Marketing is primarily about communication. And e-commerce communication is much more than merely a collection of words. Sure what you say is important. But we also need to focus on how you say it, when you say it, what parts you emphasize, and most importantly how your customers perceive it.
To understand the communication process on an e-commerce website better, let us break it up into two primary categories:

Communicating Effectively Pre-Sales

Everything about your website constitutes your communication. Think about it this way, you are expecting the customer to transfer money to you with a few clicks with nothing in return for the time being. The actual product, in the case of physical products, is delivered later. That is such a giant leap of faith that it took a few years for customers to accept that in the mid to late 90s.
You have to make sure that your communication is effective, consistent and builds confidence in the minds of the customer. There are several channels of communication in an e-commerce setup and I will discuss some of them later in this article.

Communicating Effectively Post-Sales

The customer has already paid you money. So, you do not need to invest any serious money into communicating with them post-sales, right? Wrong!
With high expenses on pay per click, branding, and other marketing efforts, you need to develop a loyal following.
Unless you have a significant proportion of repeat customers, you are not a serious e-commerce player.
Pre-sales issues such as price might be quite important. But post-sales the customer is only interested in the service she gets. This service could be in the form of:

• When will my product be delivered?
• How do I use my product?
• How do I get my product repaired?
• How do I buy accessories or consumables for my product?

Tools and Channels of Communication

As an e-commerce business, you should put in the effort to communicate the way the customers prefer. For instance, person A could be more of a telephone person who likes to talk and reach a solution. Person B could prefer to communicate only by email, while person C could much rather prefer a live chat. Which one of these three customers do you not want to sell to? Which one of them do you not want to retain?
Here are the most popular tools for communicating with your customers:

• Live Chat: Several customers love the live chat feature. It has the benefits of getting the problem solved right now, without the irritation of keeping a telephone receiver pressed to your ear while waiting. Even when the waiting period lasts a few minutes for live chat, customers do not complain too much as they are able to continue performing a parallel task on the same computer. E-commerce professionals have shown a lot of hesitation in providing live chat, as it is very resource intensive.
• Email: Unlike live chat, which is an option, email support is an absolute must-have for any e-commerce player. In addition to providing an email address for support, it is recommended that you have a ticketing system, which allows for efficiently handling a case in case of multiple emails about the same issue.

• Phone Support: Quite like live chat, phone support is also considered to be resource intensive. But the demand for phone support is so high that most e-commerce players end up providing it.
• Product Descriptions: Product descriptions are the most voluminous communication between the e-commerce merchant and the customer. Though product descriptions are not personalized they influence the customer to a great extent. To avoid me-too sites, it is important that you consider the possibility of having original product descriptions written for your website. In addition to adding value to the customer, original content also assists in SEO.
• Advertisements: Your advertisements are one of the most expensive modes of communication. You do need to do the Math to optimize your per click spends, but do not let that cause you to oversee the basic message that your advertisements are communicating.
• Blog: A blog presents an interesting platform for you to converse with you customers and prospects. In adding to the freshness of the site, a well-cultivated blog helps build credibility and trust.
• User Generated: It is unanimously accepted that encouraging user engagement by permitting them to add their own content increases the stickiness of the site. This user-generated content could be in the form of buyer reviews, comments, queries, discussion boards, shared images, and videos.

There is no dearth of clichés related to communication. While on the one hand there are those who will say that the “medium is the message,” on the other there will be others who will insist that the medium is immaterial and the message is everything. I would like to stay away from that debate. But I do maintain that having a uniform, unambiguous, message permeate through all modes of communication is important.
More important is fact that you treat communication as one of the crucial building blocks of a successful e-commerce business.

Small businesses can support their online marketing activities by creating a Facebook business page. Once you create your page and begin to build a following, you can use it to promote your business on a daily basis. But, growing your page can be challenging, especially as more and more business pages are being created and the competition for "likes" is increasing.

