Search results
Helping customers find your website
An outline of the techniques used to help customers find your online shop including search engine optimisation and pay-per-click advertising.
Avoid online selling pitfalls
How to avoid the problems associated with e-commerce websites, such as inaccurate information, poor navigation, late delivery and lack of customer support.
Marketing your business in Europe
How to market your business effectively in another European country, including researching your target audience and establishing new contacts.
Using inland border facilities
Find out how and when to use Inland Border Facilities
Understand your competitors
How to identify your competitors, find out more about them and then use this information to improve your business.
Use competitor research to improve your business
The ways you can improve your business using knowledge about your competitors.
What you need to know about your competitors
Examine how your competitors do business, what they offer and how they treat their customers.
How to do competitor research
How to research your competitors using the press, exhibitions, the internet and trade associations.
Who are your competitors?
Where to look for your competitors and how to identify them using sources such as business directories, advertising and press reports.
Learn about customers’ needs from competitors
How learning about a customer's current supplier can help you, if you identify why the customer buys from a rival supplier you can work out how to better them.
Ten things you need to know about your customers
Ten things you need to know about your customers to enable you to sell more products, more efficiently – consider who they are, what they do and why they buy.
What do you know about your customers?
Understanding your customers can help you improve your sales and marketing and offer them what they really want, ask questions like who, what, why and how.
What is your unique selling point?
Understand why customers need or want your product or service and your unique selling point (USP).
Ways to find out about your customers
Different methods of obtaining the information you require on your customers, their buying habits and preferences, such as CRM and business libraries.
Understand your customers' needs
Why understanding your customers' needs is crucial to the success of your business, no matter how good your offering is, customers must want it.
Segment your customers
Putting your customers into groups could help you understand and target their needs more effectively and identify the most and least profitable customers.
The eCommerce Directive and the UK
What you need to do now that the eCommerce Directive no longer applies to the UK.
Working with Northern Ireland Trading Standards Service
How Trading Standards can help your business comply with the law when a customer has lodged a complaint about your business or you need general advice.
Fair trading for businesses selling goods or services
An overview of the law relating to fair trading and how this may affect your business - including pricing and product description.
Northern Ireland Retail Movement Scheme: groupage and mixed load consignments
How to move groups of agrifood products from Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) to Northern Ireland, which may include consignments of Northern Ireland Retail Movement Scheme (NIRMS) goods and consignments of non-NIRMS goods.