Guide to Technology

Business & Money

Technology

Women

Health

Education

Family

Travel

Cars

Entertainment

Featured Sites

An E Commerce Website

View:

More Articles from

Guide To The Internet Pg21

If you are looking to start an ecommerce website for you local business, it is best to hire a professional website designer if you are not able to do the work yourself. A

professional looking website is much easier to navigate, and can allow your customers to feel more secure shopping with you.

After you have gotten your new ecommerce website set up with your products listed it is time to consider what type of payment system you will use. If you only accept checks or

money orders that have to be mailed in, you will lose a lot of business. This is due to the fact that it is time-consuming and inconvenient for the customer to mail a check and then wait for the check to clear before they receive their package. If you can provide other

payment methods such as electronic checks or even better, credit card processing, more many more customers will purchase from you. Also be sure to offer secure processing for the customer's purchase.

After you have decided on methods of payment you will receive it is time to consider shipping and the costs associated with this as well. Will you create a separate department to handle shipping of products ordered from your web site? Before you started a website, customers would walk into the store to buy anything they needed. Now you will

have to consider how to ship the merchandise safely to them. It is also a good idea to include shipping and handling fees in the price before the merchandise is shipped.

Another area of importance for any ecommerce web site is customer service. Most businesses will have a local number that customers can call in case of a problem. However, now that you have established your online presence, your customers will not all be local but located around the country, or even around the world. It is important for

them to have a toll free number or email address they can use to enquire about their purchases or ask general questions.

With these tips in mind, you will be up and running your new business web site in just a short time.

Copyright 2005 Burke Publications All Rights Reserved

An E Commerce Website

1. Website

Your website is like your showroom, airy and attractive. When online, the equivalent of a showroom is an uncluttered website where the eyes can move freely up and down finding the details they need without much effort. It is extremely important that the website be easy to navigate since the surfer should not have to search for the product or details he or she is looking for. The website should project its products in a provocative way so the surfer wants to see more.

Place testimonials or photos of your product so people can create a positive image of its usage. If your products are guaranteed, post this information conspicuously.

2. Your merchant account

This feature is a must for any commercial website because without it you will not be able to receive payment by credit cards. Reports show that as high as 99 percent of the trade online is done through credit cards. Hence, if you do not have a merchant account you lose business. You will need to be able to accept all major credit cards and without this feature that is not possible.

3. Shopping cart and secure server

This is interconnected with the above. When you have a merchant account to accept credit cards, you will need an online shopping cart. This feature allows your customers to choose and place their chosen products in the cart just as one would do in shopping mall. This cart will, at the end of the shopping, total the products and give the total cost of the products chosen.

In order to have your shopping cart work well you need to have its software installed on your website or on the server that hosts your website. If you choose to have your own server you will need to have a certificate from Verisign and Thawrte, which encrypts the financial information given by your customers so they can feel safe while giving you this sensitive information.

4. Payment gateway

This is another crucial aspect in setting up a successful e-commerce website. The payment gateway is the link from your website to the credit card processor. This gateway helps information to pass from your site to the authorization centre where the credit card is verified and then charged; after that the reply will come back to your website that the processing has been successful. A payment gateway will always check for details in credit card information and reject any discrepancy in the information. In this way it reduces the use of fraudulent cards by almost 80 percent.

blog comments powered by Disqus Comments

Related Articles
Author
Most Popular

•	An E Commerce Website, by J. Elisha Burke
•	Best E Commerce Website, by Mercedes Aspland
•	Build E Commerce Website, by Mercedes Aspland
•	Building An E Commerce Site, by Hangal Ng
•	Building E Commerce Website, by Mercedes Aspland

About Author

Both J. Elisha Burke & Touch Media Design are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

J. Elisha Burke has sinced written about articles on various topics from The Internet. Dr. J. Elisha Burke, an educator and entrepreneur, has been involved in various business enterprises via his business, Burke Publications for 11 years. Dr. Burke is an educator, writer and motivational speaker on a variety of topics. The resources to g. J. Elisha Burke's top article generates over 2400 views. Bookmark J. Elisha Burke to your Favourites.

Touch Media Design has sinced written about articles on various topics from The Internet, Gardening and Computers and The Internet. http://www.touchmediadesign.com - TOUCH MEDIA DESIGN is a full-service creative company specializing in assisting both online and offline businesses in web design, e-commerce, catalog design, graphic design, product photography, printing, and marketing.. Touch Media Design's top article generates over 3600 views. Bookmark Touch Media Design to your Favourites.

Best Mutual Fund Company
To me, this is way more acceptable than swallowing a bill that was based on some conflicted managers financial situation