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What is E-Commerce?
E-Commerce, or Electronic Commerce,
is a general term for any type of business, or commercial
transaction, that involves the transfer of information across the
Internet. Technological developments are now allowing users to
order to deliver goods and services over the web and even make
payments online.
What do I Need to Start an E-Commerce Site?
Beside the product or service you want to
sell, you need a Web site. This can either be an existing Website
to which you can add E-Commerce capabilities, or you can build the
site from scratch. Website should have Query and Order processing
Forms. Shopping cart should be implemented incase of products, A
back office system should be developed to keep track of online
orders.
Next you need some way of accepting on-line payments. This
normally means Peer to Peer (P2P) or credit cards, although there
are other options for very small or low-volume sites. Lastly, but
most importantly, you need to have a strategy for marketing your
site and attracting customers. This is far harder than you might
think.
How can I do business on the web?
Essentially, doing business on the Web can
be broken down into five main requirements.
On-Line Store
The obvious requirement is an on-line
store, or commerce-enabled Web site where goods or services can be
described and selected.
Payment Processing
While it is possible to run an on-line
store without accepting on-line payments, this is cumbersome and
rarely successful. Accepting on-line payments is therefore
essential - and at the moment this means credit cards or Peer to
Peer(P2P) System.
Shipping/Order Fulfillment
OK, so you've made your sale and now you've
got to deliver the goods. Just package them up and ship them off.
Easy-except what happens if you get dozens or hundreds of orders a
day?
Customer Service
Support, Complaints, Returns - the biggest
complaint about E-Commerce is the poor level of customer service
in the event of problems.
Promotion
The big one! Even if you do everything else
right, without successful website
promotion your on-line business will fail.
Can I do it by myself?
Yes of course you can, especially if your
requirements are straightforward or you are on a limited budget.
However, if you are planning a large site or have no previous
experience, hiring a professional may well save you a lot of time
and money. If you do build the site yourself, the trick is to know
your limitations, keep things simple and concentrate on the
priorities i.e. keeping the site easy to use, secure and reliable.
How can I enable my store to accept online
payments?
There are two ways of accepting payment
through website Peer to Peer(P2P) and Credit card. There are
Merchant Account providers which enable a website to accept online
payments. Whenever a customer purchases from on line store by
producing his credit card details, the payment is deducted online
from his bank account, and credited to the Shop Owners account.
How do I accept payments by credit card?
Firstly you need some secure method of
collecting credit card details from your customer. Most storefront
services or shopping cart software offers this facility. You then
have the option of processing these details manually, or using an
online credit card authorization system to process the payments.
This is obviously preferable, but there is an additional cost.
Finally, you normally will require a Merchant Account with a bank
or other financial institutions in which your payments can be
deposited. Note that not all Merchant Accounts are suitable for
Internet payments. It is possible to find payment processors who
do not require a Merchant Account, however these companies
inevitably have higher charges.
Do I have to accept
credit cards?
Generally yes, as about 95% of on-line
consumer transactions are by credit card. However low volume
sites, or sites that are linked to auction sales, may be able to
get by using one of the on-line payment services like PayPal. (In
fact PayPal offers premier and business accounts, which allow
credit cards to be accepted directly from Web sites at very
reasonable cost.)
There are other options like on-line checks, or more
unconventional methods like reverse SMS using mobile phones, which
may be useful for some specialized applications. For most small
businesses though, credit cards will be the normal system of
payment
How do I get customers to visit my site?
You have to work at it. Don't expect
customers to come flocking to your Web-store once you set it up.
Marketing is the hardest, but most important, part of selling
on-line. You can use search
engines promotions, banner ads or advertising mail shots to
attract customers. You can add content or community features to
your site to try and increase traffic, and therefore increase the
chance of making a sale. You can use off-line advertising. If you
do decide to open up an E-Commerce operation, nine times out of
ten it will be the effectiveness of your marketing that will make
the difference between success and failure.
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