Open For Business
- By Brandon Palmer
Surfers are no longer looking simply for images to gawk at and mpegs
to download. They want products. Today's online consumer is looking
to the Web for all of their sexual accessory needs, whether it be
dildos, nipple clamps, cocks rings, lingerie or the like. For an adult
content site to remain competitive in an increasingly saturated marketplace,
it needs to offer customers the convenience of one-stop shopping.
Opening a storefront is no easy task, even for the most experienced
webmasters. While e-commerce has certainly become more widely accepted,
surfers are still slightly wary about the security issues involved
in buying items online. They want assurances that your operation is
secure and reliable before they're willing to pull out their credit
cards.
There are many ways to build consumer confidence, but probably the
most effective is site presentation. "Design is everything," says
JT Smith, the Director of Marketing for DVD Empire. "If your store
is well designed and takes the entire shopping experience into account,
customers will feel at ease making purchases. If your store is poorly
designed, or is too flashy, consumers will be turned off. In a world
where any Joe with a computer can get a Web site up, serious webmasters
have to set themselves apart by taking pride in their craft and presenting
a product that is clean and easy to use."
According to the editors at Hosts4Porn.com, a community-based resource
site designed to help adult webmasters, "Seasoned online shoppers
will know what to expect from an e-commerce site, and meeting those
expectations is a good way to gain their confidence. Novice surfers
will probably be more comfortable if your online store closely resembles
the major e-commerce interfaces they might have previously encountered."
In other words, if your storefront closely resembles something they've
seen or used before, they're more likely to choose your site over
the competition. Something as simple as a "shopping cart" checkout
button can make customers feel more at ease, if only because it's
a familiar e-commerce image.
But just because your store looks secure doesn't mean that it is.
It's your responsibility to protect your customers and establish a
dependable and trustworthy transaction processing system. Your first
step is to open a Merchant Account, which is basically a banking system
that allows you to accept credit cards. You'll also need to create
an order form, which should present all of your products, prices and
options (sizes, colors, etc.), as well as automatically subtotaling
the order, adding shipping and handling costs, and calculating sales
tax. A working knowledge of HTML coding won't help you here, and you
will probably need to purchase software specifically designed for
this function.
But, collecting credit card information is only the beginning. Then,
there's processing their order, and the transfer of funds from one
account into another. None of this is possible without a secure protocol
for Web communications, otherwise known as Secure Sockets Layer or
SSL. If it all starts to sound like rocket science after awhile, you're
not alone. But operating a profitable storefront does not necessarily
require an encyclopedic knowledge of e-commerce. Like many webmasters,
you may choose to outsource much of your business to a Web-hosting
company.
Part Two:
Put It All Together!
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