Yesterday, we’ve seen some examples of what draws people to shop online during the holidays, as well as what you can do to ensure that you profit from these advantages. There are a few more reasons that would make holiday shoppers want to do their shopping online. Here are some more of these advantages of buying online for consumers:

• Better availability of products

It is a well known fact that the internet is a global marketplace. And it is not called that for no reason. You can purchase any product that you want, even if it would be difficult to get in stores in your area. While international commerce has existed for decades now, ordering something that’s not available in the stores of your area would be quite a hassle before the internet. Now, all that’s required is for the visitor to find what they’re looking for online. To profit from this, a good business model would be selling merchandise that is unique and not too easy to find in stores.

• Lower prices

One of the big advantages that online businesses have over physical ones is the lower overhead. Running a chain of stores would often require millions of dollars of investment and then a considerable monthly outlay just to keep things running. A store also needs to provide good customer service to their visitors, have their shelves neatly stocked, etc. But to run an e-commerce site, all you need is a location where you’ll be shipping your items out of. If your business is relatively small, this could be run from your home or from a “warehouse” located in your attic or garage. Price conscious consumers are increasingly turning to online shopping during the holidays, mainly because of an abundance of great deals that can be found on a wide range of merchandise on the internet. By making sure that your merchandise is priced lower than what retail stores charge, you will attract those that want to save some money on their holiday shopping.

• More shipping and delivery options

Again, before the internet, when you ordered something from a catalog or by phone, the only shipping option available was regular shipping, meaning that you had to wait several weeks for your merchandise to arrive. Holiday shoppers obviously don’t have that much time to wait until they receive their order. But with the increased popularity of online shopping came faster shipping options at very affordable prices. Many online shopping websites now offer free standard shipping that takes 3 to 5 days to arrive at the customers door. Expedited shipping options, such as overnight are available as well to anyone who wants to get their order faster. The important thing here is that you give your buyers a good range of shipping options, which would allow them to choose the one that’s right for them. Some people need their order fast and will be willing to pay extra for it, while others can wait a few more days without problems.

If you want to succeed when running an e-commerce site, you should be aware of the fact that there are certain periods of the year that will be busier than others, both for online businesses and retail stores alike. The Christmas holiday shopping season is definitely the most popular, but there is also the Black Friday shopping holiday, as well as Boxing Day which is observed in certain countries. No matter what the holiday is, there are periods of time when people will be more inclined to buy certain items. Yet, numbers show that an increasing amount of people are doing their shopping online for these occasions. Here are some of the elements that draw people to online shopping and what you, as en e-commerce site owner, could do in order to capitalize on them and use them to your advantage in your advertising materials.

• No Crowds

When you shop online, there is no need to have to navigate through crowded shopping malls to find what you are looking for and then stand in line for half an hour just to check out. Some people don’t mind the crowds and view them as part of the shopping atmosphere during the holidays. But many others hate them and would rather do their shopping in a more comfortable environment. This crowded atmosphere can reach extremes, as you can see when reading news after Black Friday. Incidents of people being trampled, as well as verbal and physical violence, sometimes involving weapons, are not at all surprising anymore.

Presenting your website as a more comfortable and convenient shopping experience in your advertising materials will seek to attract people that just want to buy things for the holidays without too much hassle.

• Products are easier to find

Online, there is no need to hop from store to store in search of a certain item or category of items. All that’s needed is a simple search in Google to find a website that will sell what your customers are looking for. This saves your shoppers a lot of time.

To profit from this, make sure your items are well categorized on your site. Also, be sure to target the right keywords in your SEO efforts. Do an analysis of what your buyers will be searching for when shopping and place additional emphasis on keywords that are more likely to bring you productive traffic. Remember that those searching for specific keywords are more likely to already have made up their mind about what they want and are now looking for a place to buy it. So someone looking for “Apple MacBook Air Refurbished” is more likely to buy them a searcher typing in “computer” in Google.

Participating in online marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon are also good ways to get more sales, as the traffic is already present on these sites and people frequent online marketplaces with one main goal: to buy a product that they need. These can help you get sales in addition to those you would make on your main site.

We’ve already talked a little bit about how you can turn your talents into profits on the internet. There are a lot of methods other than the ones we’ve already covered, and we thought it might be a good idea to take another look at the topic. so, without further ado, here are some more ways to turn your talents into profits.

Twitter Backgrounds

If you have any artistic ability, and a copy of Photoshop at your disposal, you can probably crank out a half decent looking Twitter background in a short amount of time. Twitter backgrounds don’t generally sell for much, but they also don’t take a lot of time to create. Once you have a reputation for creating decent backgrounds, you can begin taking custom orders for higher prices. Generally speaking, if you can crank out graphic work quickly, and without a lot of hassle, Twitter backgrounds can be a great way to bring in some money.

Design Contests

A lot of companies and websites offer logo design contests. In these contests, graphic artists submit a logo in hopes of winning the prize money offered. Just to be clear, this isn’t a good idea for an established graphic designer. If you’ve been working in the field for some time, there are better ways to get clients, and you’ll be guaranteed payment instead of hoping to win prize money. If you’re just starting out in design though, entering logo contests is a great way to build up your portfolio, and possibly generate some income at the same time.

Local Businesses

If you’re a talented web designer, you can make decent money by approaching local businesses to see if they’re looking to create or upgrade an online presence. Be prepared with information about what the internet can do for them, and they’ll be more likely to take you up on your offer.

Graphic and web designers stand to make decent money on the internet. Knowing which methods to choose can ensure that you’ll make a great deal of money from your design talents.

The biggest growing segment on the internet for traffic is mobile web browsers. Every smartphone (minus BlackBerry until BB 6.0, at least) has a very capable web browser able to display rich content just like you are used to on your computer.

The problem is, it isn’t always fluid. What does that mean? When you are viewing your website on the web browser, and you have an iPhone or Android phone (without Flash) your header image might not be there because it was Adobe Flash based instead of HTML. That ruins the experience for the viewer, and with more and more people that will be viewing your website on their phone you need to do something about it.

First thing first, no Flash. I don’t care if Android just announced they would be getting Flash today, you are still segmenting a huge piece of the market if you continue to use Flash on your website. It simply isn’t worth the hassle.

Another thing to be conscience of is your navigation. I have a Motorola Milestone and it doesn’t have the best touch screen (actually, it is horrendous). The inability to click on tiny links is very frustrating to me and ruins my experience (and wastes my time) on may of my favorite sites.

By making navigation bigger and easier to select (and not select the wrong one) you will improve your user experience both on computer and mobile browsers. Drop down menus are a great example, Android phones can click the first link fine, but any links in the drop down menu can be easily mis-clicked while on a mobile device, breaking the experience.

You can have a great website for a computer, but make sure you also consider the mobile device. Having your designer code for the mobile version as well is really important. Keep the mobile market in mind when doing anything, or have a complete mobile version. WordPress and many other platforms have great mobile plugins that allow you to easily transform your design into a mobile version, or create your own.