E-commerce Solutions

Planning for an e-commerce website

Getting your business online and taking orders is actually not a hard process but there are several areas that need to be covered before you go ahead and get an e-commerce website. The following areas will help you consider and collect the data and material needed to complete a e-commerce website.

Your objectives

What has made you decide to get an e-commerce website? It maybe just a natural progression from your existing site or it maybe a trend that is growing within your market sector. What ever the reason there are many ways to present an e-commerce website.
We would suggest you look at other websites for ideas. Make a note of what you like and what you think would work for your business.

Customer Service

From our experience and the feed back we have received from our clients who own online shops, providing good customer service for customers can be very demanding.

Several of them were not prepared for the drain on resources this new area required nor were they prepared for the different approach to customer service. Email and telephone calls can increase considerably and you may need to allow for this in preparation for your e-commerce website. Also packaging and posting of goods will play a major role in the success of your online customer service.

Products

We would recommend that the products you are going to sell have as much detail as possible i.e. various pictures of different views, detailed feature list and product specifications. The more information available to the potential customer about a particular product the better. It allows them to research the product in detail and as a result they will be more willing to buy if all their questions have been answered.

Do you have all the images and data needed? Collecting this data can be a large task and take quite some time. Being prepared is a great advantage and will stop any delays in the creation of your e-commerce website.

Market Distribution

How wide is your potential market? Are you supplying to the UK only or will your customers come from overseas too?

If you are going to be taking orders from overseas you need to consider the following:

• Shipping costs - Are you going to calculate it by weight or have a fixed price?
• What are the tax implications involved, is your company prepared?
• Will customers to be able to track their order online?
• Are you going to offer next day or Saturday delivery?

Online Payments

How are you handle your online payments can vary depending on the business you are in. If you’re dealing with new customers and the general public you’ll probably want to take credit and debit card payments. If your business already has merchant status, you can use an online processor to handle your card payments.

There are also various third party solutions such as PayPal, WorldPay, Protx which process the transactions for you. These are great for small businesses who do not want the expense of setting up their own merchant accounts.