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Does anyone have any advice with regards to any of the web store companies. It seems they set up & run the website with your practice name on it. Does anyone have any personal experiences with any of these companies?
We find local papers best, we advertise our web address there and our web page becomes a research tool about us and our services.
News Paper or Yellowpages type adverts are brief and to the point, which can direct them to your website, which gives you the ability to tell them more about you and the service you offer.
l cant say our website gives us heaps of clients but it does it's fair share and also reaches interstate and around the world which has resulted is some interesting clients in the UK and here in Australia in other states, where l would never have thought to place adverts.
Feel free to check out our website, about 800+ people do per month viewing a total of about 5 to 6000 pages, from hospitals to individuals
Does anyone have any advice with regards to any of the web store companies. It seems they set up & run the website with your practice name on it. Does anyone have any personal experiences with any of these companies?
I have seen the testimonials on the company that provides "foot product stores" for podiatrists websites in the USA and not sure I want to fully believe them.
eCommerce is hard. Gone are the days where you put up a site and the masses come. To succeed with a eCom site you need a huge amount of traffic, that you can only get through a lot of paid advertising (costs money) or an very high ranking in the search engines (most eCommerce companies have paid search engine optimiser to get those rankings).
I find it hard to beleive that a regular podiatry clinic website will come close to generating the kind of traffic to make an 'add on' web store worth it. The only one making any money will be the company that sets it up for you and ships the products.
Personaly, I would not put the effort in.
__________________
Craig Payne
Department of Podiatry
La Trobe University
Melbourne, Australia http://www.latrobe.edu.au/podiatry
__________________________________________________ ___________________________________ God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things - right now I am so far behind, I will never die.
The views expressed above are those of the author and not that of La Trobe University This is where I am, where are you?
The Following User Says Thank You to Craig Payne For This Useful Post:
I have seen the testimonials on the company that provides "foot product stores" for podiatrists websites in the USA and not sure I want to fully believe them.
eCommerce is hard. Gone are the days where you put up a site and the masses come. To succeed with a eCom site you need a huge amount of traffic, that you can only get through a lot of paid advertising (costs money) or an very high ranking in the search engines (most eCommerce companies have paid search engine optimiser to get those rankings).
I find it hard to beleive that a regular podiatry clinic website will come close to generating the kind of traffic to make an 'add on' web store worth it. The only one making any money will be the company that sets it up for you and ships the products.
Personaly, I would not put the effort in.
Thanks for the advice. I am not trying to compete with other online stores. I just would like to have a store set up for my own patients. Sometimes I recommend a product that may be difficult for them to find. If I set up a store, I could direct them to that site if they have no luck finding it elsewhere.
I was under the impression that the store would be free but the one store I contacted (ourdoctorstore.com) does charge a fee of $250.00.
Hi,
I can't see the logic in setting up an online store for your own patients when they could purchase direct from you. I doubt if the income from it would cover the costs of setting up and maintaining a secure site, or a site that uses a secure payment processing company.
When patients do purchase something you (or an employee) needs a little time to package and post the item(s) to them. I'd be very very careful about any company offering to provide a free webstore. E commerce needs time and money input.
Just to echo what Craig and John have already said - e-commerce is not cheap to get off the ground, and a viable e-commerce website is not cheap to run and maintain.
My own experience is that having set up a free website last year (not Podiatry or pod-related products) which was not particulary reliable, and attracted no traffic on it's own I found I was then bombarded with offers to increase and optimise my traffic-flow. These were not free.
John has recently re-developed my free site - I paid him (and a great job you did too John). Traffic is still low, but I now have a reliable and maintained website, and a plan (and more importantly, a budget) to increase traffic.
In your situation you may simply be better setting up a small site with links to various products as a service to your patients.
Thank you to everyone who replied to my question. You probably saved me a bit of money & more importantly time. I may still set up an online store but only after planning it appropriately.
Advice needed: Web Store
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