Here are 18 ways to grow your Facebook community once you have created and customized your Facebook business page.

1

 Build a Custom Welcome Page

A custom welcome page or tab is a great way to introduce your page and your brand to your fans and guide their interaction. You can encourage them to like your page, click through to your website, share your page and more.

2

 Add Photos and Videos

Use the photo and video upload function to show off your business, products, services and more. Adding headshots or introduction videos of yourself and your staff can also be a great way to connect to your fans.

3

 Ask a Question

Use the status updates function to ask your fans questions. Try fill in the blanks or true/false questions that are easy to answer, and give your fans a quick way to participate. You can also encourage more interaction with the apps provided by engagement tools like Involver.

4

 Create a Contact Form

Creating a contact form on your Facebook page with an app like ContactMe provides your fans with a quick and easy way to contact you.

5

 Add a Blog Feed

Use an app such as NetworkedBlogs or RSS Graffiti to import blog posts from your blog right to your Facebook page as they as published. You can also add an RSS feed from someone else's blog.

6

 Organize an Event

Organize an event, or sponsor an event, and use the Facebook event features to share it through your page.

7

 Add a "Like Gate"

You can grow your community by creating a "like gate," or hidden content on your page that is only revealed after someone has liked your page.

8

 Monitor Your Page

Keep track of activity on your page through email notifications so you can respond to comments or feedback, delete spam and continue to interact with your fans in a timely manner.

9

 Run a Contest

Use an app to develop a contest that rewards active members of your Facebook community.

10

 Keep it Relevant

It's good to add in some personality by posting a bit off-topic occasionally, but most of your posts should be links to timely, useful and relevant content for your audience.

11

 Develop a Mini-Website

Apps like TabSite allow you to build out your page into a mini-website with multiple links, features and interactions. You can integrate parts of your business website and blog and create a well-rounded experience for your fans.

12

 Promote Your Page

Include your Facebook page URL on your website, blog, email signature, business cardsand other marketing materials to direct people to visit your page. If you have other social network accounts, share the link to your Facebook page and ask others to do the same.

13

 Be Consistent

You don't have to be logged on and engaging all the time, but your fans need to know you are there. Set a schedule and be consistent when it comes to posting, commenting and interacting.

14

 Get Involved on Other Pages

Like other Facebook pages that are relevant in your industry, and participate in discussions on those pages (when using Facebook as your page). You can also tag pages in your status updates to help get your page noticed.

15

 Blog About Your Page

Blog about your page on your blog, explain why people should like your page and join your Facebook community, and offer an incentive for people to like it (free download, discount, etc.).

16

 Advertise on Facebook

Advertise using Facebook Ads or sponsored stories to get the word out about your page.

17

 Reward Your Fans

Thank your fans for their support by providing special offers only available on your page, featuring a member of the week or helping to promote them.

18

 Encourage Sharing

Make your page easy to share by adding icons and a "like box" to your website and blog, and asking your readers, customers and site visitors to like your page and pass it on.

An important issue that new internet entrepreneurs should address prior to setting up their online businesses is the question of an appropriate web platform.  What type of website do you need to build, and what kind of content should you post to attract your ideal customer?

Among the options at your disposal include the services of a website builder.  Website builders take the drudgery and hassle out of website creation by offering “point and click” solutions.

  A far cry from the early days of the World Wide Web (WWW), when dedicated coders had to use HTML, Flash or some crazy computer language to put up a webpage.

Web.com is one of the most established services available, offering a potpourri of e-commerce tools that are more than adequate for getting even the most technophobic among us up and running fast.

The Pros: Features and Benefits.

Web.com offers important benefits for its subscribers, including many essentials that you can immediately implement for your business:

• A quick three-step sign-up process that lets you choose your own domain name, pick out a customized website design for your business/hobby, and publish it instantaneously on the Internet.  All it takes to get started is a telephone call or a live chat.
• Web.com’s easy to use website building tool (SiteBuilder) with hundreds of starter design templates that aim to enhance your online presence.

