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The Five Steps Of E-commerce
By Lois S., Sat Dec 10th
The Five Steps of E-Commerce You set up a retail business, you advertise in your localnewspaper, you get customers coming into your store, and youreceive payment at the cash register. Create an online store,and...how do you get customers? How do you receive payment? The concept is the same, but the steps are different.
Step 1: Create your website If you don’t have web design skills, you can hire a qualifiedweb designer to create a website for you, or you can use anonline site builder. Think of it as hiring an architect and aninterior decorator compared to setting up shop in an existingstore. Using a web designer With the services of a web designer, you can have a uniquewebsite template and website customized to your specific needs.A web development team can also add features such as Flashheaders or any programming needed for your site. If your companyimage is critical, a custom-designed site that conveys the rightprofessional image is a must. Using an online site builder An online site builder is the budget way to go. With sitebuilder programs such as Site Studio, your website can be onlinewithin minutes. A step-by-step menu allows you to choose alayout and colors, and then add a site description, a logo, andcontent. Your template may not be unique, but your content will. Step 2: Set up an e-commerce store Your customers will browse at your website, select some items,and then pay for them. When you set up an e-commerce shoppingcart, you’re providing a way for your customers to bring theirpurchases to the cash register. The program you choose willallow you to enter your products in the database and allowshoppers to choose products when they click on “Add to cart” orsomething similar. Two well-known shopping carts, osCommerce and Miva Merchant,both allow you to do these tasks: •Add, edit, and delete product categories and other information •Set tax rates and charge tax •Receive payment via numerous online and offline paymentprocessing methods •Bill customers •And much more osCommerce osCommerce is an open source program. Store owners can set uptheir online stores using osCommerce with no costs involved. Forsmall stores, it has all the features you need for an onlinestore. Drawbacks of osCommerce are that customization is noteasy, and online stores using osCommerce tend to look similar. Miva Merchant While Miva Merchant carries a price tag of $995, some web hostsoffer Miva Merchant licenses with their hosting plans. If youchoose Miva as your shopping cart, be sure to host your sitewith a host that provides Miva support. Its learning curve issteep, and it requires the support of people who know how towork with it. With the price and the steep learning curve, you get morefeatures, and you can customize the program more. Add-in modulescan be bought that perform a number of tasks. In addition, astrong support community is available in the Miva user groupforums. Step 3: Get a merchant account and payment gateway When
customers arrive at the checkout counter, you need a wayfor their payments to be transferred from their credit cardaccounts to your bank account. The method you choose may dependon your sales volume. For high-volume sales, an e-commerce merchant accountplus a payment gateway will meet your needs. A merchantaccount provider authorizes the transfer of payments to youraccount, and a payment gateway transfers the information fromyour customers’ financial institutions to yours. Most merchant accounts have setup fees, transaction fees,monthly fees, and statement fees. The transaction fees are lessthan what you’d pay using a third party credit card processorsuch as PayPal. With all the fees, however, the overall cost istypically lower only if your monthly sales volume is over abouta thousand dollars. For medium and low volume sales, PayQuake and PayPal are viableoptions. PayQuake PayQuake offers three merchant account types to choose from.Although they all require payment gateways, the two smallerplans have no monthly minimums. You can upgrade to a higher orlower plan if your needs change. PayPal PayPal has become a household name. Customers can send paymentthrough PayPal via credit card or via money that they transferinto their PayPal account. While the fees per transaction arehigher than with merchant accounts, there are no setup ormonthly fees, and you don’t need a payment gateway. You pay onlywhen you have financial transactions. Step 4: Create a secure payment environment A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate enables you to receivecredit card information securely from your customers. When apayment page is using SSL data to encrypt data, a small image ofa lock appears at the bottom right of the screen. Some web hosts offer SSL certificates as part of their hostingpackages. If your web host package doesn’t include SSLcertificates, you can purchase one separately. With PayPal, no SSL certificate is required. Step 5: Generate traffic Your products are on display in your newly designed store, yourshopping cart is set up and ready to use, and you haveeverything in place to be able to receive payments securely. Nowall you need are customers. This is where marketing comes in. •Submit your site to search engines. •Advertise your site. •Keep your company name in front of your customers with aregular email newsletter. •Add more content to your website to keep it fresh. •Monitor your website traffic to see where it’s coming from andhow you can increase traffic for key content areas. For related information, see these pages: •Do-It-Yourself Search Engine Optimizationhttp://articles.websitesource.com/seo_do_it_yourself_8_16_2005.shtml •Promote your Domainhttp://www.websitesource.com/domains/domain_promotion.shtml About the author: Lois S. is a Technical Executive Writer for http://www.websitesource.com and http://www.lowpricedomains.com withexperience in the website hosting industry.
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