Mary Gillen, Co-Developer of Idea Site for
Business, has
over 20 years experience in freelance commercial
copywriting, graphics design, web design and creative marketing concepts.
Idea Site for Business was featured in Microsoft Corporation's TV series "America At Work: A Roadmap To The Internet", and highlighted in such publications as The LA Times, PC Novice Magazine and many others.
Mary has developed Web sites for such organizations as The World Bank, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Cancer Research Foundation of America, Allergy Supply Company and many others.
She also teaches Web development courses for EEI Communications (http://www.
eeicom.com) in Alexandria, VA and other organizations that include HTML, DHTML, JavaScript, CGI Scripting, XML, NetObjects Fusion, Web Graphics, Photoshop and Cold Fusion.
Mary can be reached by phone at 703-339-7400
or by e-mail at mpgillen
@mindspring.com
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The E-business Planner:
Questions That Can Help You Plan Your E-business
by Mary Gillen
Co-Developer, Idea Site for Business
E-business. It's not just e-commerce, the process of selling products or services through the Web. E-business is a whole new way of conducting business. Through e-business, you can make the most of the Internet to grow and expand for the future.
E-business is a great opportunity for small businesses. Compared to large organizations, small businesses can adapt quickly to the continual changes - centered on customer needs - that are necessary to make an e-business grow. This alone can add incredible value to your business relationships and give you serious advantage over your competition.
Yet there are things to consider before starting an e-business or transforming a traditional small business to e-business. Here are 100 of the most frequently asked questions to consider when planning an e-business. Once you've completed the questionnaire, you can create what is called a Functional Requirements Document that you can use in the development of your e-business site and support functions.
1) Is everyone in your organization ready to commit to the e-business process? This means all individuals involved in sales, management, technology and support. List the names of the individuals who will have to manage the change that e-business generates.
2) Why are you creating this e-business? Abigail Rudner of Big Fun Designs www.rudner.com in San Francisco suggests that e-business prospects consider the following reasons when they plan their sites. These can include:
- Promoting a product
- Promoting a service
- Selling products
- Selling services
- Selling advertising space
- Raising money/donations
- Informing customers about your company
- Enhancing your company image
- Changing your company image
- Creating a community
- Receiving feedback from customers
- Posting calendars or schedules for your employees or sales force
- Showing off your portfolio
- Posting resumes
- Teaching others a skill
- Distributing internal information to employees
- Posting job opportunities
- Providing product support
- Posting FAQs about a product or service
- Entertaining others
- Publishing research on a subject
- Receiving e-mail from customers and prospects
- Supporting an existing print magazine or book
- Supporting an organization, store, TV show, radio show, etc.
- Providing shareware or product demos
- Providing unique research on a topic
- Getting a web site since all my competitors have sites
- Making contacts via the Internet
Write down all the reasons you're creating this e-business.
3) If you are planning to sell products, what is your product line? List all the products by name.
4) If you are selling services, list all the services that you offer. Which services are requested most by your current customers?
5) If you are selling services, which services can be transformed into "products" such as reports, books, CD-ROMS and training courseware? Is your competition doing this? If so, how can you improve on what they are doing?
6) Why makes your products "stand out" in the offline marketplace? List the reasons in detail.
7) If you sell services, what makes your company unique in the offline marketplace? List the reasons in detail.
8) What specific niches of customers do you currently serve? List them.
9) Does your small business have different types of customers? Private sector vs. government? Individuals vs. organizations? Or do you serve them all?
10) Are your current customers and prospects already educated about your products and services? What percentage are well versed in your product/service offerings and what percentage are not?
11) Do you usually have to "hand hold" your prospects and customers through each sale? If you do, what are the questions that get asked the most during the sales process?
12) Are your current customers and prospects also committed to using the Internet to do business? If not, are you willing to show them how? Does this open up the possibility of new business for you?
13) How often do your customers buy from you? Every day? Once a week? Once a quarter? Once a year? Once in a while if you remind them?
14) How often would you really like your customers to buy from you?
15) Can you sell the same products or services to all your customer types or will you have to offer different packages of products or services? Be specific.
16) Are you planning to offer your e-business products and services through the Web for local, regional, national or international customers? Be specific about this customer mix.
17) If you are planning on selling internationally, can your products and/or services be sold to anyone around the world at this moment? Will you have to adjust the product or service to accommodate prospects who speak different languages? Or is this really necessary?
18) Do you currently have different price structures for your customer types? If so, what are these price structures?
19) How do your customers currently pay for the products and services that your sell? Check? Credit card? Purchase order? Debit card? Credit Accounts? List all.
20) Do you offer sales to reduce inventory during certain times of the year? If so, list the schedule.
21) What ordering information do your customers require on the invoices that you send them? Item Number? Purchase Order Number? Shipping number? List all that apply to each customer group.
22) Why do your customers buy from you now? Price? Service? Convenience? Selection? Fast delivery? State the most important reason.
23) How will your current customers feel about your e-business transformation? Will they welcome it? Hate it? Be slow to change?
24) Do you already have a Web site for your business?
25) How much business has your current Web site generated in the last year?
26) What are the positive aspects of your current Web site?
27) What are the not-so positive features of your current Web site?
28) How often is your site updated now?
29) Is it possible for you to update your Web site every day?
30) If not, how often do you honestly have time to update the site?
31) An e-business generates a lot of e-mail. Do you have time to handle it on your own?
32) Do you need to travel for business? If so, will you be able to handle an e-business from the road via a laptop and Internet access?
33) Do you always maintain an inventory so that your products ship immediately?
34) What kind of delivery schedule is currently acceptable to your customers?
35) Does your product line include items that can be downloaded through the Internet? If so, list these products.
36) How often to you add new products and services to your offerings?