• Access to a vast stock image library that allows you to make your website more relevant and enticing to your customers.
• Design enhancement capability including multimedia, i.e. sound, music, Flash animation and video.  The ability to drag and drop widgets like: date and time stamps, roadmaps, visit counters, guest books, and other helpful items on your website.

If you wish, Web.com designers can build you a customized e-commerce site that can completely knock your socks off!  If you are not a hands-on techie, the editing software and premium back office gives you access to tools that put it in a class of its own.

Web.com sponsors regular small business summits throughout the United States and Canada, a testimony to its three million person customer base and three decades of experience.

The Cons.

On the surface, a website builder seems like the logical way for “newbies” to announce their arrival on the Internet.  Web.com is a decent product, arguably the best website builder available today.  However, by using Web.com to create your platform, you surrender a big chunk of your business independence.  Your creativity will be limited to Web.com’s library of templates, skins, and other features.

Web.com designers can make great websites, no doubt about it.  However, yesterday’s model will have to be maintained, upgraded and adapted to new market conditions, and pre-fabricated creations have a habit of burning through your operating cash flow very quickly.  It remains somewhat lacking in marketing tools, especially when it comes to loyalty programs and enhancing your Facebook and social media marketing presence.

Web.com’s basic e-commerce package only allows twenty products with about 1 Gigabyte of storage.  Therefore, your scalability might be limited to comparable software packages that offer more.

In addition, Web.com charges for every transaction which can really add up regardless of what stage your business is at.  Its fees for eCommerce services are among the highest for its business category.  You have no choice but to buy the most expensive software version to be able to sell downloads.

As Web.com looks to upsell you towards more enhanced e-commerce packages, it departs the role of website builder and becomes just another web host.  Benefits like e-mail accounts, e-mail storage, and unlimited web storage are standard elements of a decent web hosting package from most reputable companies offering the service.

  Chances are that you can find better pricing outside Web.com, since traditional web hosting companies survive in large part based on price competitiveness (and customer service, of course!).

Final Verdict.

With a minimum package price of thirty-five (35) dollars USD, Web.com may be worth a peek for people who really want to minimize their face time with the technical details of e-commerce.  In the short term, these template-based sites are probably easier and less expensive than other options (like WordPress or customized sites) but only up to a point.   They are limited in options; and you're "stuck" with them once your business moves beyond its initial stages.  Your eventual transfer from a builder like Web.com to regular hosting where you call all the shots may not be as smooth as you would like.

My personal recommendation is to go with a solution like WordPress right away, especially the version that you host yourself (Wordpress.org, not WordPress.com).  It gives you more control, especially on the marketing front, and you will not lose your content should Web.com’s Terms of Use and other “legal” clauses change against your interests.  Affiliate marketers in particular are advised to use WordPress as the anchor of their referral marketing empire.

As a freelance writer, I always conducted my business exclusively via the Internet. I still do. There are still plenty of people doing the local, in-the-flesh freelance creative gig. That’s fine and the Internet as a marketplace doesn’t invalidate that way of working, and it’s good that we get to make choices in this area that suit the way we like to work. While good communication forms the backbone of all sorts of businesses, we’re going to approach the topic as relevant to the online business, where communication can be treated very differently.
Running an online business allows you to choose how communication is done, as simple a thing it may seem from a distance. Communication is the thing most businesspeople, including freelancers, end up spending most of the day on. Thus it’s important that you know how you want the communication to happen, how much of it you want to be doing, and how to make sure that communication is both efficient and effective by developing a skill for only communicating with clarity and purpose.

