If you're running a small business then you may not have the time or budget to set up and run focus group research to determine trends and feedback about the products in your industry. So how can you find out what your customers want?

Engaging customers through the content features of your website, and through social media are two relatively cheap alternatives to in-depth focus group customer research that can give you useful insights into what your customers want, and have the positive side effect of building engagement and loyalty to your brand.

Many products are often sold together (e.g. ski boots and ski gloves, dresses and jewellery, software and training, golf clubs and golf tees). Cross selling is a marketing technique to take advantage of this fact, whereby a complementary product is displayed to a customer when they view another similar product ("You might also like...", "People who purchased this product also bought...").

It's an effective way of encouraging complementary products to be sold together, which can improve the amount of items in a single cart and therefore the average purchase value of a cart. Customers get items that they didn't realise they wanted, you don't have to create a huge number of product bundles, and you can encourage sales throughput in your store.

What's the difference between selling offline and online? There are a number of mindset changes that are required when selling online due to the key differences in the selling environment.

Online is another source of potential sales for your business, but if you want it to be successful, you need to treat it as more than just another sales channel. There are new opportunities in the online space that you cannot tap into using other sales methods.

If you have new stock coming in a particular category, or overstocks of a particular line, one way of selling it off is to put those items on a sale. You might want to incentivise customers with a 2 for 1 special or category sale of 20% off. But what about a multi category special? For example, you could offer a special buy any two shirts or pants for $30.

Yes, you can. Setting up a "buy x items from categories A, B or C" type promotion is part of Ozcart's powerful and flexible promotional rules editor.

Your online shop is all about attracting visitors, keeping them on the site when they arrive, enticing and appealing to their interest to get them to read about your products and then add them to the cart. 

What ways can you can showcase your products to the world?

As a business grows, so does its needs. If you're getting a business online, there will be some things you will need no-matter-what and other things that will only be useful to your business depending on its maturity, marketing objectives and size. The best shopping cart software can deliver on both of these factors.

The things your shop will need regardless of its size and maturity include a design that reflects your brand and differentiates your store from competitors, and an easy-to-navigate, professional website. Other things you need may depend on the stage of business you are at. When you're looking for shopping cart software, the questions you need to ask are "does this software meet my needs now?" and "does this software have the potential to support my business as it grows?"

As with anything in business, reviewing your success against your objectives is something that will help you track your progress and plan for the future. If you already have an online store, this is a valuable exercise for your website too - even if you are happy with your store and it is making you money.

The main questions to ask are whether you taking advantage of the potential of your current store and whether your store has what it takes to help you grow your revenue to meet your future business objectives.

If you want to succeed online you need to differentiate your business and website. Anything short of this and you could be the next Humpty Dumpty. Competition is rapidly increasing online as many offline businesses realise that the only way they will compete in the long run is to offer online options as well as their traditional offline offerings.

In a rush to get a website presence established quickly, many people buy easy to set up, ready-in-minutes web software that comes with no setup and built-in templates. They may look good to you, but how many other people have exactly the same design as you? The bigger the company you buy from the more the number of businesses (possibly your direct competitors) already have that design and are trading with it. If you have the same design, your business is seen as a "me too".

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.

If you're a wholesaler selling B2B to retail outlets via your website, one price may not fit all. Some of your customers could be VIP purchasers and attract better prices on certain products in your range, you might want to offer quantity discounts for wholesale purchases, or you might want to run promotions just to particular wholesale customers. 

By segmenting your wholesale customers into smaller sub-groups you can reflect the diversity of the customers you sell to and come up with more targeted promotions to grow their purchases from you - ultimately making more through your wholesale store.