Ecommerce has become a very real source of revenue for thousands of people out there. Though there are the huge vendors such as Amazon and eBay, there are a lot of smaller sites that are operated by a smaller crew of people and often focus on only a particular category of products. If you are running on such site, or are even involved in one, then an Ecommerce Theme can go a long way in helping you achieve that monthly or yearly sales target.
Your Ecommerce site is basically an online store. If you owned an actual store, chances are, you’d spend thousands of dollars working on the interior and the overall look of a store. That’s because it’s an accepted fact that the environment someone is buying something in goes a long way in influencing the buying decision. So why should an online store be any different? If your website is cluttered, doesn’t have a uniform look, and is tacky, then your customers will be put off and will go elsewhere with their business.
However, do not despair. There are thousands of free Ecommerce templates that you can apply to your site, thus resulting in a polished look. These free Ecommerce themes can be a life saver if you have no knowledge of web programming, as they are usually easy to install and use. You can find these easily with a quick Google search.
However, if you’re serious about your electronic business, then you probably want a theme that is so polished that it gets your customers coming back. In this case, it makes sense to spend a little money on a theme designed by experts. Several sites online have professionally designed themes that are available at very reasonable prices.
Generally, most Ecommerce websites are not written by a programmer from scratch. They are based on one of many available engines, such as Magento or OSCommerce. Both are great platforms with their own set of benefits. You need to ask the web developer who helped design your site about which engine he based your site on. Once that’s done, you can head down to the site of your choice and choose the relevant section. You’ll be provided with a wide variety of themes, and can choose any you feel suits your site.
Some quick pointers on picking a theme; make sure it is compatible with your website. Broken links and unwieldy borders can look really bad, and are usually the result of an incompatible theme. Keep it simple, light colours usually work best. Avoid flashing banners, flash ads, and so on. Don’t pick a theme with too many colours too. They can make your site look cluttered.
Once you’ve chosen a theme and paid for it, installation is a breeze. It’s important to pick a theme that works well with your site you like, and using platforms such as Magento and OSCommerce, this becomes a task you can accomplish with little effort. So, it’s now a simple procedure to convert your site from its present state to something that’s as polished as all the big names out there today.
Ever wonder why the World Wide Web is still a growing industry despite the recent downfall in the economy? That why on earth many are still earning over the Web despite the obvious Recession? I mean, even major worldwide companies had to close down because of it.
Well, it’s obvious that business over the internet are booming and still growing by the minute. So what’s the rave all about? It’s called eCommerce.
You might have heard about eCommerce once in awhile, but have you even considered it? Before anything else, let’s first know a little more about eCommerce. eCommerce is technically business ran through the use of the Internet. Generally speaking, the use of the internet ain’t the only technology that brings eCommerce to life, but it is undeniably part of the whole process.
To make things clearer, eCommerce can be better understood as the buying and selling of different products and services with the use of the Internet and other forms of technology. In short, internet is its center for transaction.
How does it work? eCommerce can consists of the following:
• Internet Marketing- consists of product over-all packaging and marketing it all over the Internet, where you can target consumers and potential consumers
• Online Transaction Processing- it is when consumers put bids or orders for your product
• Electronic Data Interchange- when the order has been made, information’s are exchanged between the buyer and the provider such as personal information & credit card number.
• Electronic Funds Transfer- the mode of payment that has been agreed upon by both parties
There are other factors that contribute to the whole process of eCommerce like the actual shipment, and Inventory’s on the part of the Providers. As mentioned, there are other forms of technology that aids in making eCommerce possible, like the use of credit cards, ATM’s, & Telephone Banking.
eCommerce success can be attributed to the growing trend of the widely used Internet service. We are indeed undeniably living in a world where everything is run by the World Wide Web- where everything is literally just one click away.
But there is still the unquestionable hesitation looming in the air. We can’t blame people from shying away from this trend. The Internet- is and still will be- an unsecured world. There is always the question of security when it comes to the World Wide Web- it is still considered an Imperfect Technology after all.
The non-stop problems arising from identity theft is only but one problem that raises concern among consumers. When it comes to eCommerce, it’s no question that in order to make the transaction possible, certain personal information are needed to be divulged for it to be successful. And that, in itself is a problem. There is no assurance that your information would stay confidential. Today, in a world where almost everything is virtual, even criminals are adapting to the change.
But despite the haters, eCommerce is indisputably a successful venture for businesses, and is still a growing industry today and in the years to come.
Web 3.0 describes the next evolution of the World Wide Web. The term “Web 3.0″ has been floating around for quite a while now, but what does it exactly mean? The true definition of Web 3.0 has been unclear ever since it has been created. When trying to get a hold of the concept it is important to keep in mind that Web 3.0 is rather a buzzword and doesn’t clearly define anything.
