With an ecommerce website, your web designers will take care of the design and development of the website. But they will not be able to do all of the work.
There are certain elements which require your input, here is a brief run-down:
1. Banking
With your new e-commerce website you will want to accept payments online, via a credit or debit card. To do this you will require an Internet Enabled Merchant Account. This can either be through your current bank, or through another bank. We have found Barclays to be one of the cheapest.
You will also need a secure payment gateway to enable you to take credit card details and process the transaction. We generally recommend using SagePay, as it is reasonably priced, secure and scalable.
Some secure payment systems give you a merchant number and transaction processing in one package – such as WorldPay and PayPal.
2. Products & stock
This may seem obvious, but will need some consideration.
You will probably have decided which products you would like to sell online. Now you need to source photography for all of your products. Don’t be tempted to steal pictures from other websites, unless you are given specific permission, you will be violating the copyright of the website owner. If you source your products through a wholesaler, you might find they can supply photos for all products.
As well as photography, you will need product descriptions. Again, you’re supplier maybe able to supply these. However, it is worth writing your own as they will be unique, which is beneficial for search engine optimisation.
If you have an offline shop as well, you will need to consider how to manage stock levels between your two shops. You will need either assign stock to the website, or share stock levels between the two shops via a management system.
3. Delivery
Delivery is generally the last thing you will be thinking about – but actually it is probably the most important. As a mail order shop, your courier will need to be reliable and inexpensive. You will need to know exactly how to price delivery on the website. This can either be by piece, by weight or flat-rate – depending on your product type.
4. Order process
Who will handle the orders once they start flooding in? Most e-commerce systems will generate an automatic email confirmation for an order, which can double up as a delivery note. It can then be picked, packed and shipped.
5. Marketing
Online shopping can be a very competitive market, unless you have a very niche product. And unless you have an unlimited budget, you will need to be willing to get your hands dirty and learn some basic search marketing techniques.
Search marketing is very important, but other forms of marketing are also equally as important – magazine adverts, newspaper adverts, word of mouth, offers and sales.
So, if you have read through these tips and are still keen to start selling online, give us a call – 01789 292010.