Here’s a list of things I have never done:

• Spoken on the phone to a client
• Acquired work through offline contacts or means
• Needed to leave the house in order to work

Though I have worked outside of the house just to get away from the monotony, I’ve never taken on work that required me to be anywhere specific, and I have to admit that I spoke to someone who was a client when I was in the process of becoming their employee, but the above list is still technically true!
Here’s why: I decided what kind of business I wanted to run (a web-based business that allowed me to work close to the family, on my own time) and how I wanted to communicate with clients (via email or occasionally IM, obtaining information in the most effective and least time consuming way). I chose this means of communication because I didn’t want to waste half the day in meetings or talking to clients on the phone as both of these things are known timesinks and are rarely useful. This means I had to choose work that suited this style of operating and develop a brand and niche around that style.
Writing articles for the web (particularly in the social media optimized niche) just so happens to be work that suits my style, and I did well at the job and in the business. Basically, there is no need for long real-time communication meetings, such as those a web designer might need to carry out with a client in order to plan the right site for the job. An article idea can be pitched via email easily, or the client could just give me a schedule and ask me to have articles based on ideas of my own choosing by that time.
So the first step in running a business that suits your style of operating and communicating is, of course, not to choose work that doesn’t mesh with the way you want to do things.
But you still need to make sure the communication is as good and solid as it can be within the boundaries you have set. Here are the three principles I used to ensure the communication was good enough for everyone involved without having to waste time on the phone.

Medium

The subject of the medium involves choosing how the message should and should not be communicated. Everything else depends on knowing this. My aim was to eliminate inefficient, back-and-forth verbal communication in favor of clear, purposeful email messages, with the very rare IM chat available to clear up misunderstandings. My reason for this was that I wanted to spend as little time working as I could while still making a comfortable income, and the rest of my time with my wife and kids or doing something fun like having a beer with friends or playing a game. Verbal communication can literally double the amount of time you waste in a day, depending on who your clients are.
At the start, my medium of business communication was defined by what it was not: verbal. Since defining something by what it is not isn’t very useful and most often leads to failure, I defined what I was going to use, as you can see above — email and occasional text chat.
Finally, I feel it’s important to add here that many old-timers feel that you can’t run a business without verbal communication. It’s not true at all. Entire companies distributed individually around the globe are run on the backbone of well-crafted email communication and IM chat, and so was my little freelance operation.

Purpose

Good communication requires purpose. Much of the bad communication that leads to misunderstandings in business happens because the author or speaker has no clear sense of purpose — that is, why the communication is taking place. Knowing why you’re saying something and more importantly what the intended effect on the recipient is, is the most important thing. Here’s the thing to ask before hitting send on that email or calling a client:
What is the effect that I want this communication to have on the recipient?
Do you want them to take action on something? Feel or think differently about something? Learn something? If there’s no intended effect, there’s no point communicating. If you can’t articulate what that intended effect is then you have no idea what the purpose of your communication is.

Clarity

The best communications exist in the right medium for the job and combine purpose with clarity. Eliminate back-and-forth by dealing with all conceivable details in the first message, and if you have questions, ask both those questions and the possible subsequent questions you may need to ask depending on their answers. Use a lot of “if so, then.”
This way you can maximize the efficiency of your message by a) preventing unwanted mistakes because the recipient did not properly understand you, and b) preventing lots of back-and-forth which increases waiting times on information.
I’m not trying to preach the benefits of phoneless freelancing — that little adventure just serves as an example of how thinking through these considerations can help you make your own ideas work even when other people think they can’t. If your communications meet these criteria, you’re running an efficient business.
Finally, don’t take the topic of communication for granted. I’m sure many readers will think, “who cares whether you use email or the phone?” — but as a freelancer you now have the ability to sculpt the career, workday and lifestyle you want. Use that freedom and power in every aspect of your life.
For the skimmers, here’s a summary of the take-away principles:

• Select the right medium for the message.
• If you want to eliminate a medium, eliminate work that depends on the medium.
• Determine the effect the communication should have on the recipient,
• And eliminate back-and-forth with a clear initial message.