The semantic web
The term Web 3.0 is very often mentioned together with “the semantic web”. Some people refer to the semantic web as an equal to Web 3.0, others consider the semantic web part of Web 3.0. What does “the semantic web” mean though?
A clever example in an attempt to make sense of the semantic web has been made by Peter Berkel. Take the words Paris Hilton; is there actually anybody who’s thinking of the Hilton Hotel in Paris? The meaning (semantics) of these two words can be interpreted in multiple ways.
In order to understand semantics on the web we also need to look at the syntax. If we use the sentence “Mike loves Kate”, the syntax refers to the composition and structure of the sentence. The semantics indicate that Mike really likes Kate. If we change “loves” into a heart symbol, the syntax will change but the semantics will stay the same.
In the example of Paris Hilton we see a reversed situation, in which there are multiple semantics but only one syntax.
In the communication between computers on the net, the syntax has an important role. When you request a website to show up in your browser, you’re actually doing a request to a web server. This server looks up your request and returns this in HTML format. Your browser reads the HTML syntax and translates this into a designed page. The meaning of what’s on this page will stay unknown to the computer.
The same thing happens when we search for information on the internet. A search engine searches through billions of pages to find the keywords that you requested. It will then show you a list of pages that include the keywords you were looking for. The search engine knows which keywords are in these pages, but the real content of the pages remains unknown. This could be compared to learning a parrot a couple words, which it will replicate without knowing the actual meaning of the words.
Using this analogy, the current web can be considered as a “web of documents”. These documents are all linked to each other in one way or another, but for web applications the content of these documents is undefined. The content however is what’s of interest to us. These documents are about people, history, companies, countries, etc. Right now we’re not talking about documents anymore, but about “entities” that are inside of these documents. The goal of the semantic web is to let computers understand the entities within these documents.
So the semantic web gives meaning to entities in web pages and relationships between those entities. In contrast to the current web, this would be a web of entities.
The benefits of the semantic web
So now we got to a better understanding of the semantic web, how can we benefit from this? Take the example of Paris Hilton. If a search engine would understand that I’m trying to find a Hilton Hotel in Paris, all results about the celebrity Paris Hilton could be excluded. This brings us to better, more accurate and faster results. This is still a plain and basic example. A next step would be an application that understands Hilton is a hotel in Paris, which can offer me more services. If you are searching for a Hilton Hotel in Paris, a Hilton Hotel could be found, while a flight to Paris could be booked together with a restaurant to eat at. This makes the results on your request a lot more valuable.
Maybe this sounds pretty familiar; when you book a flight you’ll be asked if you want to rent a car as well. This question however has been realized through a cooperation of multiple web applications. In the semantic web no cooperations or agreements have to be made since all information is universally available.
The semantic web will have a huge scale availability of information. Roughly, there are two different approaches that will lead to a semantic web: the bottom-up and the top-down approach.
The bottom-up approach implies adding information to all existing documents on the internet and making them understandable for web applications. This ‘information’ describes the entities in a webpage and all their relations. This can be done through RDF or Microformats.
Supporters of the top-down approach consider the bottom-up approach very unpractical. They don’t believe in a fully annotated internet. The top-down approach supports the development of applications that are able to have a better understanding of the data in documents. Think of tracking back the meaning of entities out of the context of a page, but mainly applications that can understand natural/logical language. Hakia (hakia.com) and (powerset.com) are Search Engines that do an attempt on understanding English in the way humans understand it.
Whatever approach will be used, the web will be more meaningful and more valuable. All entities will gather a cloud of attributes and relations. A danger would be an information overload. Ideally we only want to absorb information that raises our interest. The need of ‘personally tailored information’ will keep on getting more important.
Personal preferences
Personal preferences could be left under the control of the user. The APML (Attention Profile Markup Language) workgroup has been working towards this concept. Your profile in APML can be seen as a file with your personal preferences. Web applications are able to read this file which results in your information being filtered to your own interest.
An even bigger amount of profile information will be outside of the users’ control. At this very moment, organizations such as Google, Amazon and Yahoo are registering the clicking behavior of its visitors. In a semantic web this information will become way richer. A lot more is known about the people that visit their websites. Next to that, the web is becoming more pervasive. We are in contact with the internet all the time and will do so more and more; in our browser, our cell phone, our car, home devices, etc. Web applications will be able to register information everywhere. Profiles will be built full with information about yourself, without you noticing it.
Within this new relationship between the Web and its users, marketers will have to ‘slip into someone else’s conversation’. Brands will have to be relevant to the user’s situation, setting and desires. When the semantic web is realized and successful, it will create a huge load of information exchange between organizations and individuals, producing a new level of findability and knowledge sharing.
