Here is a great example of a business using its traditional advertising to drive ecommerce sales.

A client of ours who didn't know alot about online advertising, established her ecommerce store by using advertising that she was familier with -- print.

She placed her store's web address in an advertisement in a national magazine that she advertised in from time to time.

Her ad was too small to tell about all her wonderful products. But with a few words and a URL in the ad, she soon generated phenomenal sales that easily paid for more advertising and her ecommerce presence for years to come.

She knew her business and she knew how to leverage the things she already was doing to get online traffic.

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We've talked a little about online advertising and keywords in the past. Our clients often ask many questions about those topics and we try to point them to the right tools and information.

But, one thing that othey don't ask about (and it often gets overlooked) is their business's traditional advertising and what they can do to drive online business.

You need to incorporate your online efforts into your TV, radio, and print ads. Always put your URL for your website or ecommerce store in your ads. It may be the one thing the customer remembers and can provide them with more information on your products.

Providing more and better ways for existing customers to do business with you is just as important as reaching new customers.

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As you probably are aware buying keywords is a good way to bring in online customers. But as you are also aware it may be expensive. Keep in mind that online advertising is not the only way to reach customers.

We still live in a world where people watch television, listen to radios, and .. (gasp) ... read newspapers and magazines! Yes, while the Internet sometimes seems like it is the center of our world, it really is still just a part of it. There actually are other ways to advertise.

What that means is don't give up on advertising you've used effectively in the past for your business. Broadcast and printed media track demographics and can target your advertisements to a particular audience just like Internet keywords can.

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We had a discussion with a QC client today that we've had in the past with other clients (and I'm sure we will have with new clients in the future.) He wanted to know if he should be buying keywords in search engines. And that's the million dollar question isn't it? (well it might not be a million dollars but it can easily be the thousands of dollars per month question!)

Buying keywords and thus advertising your site in search results can be done via
Keyword programs like Google's Adword . Keep in mind, Google is not your only option to keywords and advertising. Yahoo! and MSN have advertising programs as well.

While natural rankings from a well search engine optimized site may be sufficient to draw traffic and potential customers to your store. Its a constant battle to stay on or near the top of search results.

Buying keywords can be an easier solution but may require some deep pockets.

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Aggregator Sites are becoming increasingly popular and incorporating more than just a database of many store products. Price comparisons, classifieds, online auctions, customer reviews and wishlists are all being used to draw customers to an aggregator.

Here are some of the aggregator sites we've used:

• BizRate
• Nextag
• PriceGrabber
• Shopping.com
• Shopzilla

Let us know what shopping sites you've used and your experiences with aggregators.

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So how did we get on the subject of shopping aggregator sites anyhow? Well, our intention with this blog was always to be intermixed with what was going on with our QuadCommerce clients' stores and our ecommerce solution's development status.

A client had been asking us about Froogle . What was Froogle and how did it work? How did he get his store as part of Froogle.

We sat down and explained how it worked and he was interested in going further with it. Our programmers quickly cobbled together some code that allowed the QC ShopKeeper to generate Froogle product feeds that can easily be uploaded into the Google shopping search engine.

And that's the story of how QuadCommerce became "Froogle-enabled". Our team is currently listening to clients and researching other aggregator sites and their current interfaces for future implementation.

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To learn more about Froogle check out the Wikipedia definition.

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As more and more ecommerce stores proliferate across the Internet, who has time to shop through each one?

Too much information for customers to sift through.... that's where aggregator sites come in. Aggregator shopping sites list products and prices from many stores all on the same website. Customers can comparison shop, find the best deals for them, and then go to the store website and purchase.

The recent trend in the last year for aggregate shopping sites to be acquired by the Internet presences of Ebay, Yahoo, and Microsoft, highlight that these sites are only gaining in popularity.

While its not the only way, aggregate shopping sites may just help your products gain visibility in the online marketplace.

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One important consideration of using ecommerce for you business that comes up sometimes as an afterthought (that's not good!), is "how will we get our orders to our customers?" Translation: "how do we do shipping?"

Unless you have your own fleet of delivery trucks and established delivery routes, you will need to solve the shipping dilemma. After all, ecommerce is going to attact customers outside your local base and these customers probably won't be walking through your doors to pick up their orders.

The best place to start is with the commercial carriers like UPS, FedEx, USPS, and DHL. They offer many services from big to small that will most likely fit with your business.

Be sure to also check into your ecommerce solution's shipping capavilities. What carriers (if any) does it work with?

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While the commercial carriers provide a plethora of shipping tools to online stores, some times you may have to create your own shipping tool.

Could this really be true? In fact it is. We currently have several QC clients who use the custom shipping capability of QuadCommerce to tailor their order deliveries.

Common problems solved by custom shipping include allowing:

• the store owner to pick the best commercial carrier based on the order contents and destination when it comes time to ship.

• "free shipping" zones (example: free shipping within 100 miles of store location)

• different threshold calculations (weight, # of products, total dollar amount) of orders to be applied.

Your shipping method can be flexible with custom shipping and still be simple to implement.

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One goal of introducing ecommerce to your business is to grow your customer base.

You can achieve this by:

A) using ecommerce to reach beyond your local market
or
B) start a massive campaign to convince people to move and settle in your location and become new customers of yours.

( Hint: Option A is much easier to do.)

Assuming you chose 'A' as your answer then you will most likely have to ship your orders to your customers.

Check both into commercial carrier services and your ecommerce solution to see what works with each ... as well as with your business.

Questions to keep in mind:
1. will all orders be shipped with the same carrier?
2. can a custom shipping method be implemented?
3. what delivery time frames do I need to make (overnight, next day, ...)
4. is shipping taxable?
5. do I need to also incorporate another charge (example: handling fees)?

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