Archive for the ‘Website Design’ Category

Multichannel retailing is the ability to sell your goods using multiple channels. These channels can include brick-and-mortar, online, catalog, mobile, television, etc. According to a report released by McKinsey Quarterly back in October,

“By 2011, we believe the Internet will play a role in more than 45 percent of US retail sales, as either a research tool or a sales channel. What’s more, consumers who shop across a number of channels — physical stores, the Internet, and catalogs — spend about four times more annually than those who shop in just one. Companies that get multichannel retailing right can enjoy larger profit margins and yearly revenue growth more than 100 basis points higher than companies that don’t.”

With this said, McKinsey has outlined 5 crucial steps that contribute to the success of using multiple channel retailing; these include:

• Understand how consumer, technology, and competitive trends are evolving.
• Develop a clear sense of the growth pockets being targeted.
• Sell the right products through the right channels by tailoring each category’s product assortment to the economics of different channels and making it easy for customers to buy what they want, when they want, where they want.
• Understand the value of growth options and rank them by their potential returns and relative difficulty.
• Define success, measure performance, and reward it.

Interested in learning more about this article? Visit the McKinsey Website

Want to know more about multi-channel retail?

View more documents from Rizwan Tayabali.

I blogged a few weeks ago about keep your website safe for visitors to make online purchases and I got a few emails asking what an SSL certificate is. So I wanted to give you a brief overview of what an SSL certificate is, how it’s used and where you can get one.

SSL stands for secure sockets layer and is essentially a cryptic protocol that provides a secure way to communicate sensitive information over the Internet. When I say sensitive information I am talking about customer names, customer purchases, credit card numbers, contact information, email address and other identifying information.

If you are selling items online via Google Checkout or PayPal, you probably will not need an SSL certificate because Google Checkout and PayPal take care of that for you. When a visitor makes a purchase on your website they are redirected to a PayPal or Google Checkout page, the SSL certificate that secures their personal information is hosted and maintained by Google or PayPal.

However, if you own a merchant account and host your own eCommerce pages, you will need a SSL certificate to ensure that all information transferred between your customers and your servers is not hijacked along the way. The SSL certificate encrypts the information that your customers send you (ie. contact information, credit card numbers, etc) so that hackers cannot stop the information in mid-transmission and write it down.

Often times you can purchase and SSL certificate through your hosting company, however, in the event that your hosting company does not offer this service, here are some companies that do.

• VeriSign
• DigiCert
• Thawte
• GeoTrust

I don’t know if I’ve stated this before, but let me state it now, try not to use clipart on your website. Your website should be professional looking and having a cartoon man on your website (that is not your mascot or logo) is not very professional. There are a number of places on the Internet where you can get high quality website images that can be used on your website and in your marketing campaigns.

1. iStock Photos – offers high-resolution, royalty free images that can be purchases per photo or included in a yearly plan; pricing plans are very economical; they also offer a free image every week
2. Shutter Stock – offers high-resolution, royalty free images that can be purchased on-demand or in 1 and 3 month subscriptions; pricing plans are a bit expensive
3. Getty Images – offers high-resolution, royalty free images that can be purchased on a per photo basis; photos start at $5 per photo, which can get to be a bit pricey
4. FotoSearch – offers royalty free images; pricing is based on how you will use the images and how long; the images on this site are very pricey
5. Stocked Photos – offers royalty free images that can be purchased on a subscription basis; buying a subscription to this site also allows you to access several other websites that offer other products including website templates and CMS skins; subscription plans are very economical