37) Do you ever offer discount coupons to your customer type groups? If so, list the coupon offers and why they're used.
38) If you do offer coupons, will your customers want to apply these coupons to their online purchases?
39) Do you currently suggest add-on products or services every time a customer buys? If so, at what point in the sales process does this occur?
40) Do you offer discounts for timely payment? If so, list the terms below.
41) If you don't have a product in stock, would your customer types be open to buying a different product or service?
42) Do you currently offer a print catalog of your products to your customers? If so, how often is the catalog updated?
43) Are your products currently divided into categories and subcategories? If so, list these.
44) What keywords would your customers use to refer to your products and services?
45) On your current Web site, do you currently have a search function that enables users to search for product and/or service?
46) Would your site visitors use a search function to find what they need or would they need to be able to pick a product or service from a pre-designed menu?
47) Do you fill many custom orders? If so, would it be important to your customers to be able to "mix and match" products and services if they were ordering from you online?
48) During your current sales process, do you provide your prospects with comparison information to speed up the sales cycle? If so, how do you deliver this information? Charts and graphs? Product or service reviews? Be specific.
49) On your existing site, do you provide a section of frequently asked questions and answers that customers and prospects can review?
50) Who in your organization currently uses the Internet to communicate with customers? As your e-business grows, are you willing to train everyone you hire to do the same thing?
51) Who in your organization besides you is able to answer specific product and service questions via email if you are not there?
52) Do you plan to let customers buy more than one item at a time? If so, are you prepared to implement the technology necessary to add a shopping cart to your site?
53) In your estimate, what's the number of individual products or services ordered per sale by the different customer types determined earlier?
54) Do your customers typically reorder the same products and services?
55) How important would it be to your customers if they could revisit your site and review their order history so it would be easy for them to order again?
56) How important is it that tax and shipping be added to the orders of each customer type group?
57) Are all the products and services you offer taxable? List all taxable and non-taxable products and services.
58) Does your business currently have a merchant account to accept credit cards?
59) How do you currently authorize credit card payments? Do you manually process each transaction or do you have an automated system established? Can this automated system be integrated to your Web site?
60) How will you handle credit card encryption/security on your e-business site?
61) What shipping companies do you currently do business with?
62) Do you need to establish accounts with additional shipping companies in order to ship worldwide?
63) How will customers know if their products are back ordered? Who notifies the customer about the back order? How is the notification sent to the customer: mail, email, telephone, fax? How important would it be for the customer to be notified during the online purchasing process that a item is out of stock?
64) Currently, how much time does it take for a customer order to be processed? Immediately? By the end of the day? within 24 hours?
65) What is your company's established "cutoff" time for next-day delivery?
66) How important would it be for your customers to be able to check the status of their order online?
67) Would you customers be willing to pay for online technical support or access to a special site section that holds value-added content that pertains to their business?
68) If they would pay for such a service, what would be the fee(s) that you would charge?
69) If you decide to sell internationally, is important that you offer purchasing using multiple currencies?
70) What types of company policies and disclaimers do you share with customers when they conduct business with you?
71) What are your company's terms and conditions when conducting business with customers?
72) Do you have an established return policy?
73) What customer satisfaction guarantees does your company offer customers when they purchase? Be specific.
74) What are the specific actions customers have to take in order to return products purchased from your company?
75) Are there locations locally, regionally, nationally and internationally where you cannot sell your products and services due to legal issues?
76) What do you do with the order information that's generated by your Web site?
77) Will it be important that online order reports be generated automatically?
78) What information do you want your online sales reports to supply? Be specific.
79) How do visitors find your Web site now?
80) What customer information will be important to collect during the purchasing process on your site?
81) Are you prepared to offer a free product or service in exchange for customer demographic info? If so, what would these incentives be? Be specific.
82) How do you currently collect customer information? Is this stored electronically or is it processed manually?
83) How will prospects and customers know that your products and services are now available for purchase online?
84) Do you know how to register your e-business site the major search engines, portals and vortals?
85) Will you offer online advertising on your site?
86) If you do offer online advertising, who in your organization will manage the process?
87) Do you plan on buying banner ads and other advertising on other Web sites to promote your own?
88) If so, who will manage the advertising purchasing process?
89) Will you use direct mail and other offline marketing to target prospects? If so, name the exact methods you'll use.
90) Will you promote your e-business through Internet mailing list and newsgroups? If so, who will perform this work?
91) Do you plan to include your e-business URL in all marketing and promotional materials? How about fax sheets, invoices, signage, voice mail messages, shipping notices? Be specific.
92) Do you plan to use content to help sell your product? If so, how will this content be tied to your products and services?
93) Is it important for your e-business site to be technically "dynamic" from the start? What e-business development software or third-party services are on the market that can help you create and manage an interactive e-business site?
94) How do you plan to thank your customers for purchasing online? List the ways.
95) How do you plan to follow up with customers who purchase from your company online? List the ways.
96) How often to you think you should contact customers after the sale? Every two weeks? Once a month? One a quarter? For special sales only? When new products are released? What timeframe do you think would be acceptable to your customers?
97) What purchasing options can you provide to prospects who are wary of purchasing online due to perceived security issues? Fax order form? PDF order form? Toll-free number? List the ways.
98) What are the most frequent complaints that you receive from customers about your business?
99) In what ways can you improve customer service through your e-business site?
100) Do you plan to host your e-business site in-house or is it better for your company to outsource it? List the pros and cons of each option.
SPECIAL OFFER TO IDEA SITE VISITORS: Want a copy of this E-business planner in PDF format? Complete this request form and the file will be e-mailed to you. You must have Adobe Acrobat Reader to read and print the file.
© Copyright 2000 Mary Gillen. All rights reserved.
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