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Beginner's Guide to Ecommerce

Simply, ecommerce is selling your goods and services online. The customer visits your site, selects a product or service, enters their payment and delivery information. You then despatch the goods.

But what exactly are the advantages of ecommerce? Is it really worth it? How do you get the site? What about security and fraud? How do you get people to buy? And what about maintenance?

Advantages of ecommerce

  • Open 24/7 - your customers can browse your store in comfort and buy with ease, whenever they want
  • Open everywhere - your customers can buy from anywhere in the world
  • Short sales cycle - ecommerce can take a prospective customer from the point of advertising directly to the point of sale
  • Enhanced and easy performance tracking - computerised transactions make it easy to collate market research data, sales patterns

Is ecommerce really worth it?

The decision of whether to open an ecommerce site should be based on some business need, such as growing sales or winning new customers. If your business doesn't need it, then it'll be taking you away from your core activities that your business really does need. Remember, if you want your site to be successful, you'll have to put the effort in.

From idea to launch, setting up your ecommerce site

The important thing to remember before buying/building is to choose something which matches your needs. A basic site might be ok for a small shop selling a small range of products, but a larger shop with hundreds of lines would soon run into limitations. Similarly, a sophisticated site may be overwhelming for the small shop.

Ask yourself, do you just want to sell goods? Do you need to provide technical support to your customers? How many products do you want to sell? Do you need content management as well as ecommerce? What other needs do you have? How will your needs change over time?

Credit card payments and security

The ability to securely take card payments is what separates an ecommerce site from an information site. Whilst there are systems such as PayPal, capturing customers' payment details on your own site will lead to a much more professional and trustworthy image. In order to do this, you'll need a security certificate and a merchant account.

The security certificate allows your customers to safely send their sensitive information to your website. The information is encrypted before being sent and decrypted on arrival. This means that if the information is intercepted it cannot be understood.

If you already have a merchant account, you simply need to ask for an Internet trading number from your merchant provider. If you don't have a merchant account, you will need to apply for one from your bank - this process can take a while, and you may need to have a trading history. Your merchant provider will probably want to see the website beforehand in order to verify what you are selling.

Finding the customers

If you're an offline business with a physical presence, tell all of your existing customers about your new website. As your site grows, repeat business will be an important factor in keeping your advertising costs low.

Pay-per-click advertising can be an extremely effective sales tool. Prospective customers searching for products you sell are directed straight to you creating an instant revenue stream.

A long-term search-engine strategy will help you win new customers cost-effectively. By having lots of relevant content on your site, you can generate high volumes of traffic without having to pay.

Encourage repeat business by offering discounts to existing customers and sending out a monthly email newsletter. Keeping your brand in front of the customer is more important online due to the large amount of competition.

Don't ignore offline advertising, use traditional techniques such as direct mailing, leafleting and commercial radio to promote your site. Make sure that your web address is on all of your marketing literature.

Banner advertising is a common online technique, but is more effective in raising brand awareness rather than generating instant sales as few users click through.

Merchant account providers

Pay-per-click advertising