Is it time for a business and website refresh?

Is it time for a business and website refresh?

Microsoft and ebay have updated their corporate logos as part of a suite of changes these organisations have made to update and refresh their market positioning. These changes came after much thought and consideration and were not decisions they made lightly. For Microsoft, the change came after keeping the same iconic logo in the global marketplace for 25 years, demonstrating that even a well established household identity may need to re-evaluate their market positioning relative to their competitors, and make changes as they see as appropriate.

If you have an existing online shop, or are an offline “bricks and mortar” business thinking about selling online, take this opportunity to evaluate your overall strategy, whether online is a part of your strategy that you should consider and what you want to get out of your online shop. Is it working as hard for you as it can? Is what you are paying the best fit for the way your business works? Does the store you are planning to start have the features you need? How will you differentiate yourself better from your competitors? These are many questions you need to ask.

Does your brand need a major or minor refresh?

There’s no point in having a logo for the sake of it. If you’re starting up on a tight budget and your business name is crystal clear about what you offer and what you stand for, you are sometimes better off starting up your business with just a stylised version of your business name and adding a professional logo later. You are sometimes better off not having a defined logo at all than having something that looks cheap and unprofessional. Built in clipart and the output of those free logo programs you can download off the Internet should be no-gos for your business. You could hurt your brand more than you help it otherwise.

If you already have a brand, the question about whether you need to implement a major refresh to your business brand online or just a minor one should be guided by your market position and strategy. If you are making a major change to your strategy or your customers are declining you may be more likely to consider a major refresh of your brand. If you are in a strong market position you might want to make a minor update to make your existing position more contemporary in the eyes of your customers.

Does your website design need an overhaul?

Don’t only think about how easy your store is for you to manage. You need to think about your customers and potential customers too. Competition online is hotting up, and overseas companies are increasingly selling to Australia and New Zealand to grow their global market share. You need the latest in software features to do this, and while integrations with backoffice features can be helpful, if you don’t differentiate your design you could be losing business.

There are just too many companies starting up with free website or free setup software, putting a built-in template on to the site ( or buying and installing one from one of the common template libraries ).

Most of these businesses do not have the time or focus to customise the colours and graphics of their design to be different from their competitors and to build a brand. If you do the same, and you’re selling the same products how are customers and search engines recognise you as different?

Amongst the things to ask yourself are:

  • Does your website encourage customers to add things to the cart? Is the “add to cart” button easy to find?
  • Does your website make it easy for customers to register and get to the end of the checkout process?
  • Does the design differentiate you from competitors? Can you find anyone else with the same design as you? Can you find anyone else with the same design as you in the same industry?
  • Does your checkout process allow customers to go through checkout without creating an account (important unless you are a wholesaler requiring signups only)?
  • Is the site easy to navigate?
  • Can customers find the products you want them to (featured products, specials)
  • Can customers log in to their customer area and track orders, view invoices and reorder their previous orders (important for things like stationery and printer cartridges that are periodically purchased)?
  • From a backoffice perspective can you control what information is collected by your sign up form?
  • Can you ask customers to agree to your business terms and conditions every time they check out?

Now is the time to evaluate your business identity relative to your competitors and target customers and make a decision about whether it’s time to refresh your own business identity.

Ozcart Ecommerce

Ozcart has been in business since 2006 and is an online, hosted shopping cart that you can use for your current or new online store. We offer so many features for the same low price. In fact, we are addicted to adding new ones to ensure that we remain one of the best choices for a shopping cart. https://ozcart.com

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