Today we look at the third principal of ecommerce 2.0 – Decentralised Content Generation – Data from the Community – and the way Zen Cart store owners can easily follow this principle with their Zen Cart configuration, installed add-ons and more.  (The Six Principles of eCommerce 2.0 can be found on Wikipedia.)

Principle 3.  Decentralised Content Generation – Data from the Community

Buyers were once along for the ride in the eCommerce process. Now they are in the driver’s seat. The content buyers create through forums such as product reviews, blogs, and social networks influences other buyers as much or more than any promotion eTailers create. Forums like YouTube and MySpace underscore how content created by consumers has become a viable and valuable part of the promotional and sales cycle for retailers. The Canadian eCommerce site Wishabi even encourage buyers to submit any offers that they find through social and economic incentives. While some eTailers are frightened by the perceived loss of control over content being published, these new avenues of data acquisition greatly increase the richness and diversity of information available, ultimately helping the buyer make better decisions.

Zen Cart Store Owner Tips

Word-of-mouth recommendations can be your store’s strongest referral source, sometimes driving more traffic than costly advertising.  As consumers become more experienced with the Internet, customer reviews are becoming increasingly influential in their purchasing decisions – both online and offline.

• Store/Product Testimonials
  Encourage your customers to comment on their experience shopping with you.   Invite them to leave feedback on various aspects including your product range, customer service, store usability and if they would recommend your store to their friends.  Quote a selected range from the customer comments collected anywhere you have an online presence.  For example local directory listings, Facebook fan pages, Twitter backgrounds, shopping comparison sites, etc.
• Consumer Reviews
  Have you searched on Google lately for your brand or product with +reviews included?  Know what your customers might find if they search for your store this way.  Also be aware of where a ‘typical’ customer of your store would go to find information.  Is there a particular forum or review site that caters for your industry or market niche.  Participate in these communities and also actively invite your customers to leave reviews on selected sites.

Store owners need to always be aware of information published by the online community about their store and/or products.  You simply cannot afford to ignore what others are saying about you and your brand.  If it is positive comments, you can quote these on your site or in other marketing material.  However, if it is a not-so-positive comment, you will gain much more respect (and hopefully customer retention) by being aware and being able to act quickly to resolve any issues.  Some tips to help you stay current:

• Google Alerts
  Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, blogs, etc) based on your choice of query or topic.

  Online retailers may choose to use Google Alerts for:
  - monitoring any mentions on the web about your products and/or brand
  - keeping up to date on your competitors
  - getting the latest news about your industry or niche market

• Twitter Mentions
  Using a complementary application such as TweetDeck, monitor any mentions of your store, products and/or brand on Twitter.  Add several search panes for the keywords and hashtags that represent your brand.  Participate in any discussions around your brand, products and industry and act quickly on any customer service issues raised.

It’s also up to you to drive the generation decentralised content yourself too.  It’s all about brand awareness, being seen as an authority and just becoming part of the scenery in your industry/market niche.  For example:

• Article Marketing
  Look at writing articles to showcase a new product in your range or provide instruction on using your products effectively and post to article sites such as EzineArticles or ArticlesBase.  Don’t forget to include a link to your store.
• Forum Participation
  Where do your customers and potential customers go to ‘hang out’ and participate in a community of like-minded others?  Look at what you can offer this community and you’ll find that visitors/customers will also follow you to your store.  Where appropriate include a link to your store.
• Blog Commenting or Guest Posting
  No matter what industry or market niche you are in, there will probably be a number dedicated blogs available.  Blogs are great marketing opportunities and participating in blogs across the Internet will help raise the profile (and exposure) of your store.

In this series we will be looking at tips for Zen Cart store owners for each of the six principles.

See you tomorrow for Principle 4:  Personalised Shopping – Make it fun to shop and easy to buy!