BN Design has been scouring the internet for simple solutions that can counter the economic downturn’s affect on online sales. Here are the top five things you can do to jumpstart your ecommerce business.

1.   Start a forum or blog.

- Give your customers a reason to visit your site.  Forums are great for building product or brand loyalty and provide an inexpensive means of support/help for your new and existing customers
- Increase your “just stopping by” traffic with interesting and informative posts in a blog or forum.  When times are tough, offer as much free and interactive content as possible.

2.   Add new products.

- As a general rule, the more products you have to offer, the better.  Think of simple ways to add new products and specials to invigorate a single line or your entire inventory.
- Use your bargaining power to get better prices.  Your business is not alone in its struggles and you should negotiate new terms and costs with your suppliers.
- If any of your competitors go out of business, try to scoop up new inventory at a discount.

3.   Use traditional print marketing.

- Never sell your business short.  Maximizing brand-recognition and customer awareness are a must.  Depending on your business model, even one new customer from a traditional campaign might be all you need to get things moving in the right direction.

4.  Beef up customer service.

- In this depressing time, be the best part of a customer’s day.  Treat your customer as if they are joining a team or family and have your emails, calls and invoices reflect this.

5.   Don’t sacrifice SEO.

- Your limited budget will require you to rethink many expenses. — Don’t throw SEO out the window.  Focus on getting better organic search engine results and enroll your business in as many free listing sites as possible.
- If you’ve done steps 1-4, it will be worthless if customers can’t find you.  Also, feel free to bargain for better SEO and SEM campaigns, as providers are not immune to the downturn.

BN Design is testing the new Safari 4 browser released by Apple.
The browser offers up to five times the speed of Safari 3 and tons of new features.

The free application is available for both Mac and PC at the following link: Safari 4 Beta