Ecommerce 2.0

Despite the fact that I have a site that always gets listed in the ecommerce category, I don’t really have much experience with selling physical goods online. I have however, talked and worked with some people that have. This sets me up as something less than an expert, but I can tell you the 5 core things I would do if I were to create an ecommerce site:

1. Build a great looking site. Nothing is less trustworthy to me than a bad looking site. And, make it stupidly simple to be able to buy products.
2. Distribute content with RSS. All new products you add to your site should go into an RSS feed so your customers know when something new comes out. Not to mention the fact that distributed content gives you more opportunities to gain visitors from more sources. This can be done either by creating an rss feed yourself or starting a blog - which costs next to nothing, or nothing.
3. Use SEO. Every page for every product should be unique, every page should use titles and descriptions, every page should use descriptive links… and on and on. It all starts with a search, if you want to succeed that search better end at your site.
4. Use Edgeio. Sure, it doesn’t have the biggest following, but if you’re pushing your products in RSS, there’s no reason not to add the simple “listing” tag and have your products show up in one more place.
5. Establish Community. If you have a product that has a following, give back to your followers. Let the community be visible in you site. Perhaps even let them dictate what goes on the homepage of your site.
Bonus - Don’t forget about ebay, people go there to buy, you should be there selling.

The bottom line: It’s about distribution, and taking advantage of the channels available on the web.

And I’m sure there are many other things, which you should feel free to leave in the comments.