The whys and hows of e-commerce

• Why limit your sales to word of mouth or passers by?
• Why not introduce a shop front into around 23 million homes in the UK alone.

There are many e-commerce products, solution providers, web design agencies and IT consultants out there. From freely distributed software to bespoke solutions, the quality, price and final results vary hugely. Even choosing the correct solution for your requirements will require in-depth research and a significant investment of your time.

Do businesses that decide to open a shop build the store themselves? Not unless they are part of a large, established company and for which, even then, specialists will handle most aspects. But success lies in knowing who to use and carefully managing the risks involved. Nothing replaces good research at the outset and then keeping your eyes open!

So what do you have to do to get going?

Stripping it down to the basics, you need to be able to:

• Display your products or services
• Accept payment for those products or services

Let's look at each of these:

Display your products or services

Attracting new customers and retaining existing ones requires the provision of a user-friendly, simple environment for you to establish an online relationship with your customers. As has been mentioned earlier you are about to introduce an online shop window, which requires the following features:

Accept Payment for those Products or Services

This will generally mean that you will require the ability to process credit cards, either with a PDQ machine or by using an automated real-time credit/debit card processing system. There are, as usual, many products around that will accomplish this but often they require an established relationship with a bank and a merchant ID number. Should you not have either of these, there are a number of alternatives including using what is typically described as a bureau service.

Once you have decided how to accept payments, all you really require to sell online is a system that notifies you of an order and then provides you with the means of fulfilling that order (such as printing out of addresses and invoices). Nothing more complicated than that.

Start-Up Costs

Not surprisingly, the more features you want, the more it could cost you. If you need or want something specialised you will often be expected to pay extra for it. You will also need a project manager to oversee the development… The list goes on and so the potential for costs to spiral out of control increases. At this stage it is important not to be enticed by a long and often convincing shopping list of facilities that are, in practice, simply not necessary for a successful installation.

The temptation to overpay for such facilities originated in companies falling victim to the e-commerce promise of huge profits that would quickly offset the exorbitant online set-up fees. And then to everyone's dismay the e-commerce bubble burst! Now, with the benefit of hindsight and some recent significant developments in easy-to use technologies, not only must you avoid investing large amounts on e-commerce you should also allow your business to expand slowly and have your website gradually adapt to the changes through experience. Gone is the need for a company to trade for years in the red and never be fully able to utilise the potential for online trade because it cannot grow. Accessible, low start-up fees and flexibility are now readily available to all.

This explains the principal reason for Agreeable Notion developing evoWeb - in recognising that a level playing field is now available to large and small businesses alike, specifically because the cost and complexity barriers to entry to the world of e-commerce have been removed. In other words small businesses with limited budgets can now cost effectively compete with the biggest websites out there whilst not overstretching themselves financially.

You should therefore plan for the following from your e-commerce software and the back office relating to your website.

• Easy to use
• Low administration overheads
• Feature rich facilities
• Cost effectiveness
• Adaptability

What you should aim for?

As we mentioned previously, you don't want to be soaking up your time worrying about the technical side of selling goods on line, keep to what you know and let an expert worry about the machine. Keeping this in mind you should expect the following from your e-commerce software and the administration side of your web-site

What you really want is a system that notifies you of an order, how to fulfill that order then provides you with the means (such as printing out of addresses and invoices). Nothing more complicated than that.

OK, now that you have had a good overview, you should look around and see what's on offer. You will quickly appreciate that evoWeb is outstandingly simple, both in concept and use - and is remarkably cost competitive.. We have developed a package that requires very little of your own time to set up and still includes all that is needed to sell online and prosper in e-commerce. In a nutshell it is designed to give you the edge over your competition.

Look no further, click here: evoWeb

What have we missed?

Getting people to your site to buy... well that's altogether a different subject. See our marketing and search engine optimisations info: click here