, CEO of Sellerdeck.

“Any company that wants to be certain that issues of downtime, data safety and security and legal compliance are all under its own control would be well advised to think about alternatives to cloud providers. If they have the resources to manage them effectively, these businesses can be better off taking full control over key components such as hosting, payments, fraud detection and customer feedback and not relying on third-party, cloud-based solutions.”

For more details about Sellerdeck and its range of E-Commerce and EPOS solutions, please contact:

Ben Camm-Jones

e: ben@claritycomms.com

t: +44(0) 20 7100 1333

m: +44(0) 75 1587 7621