The Language Lesson of Ecommerce Continues

by Tam Nguyen

Ecommerce
A methodology use for executing business, either wholly or partially over the internet or a network. It goes without saying that ecommerce is the business practice of the future. The massive and complete adoption of the Internet has caused a paradigm shift in the way businesses are conducted today. I strongly believe that if you do not have a web presence than you might as well hand your money over to your competitors now.

FTP
File Transfer Protocol. A globally used protocol for uploading or downloading files over the Internet. Webmasters often use FTP to upload web pages to their web hosting server.

Firewall
A system configured to control access to or from a network. Firewalls can be implemented in both hardware and software or a combination of both. A firewall examines each network packet to determine whether to forward it towards its destination. If you are anything like me, I recommend that you find yourself a knowledgeable IT technician or webmaster because security of your information and your customer's information should be your number one priority when working over the internet.

Fulfillment
Completing the processing of an order including picking, packing and shipping of goods. If you need help in this area of ecommerce, you can outsource this service to fulfillment houses. They will handle all the storage and warehousing, inventory control, along with picking and packing services, and ultimately do the shipping and customer servicing. I recommend that you do the research and see what works best with your budget.

Gateway or Payment Gateway
A business or software that enables ecommerce systems to communicate with a merchant's Merchant Account Provider to enable online credit card processing. I've mentioned them before, but let me reiterate, I highly recommend using Authorize.net as your payment gateway.

Inventory
The quantity of good and materials on hand waiting to be sold. I can't begin to stress to you how vital it is to stay on top of your inventory count. There's nothing that displeases a customer/client more than not knowing when they might get their order. Along these same lines, it is important that you maintain a strong line of communication with your vendors, in order to effectively interact with your clients and customers on their order status.

Invoice
A detailed list of goods shipped with a detailed account of all costs including product prices, shipping cost, and sales tax.

IP Address
An identifier for a computer on the Internet. The format of IP address is a 32-bit address written as four numbers separated by periods. Each number can be zero to 255. For example, 100.162.105.3 could be an IP address. A web hosting server may have one or many IP addresses.

Order Confirmation
An email to a customer confirming the placement of an order

Order Management System
Software that enables online merchants to process, tracks, and organizes orders. Here at BadenBall, we like to use the StoneEdge system for this purpose. Excuse me while I shamelessly plug this company: "Streamline and automate your process and managing orders, customers, inventory, shipping, drop-shipping, credit card transactions, and more! Manage multiple shopping carts in one shared system and retain the branding of each individual store."

Packing Slip
A document usually included with a package that displays the contents of the package. A packing slip does not include financial or account information.

Pay Per Click Marketing
A form of contextual or keyword advertising by which the marketer pays an organization every time his advertisement is clicked. Google Adwords is the one example of PPC advertising.

Privacy Policy
A document that explains a merchant's policy regarding customer's information. Please make sure you have a page dedicated to this policy, as it vastly important that the customer feels safe shopping at your web store.

Purchase Order
A commercial document used to request someone to supply goods or services in return for payment and providing specifications and quantities. A purchase order usually has an associated purchase order number used to identify the purchase order. It is always a good thing to offer your customer or clients as many forms of payment as possible.

Return Policy
A document that explains a merchant's policy regarding the return of products by customers. We like to include both a return policy document and packing slip in every out going package. Also, you work with your vendor to make sure that your return policy makes sense to both you and your customer. If you don't have a warranty with your vendor, than I would not turn around and offer guarantees of this nature to your customer. Offering great customer service is significant, but be careful that you are not breaking into all of your profit margin to do so.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
The process of increasing web site rankings in the search engine results pages (SERP). SEO includes modifying on page factors (content) and off page factors such as linking strategies. The higher a Web site ranks in the results of a search, the greater the chance that users will visit the site. It is common practice for Internet users to not click past the first few pages of search results, therefore high rank in SERPs is essential for obtaining traffic for a site.

Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
A protocol used to transmit documents over the internet in an encrypted format. SSL connections will the use the https protocol where as typical web pages are transmitted via an http protocol. For example, our SSL is https://www.badenball.com.

Shipping Carrier
A company used to transport packages. Common carriers include UPS, FedEx, DHL, and USPS.

Shopping Cart
A specific area of an online store that displays the current contents of an order in process.

Shopping Cart Software
Software used to display an online catalog and capture order information. We have enjoyed the services of 3dcart as our shopping cart software. Again, do your research and find out what software best fits your needs. Some software is more customizable than others, some are perfect those just starting out and is user friendly, and others are more robust if you have a ton of inventory and content. Shop around and see what's best for you.

Stock-keeping Unit (SKU)
A unique identifier of a product. The SKU is used to track inventory and may or may not be show to customers when shopping online. Common practice is to use the SKU provided by the vendor, however if you find the SKU to be confusing and un-memorable, there's no harm in creating your own company SKU for the product.

Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
An address of a file located on the internet. A URL is composed of three parts 1) A protocol 2) A domain name and 3) a file name. Otherwise known as a web address or website: www.badenball.com.

Web Analytics
The study of user activity on a web site or web application to understand how well it fulfills its objectives. I've said it before, but I will say it again"¦it's in your best interest to install an analytics program on your site.

Web Host
A business that provides web hosting services. Here is a top ten list of elements when looking for a good web hosting company:

1. Customer Support
2. The Data Center
3. Upstream Providers
4. Site Monitoring
5. Redundancy
6. Backups
7. Shopping Cart Knowledge
8. Relationships
9. Growth Perspective
10. Cost

Webmaster
An individual that creates or manages a website. Any good ecommerce site needs a dedicated webmaster, whether it is the owner of the company or employee. You need someone to constantly maintain inventory count, update prices, product inquiry, and handle whatever task that might come up.


That's all I got folks. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or else email me at tam@firegiants.com.