Consultants or advisers for site?

[jcm01]

Are there e-commerce consultants or advisers that one can hire? Someone that can look at my site, help me with layout, strategy, content, format, etc? I think I'm doing a lot of things right...but I'm sure I'm also doing a lot of things wrong. This type of service would be very helpful to someone like myself that is new to this stuff. Thanks

[not2easy]

There is a list of different services for hire right here, at the bottom of each page. Maybe read through the skills here: [webmasterworld.com...] or see if a more specialized kind of help is needed. There are several specialties listed.

[jcm01]

Ahh...ok, thank you. Didn't see that. I will have a look.

[jcm01]

Hmm...I don't see any that are really what I'm looking for, which is help with the layout of my site. I'll keep looking...

[Andy Langton]

jcm01 - you should perhaps clarify what it is that you're hoping to get from a consultant. In the first post you mention "layout, strategy, content, format" - that covers a number of different disciplines. Is it design you're hoping to improve, or hierarchy?

[tangor]

@jcm01

How new to the web are you? Have you run regular (not ecommerce) site(s)? Is your question regarding how to set up ecommerce?

Know the web and view the many "best practices" out there and you're a long way towards answering many of your questions.

[jcm01]

Hi Andy. There are a number of e-commerce do's and don'ts (how your site is laid out, what information is where, how easy is the cart to navigate, etc.) and I am just looking for someone with e-commerce experience who can help me with this stuff. I'm not looking for a tech who can build a site, but rather someone who can help me ensure my site is user friendly and follows standard e-commerce protocols. Hope that makes sense...

[Andy Langton]

Are you asking because you think that your site should be performing better? If so, there are quite a lot of potential factors involved.You can get good advice right here if you can be more specific :)

[jcm01]

Are you asking because you think that your site should be performing better?
- Yes. And because I'm new to this and am sure I'm going a bunch of stuff wrong :) ...or at least could be doing it better.

If so, there are quite a lot of potential factors involved.You can get good advice right here if you can be more specific :)
- Ok, thing is 'I don't know what I don't know' which is why I wanted to see if there were consultants for this type of thing...but if/when I have specific questions, I'll ask for sure. Great forum. Thanks Andy.

[tangor]

The questions you ask are result based, ie. what kind of results do you want and can you see that something is preventing those results.

If you have your site set up, functioning, payment services finalized, and known to be operational (user can open cart pay and check out and your delivery/satisfaction is confirmed), then there might be things which can help.

CALL TO ACTION is one, if conversions are lower than you think they should be.

CART ABANDONMENT is another, if users get that far and fail to complete.

There are many threads here at Webmasterworld that address these and almost countless others relating of ecommerce sites.

But first you need to formulate the question before any answers can be given. And even a consultant will tell you the same thing. There is no plug and play solution. Each site is different once you get past the ordinary mechanics (listing, sales, cart, processing, delivery, satisfaction).

[jcm01]

Good stuff tangor. Much appreciated. Ok...let me try to digest this.