Online Marketing Help: plans

Q: It has been about a year since our website was established. It seemed to work well at first; not so well recently. Is SCORE Hagerstown able to offer us any help with this concern?

A: The Jan. 21 SCORE Business Roundtable could be just right for you.

Liesl Groman Lukacs, owner/operator of Vine Buzz LLC and a SCORE Hagerstown chapter member, will present “Small Business Websites and Social Media — Getting Your Website Up Quickly and Keeping It Running Effectively.”

The event is from noon to 1:30 p.m. at Hoffman’s All American Grill at 18203 Mason Dixon Road near Hagerstown. There will be an opportunity to meet other area business owners and to participate in a question-and-answer session.

The event is free, and no registration is required. For information, call 301-991-3126.

Blogs, tweets and other types of social media might be the hottest tools for reaching customers today, but the website remains the centerpiece of every small business’ online marketing strategy.

Not only do many of today’s customers expect businesses to have websites, they have certain expectations about what those sites provide. The sites should be well-designed, informative, easy to navigate and highly functional.

The website should also convey a sense of trust and reliability about the business, providing visitors with a positive impression that you are someone with whom they want to do business.

Otherwise, they simply surf over to someplace else.

One of the most common errors small businesses make with their websites is neglecting them. Outdated or incomplete information might leave some visitors wondering if you’re still in business.

If your products, services, prices, location, hours, contact information and marketing messages change, make the updates immediately.

Regularly review the site from a customer’s perspective to see if your content needs “freshening up,” if there are new issues you should be addressing or if there are new links that might be of interest to visitors.

Don’t simply assume that your website is performing as you hope. Simple and inexpensive Web analytics will identify from where visitors are coming (search engines, links on other sites, etc.), what pages they visit and where they go next.

Google Analytics is one of the most widely used tools — and it is free. Other options to consider include yahoo.com’s web analytics, piwik.org, webtrends.com and sitecatalyst.com.

The National SCORE organization provides online workshops and seminars on website basics and website design aids at www.score.org/onlineworkshops/websites.

SCORE Hagerstown provides free and confidential small-business mentoring for those thinking of going into their own business, as well as for existing businesses. Visit www.score.org or call 301-991-3126.

Robert A. “Bob” Poor is a local small-business owner/operator. He is a small-business mentor and a regular contributor to the Ask SCORE column. Questions may be emailed to him at r.poor@myactv.net or sent by mail in care of The Herald-Mail, P.O. Box 439, Hagers-town, MD 21741, ATTN: Ask SCORE column.

Websites remain centerpiece of small-business marketing plans

The vendor’s MarketplaceAdvisor Standard mainly served merchants who only sell on eBay.

Online marketplaces are like stocks, which means retailers should diversify the channels they sell on, says Scot Wingo, CEO of ChannelAdvisor Corp., which helps retailers sell via web marketplaces like those operated by eBay Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.

“Today eBay is lagging and Amazon is doing well,” he says. “But chances are that won’t last, so you need to broaden your portfolio to reduce your risk.”

The vendor has adopted that approach over the last few years, which is why it plans to eliminate one of its older products, MarketplaceAdvisor Standard, which was mainly used by merchants who only sell on eBay.

ChannelAdvisor acquired MarketplaceAdvisor Standard, then known as Marketworks, in 2007. Even at the time of the acquisition, Wingo emphasized the difference between the two companies—Marketworks’ business was primarily serving eBay sellers, while ChannelAdvisor focused on helping larger retailers sell across a number of channels. Roughly eight years later, ChannelAdvisor decided it no longer made sense to support sellers who just focus on eBay, says a ChannelAdvisor spokesman. “This single-channel solution is no longer a fit for our platform,” he says.

The move comes amid growing evidence that eBay consistently is trailing the growth rate in online retailing.

ChannelAdvisor Corp. last week reported that e-commerce sales for its clients via eBay’s marketplace grew 7.3% in March, up from February’s 5.1% growth rate. That growth was far below Amazon’s 24.6% growth rate for ChannelAdvisor clients selling on the Amazon Marketplace, which jumped from 22.7% in February. EBay’s growth rate was also just over half of e-commerce’s roughly 15% growth rate during the past year. And another report, by Robert W. Baird and Co., found that eBay’s marketplace sales grew 2% to 3% in March, slightly below its February growth levels.

ChannelAdvisor says that as of July 15, eBay sellers will be unable to list items via MarketplaceAdvisor and that it plans to disable storefronts on Aug. 17. It will shutter all access to data on Sept. 14.

ChannelAdvisor plans to discontinue an eBay management tool