eCommerce

Integrated Shopping Experience

CU Local Biz.com offers the Champaign Urbana community a PCI compliiant e-commerce solution, so you can begin selling your goods or services online. The web has become the go to place to find deals on all types of goods and services. In the past five years, consumers have grown more and more accustomed to pruchasing everything from books to drapes online. An online store doesn’t have the overhead of a brick and mortar establishment.

An e-commerce solution has a number of factors to consider:

Type of merchandise to sell.
Will the product come in different colors, sizes, or have other consumer selected attributes?
Does the merchandise require flat rate or weight based shipping?
Will the product be sold overseas?
Will you offer discounts?

Overhead costs of running a webstore come in at very little each month, compared to leasing or buying a building, hiring staff, etc. However, there’s still overhead and each business should consider how much product they need to sell in order to cover costs and make the business sing.

Many online stores need a regular influx of traffic to keep sales at an even pace. The traffic can come through online advertising, search engine optimization efforts, content building, link exchanges, email campaigns, or social media. The business owner should be prepared to handle these activities in order to garner traffic and the benefits of regular visitors.

We offer consulting on many of the aforementioned traffic sources, including social media, SEO and advertising. The online world doesn’t have to be a large and frightening place for a small business owner. In fact, it’s exciting in that fortunes are made everyday by people like you and me.

Deciding to sell online should be considered just as opening a new location. It will take time, effort, and resources to accomplish, but with the right mix of passion and industry the results can be magnificent.