It is important to note that there is a chronological sequence of events that occur when a person puts your business online. The intent of this series of articles is to give a comprehensive understanding of the eCommerce, rather than giving a series of step by step instructions. E-commerce on the Internet is one of the solutions “Integrated” you can try to take your business to the Web. In other words, a multitude of different applications and service providers are working together in unison to allow trade to work. The choices you make in relation to applications and services are proprietary in many cases, this means if you decide to have “X”, you must also have “Y” and cannot have “Z”. This is not as annoying as it sounds. Just stay with this in mind while examining each item. After reading these articles you can easily choose the solution that best suits their needs. You may find it more feasible to use the “Do it yourself at home” or else you may decide to outsource the entire process of business development and others do it for you. In any case, we try to make those decisions will be as easy as possible, and above all to understand what each step means to take.
Most responses will be fairly general in nature. However, we will give you enough information to start their own business or to communicate effectively with a Web development company.
Obviously there are many aspects to cover. However, opening an online business not unlike opening a physical store front of the house and above all, is much less expensive.
It is therefore important to understand that after reading these articles, you’ll have enough information to start choosing software, hosting providers, bank accounts, etc … and start your business on track.
Electronic commerce, Know Your Product
Knowing your product is important because it will determine in part the application and service provider requirements. Again we see that there is not much difference between the physical and the virtual world of business. For example, you would not buy glass shelves to sell screws.
Although section investigates orders on cart applications coming in more detail, it is important to present some important facts now on how this technology works, and how your product will determine the features and options required in your shopping cart.
The shopping cart application that makes things happens. Allows you to display their products, displays images, descriptions, and prices and provides the means for your customer to select the amount you wish to buy, check your purchase and enter your shipping and payment. For all this to work properly, there are some components that must work together, underneath it all are the databases on a Web server that contains the information for display and capture the information given by his client. Fortunately, you can buy all these functionalities through specific software or acquire through your hosting provider. In many cases these applications are free to buy a hosting. On the contrary, we have it is difficult to add features that do not come by default.
Consider for a moment their products. Some products are quite striking, as a nice bottle of perfume; on the other hand, some products have many variations, like a shirt with different sizes and colors. This is where you have to understand well that is what sells and you must have a shopping cart capable of handling these variations in output.
If you have a product that has variations out of the ordinary, you need to somehow modify or customize the shopping cart application. While most shopping carts can handle sizes and colors, can you find a problem for certain types of products?
For example, to select the metal alloy, size and type of a screw, or even to simply find a shopping cart that allows buy 100,000 bolts. In any case, you will find the application that suits us.
The key points to consider are:
1. “I can sell my product to the shopping cart application?
2. If so, how much will it cost?
3. If I do it myself … is it easy?
It is true that we have a situation somewhat complicated. Most products are quite simple and you probably will not have to worry about. In this case, be amazed by the ease of use of most of the applications available for online shopping.
The best thing to do is to clearly define what their products. Without getting into if you are building your website yourself or if you hire a company to do so, the availability of accurate and concise information about your product will greatly facilitate all the work.
Here is a checklist of things about your product you should identify:
1 – How many different items I have in total? (Rule: If you have your own price …. It is an individual item).
2 – How many categories? Be as detailed as possible:
* Clothing
o Men
+ (1) Casual
+ (2) Formal
o Women
+ (1) Casual
+ (2) Formal
* Accessories
3-Variation of product (size, color, make, model …).
4-The weight of product, price, classification by size…
5-As you may have thought, not a bad idea to consider what products complement each other, to increase sales by offering customers products that they may need, (This is called cross-promotion, and is often a possibility of many cars purchases).
Choose a hosting provider to have assistance if you need help, ventics.com offers economical hosting packages to see commerce Hosting & Domains section.
E-Commerce, Security
First of all explain the excitement and hype around the issue of security. Just consider for a moment as any information you leave your computer and start your journey on the Internet, is, for all purposes, public domain. In other words, if someone were willing, you could get your data and do with as he pleased. It’s not as easy as that, but a reality to consider.
The main concern that his client will have on safety is whether your payment information, usually in the form of a credit card number will be sent over the Internet or not, given the possibility of ending up in the wrong hands. You may be worried about the place in which to store that information, and the possibility of a hacker attack to the database where are stored their credit card numbers.
The solution is SSL (Secure Socket Layers) and digital certificates. These two aspects are out of answer to our intentions, the digital certificate is a virtual signature used to confirm that a particular Web site (actually the server that hosts) uses SSL when transmitting or receiving data. This function is only required in the pages of your site where you ask the customer’s payment information. Without going into technical details, suffice to say that without SSL and Digital Certificate, no one will buy their products.
You can request a security certificate by contacting us now.
Trade Accounts
Let me explain what a merchant account and why you need one. Trade accounts are different from the usual bank accounts in the company in terms that allow you to accept credit cards or debit cards as a form of payment from their customers. When you get a merchant account you get a merchant identification number and a POS (point of sale terminal). The POS has the ability to “communicate” over conventional telephone lines as a fax. This allows you to “pass” a credit card or debit card, which reads the magnetic strip and record customer information. The POS sends this information and purchase details to the relevant financial institution to authorize the transaction (Visa, AMEX, etc.). The bank electronically responds with a confirmation that there are sufficient funds or credit or denies the transaction. If the POS is damaged there is a toll free number where you can perform operations verbally.
A merchant services account for Internet transactions have a fundamental difference is that there is no physical POS, unless there is what we call a virtual POS, which is not otherwise permit the bank to accept payments in question over the Internet without a physical credit card. It is clear that the precautionary measures by banks are highest, since anyone could send card numbers stolen. This “permission” will be accompanied by a specific application that is “built” on our website that allows users to enter their card details securely. In many cases the online store even has the card number, but simply receives electronic confirmation of the bank that the user has paid X amount of money and correctly, it is sufficient to approve the transaction.
1. There are several ways that you can get a merchant account: Your institution “Bank of the company” wills most likely trade accounts. If you can get a merchant account with your bank, consider it seriously.
2. Non-banks, these are entities that accept the establishment of merchant accounts for online payments.
3. Your hosting provider may have some sort of deal with banks or bank to facilitate the creation of a trading account.
You would do well to check what are the fees and account terms of trade. A relatively unknown on Internet transactions is the requirement to send the product first before charging the customer’s card. Obviously you must authorize the card first to confirm that funds are available, or the card is not stolen, but the movement of money into account, should be made after the shipment is under way. On the other hand some trade accounts, especially banks, “outdated” charging inflated fees for each transaction over the Internet or even do not allow this type of transaction.
Here are some considerations to take into account:
1. The merchant account provider you select may have some impact on the shopping cart you can choose. This has to do with real-time transactions via the button “Pay now” connect with the authorized entity. You have to choose a shopping cart according to the method of payment of the account of commerce, so as to integrate consistently since otherwise it would have to enter transactions by hand. Check the implementation of your trading account to see cart applications support. Typically, support most common applications, which are providing free hosting providers.
2. The transaction price of each trading account is different from credit cards, and without fear to negotiate with your bank and forget to be faithful to any bank. There are many unfair fees then we can cause an upset. Oddly enough you can negotiate everything. Even giants like PayPal (see below) as long as our sales volume is important.
3. PayPal, ePages, Click-and-buy and other: For users of eBay PayPal have no mystery. It is a means of payment in which the buyer and seller only exchange among themselves their email addresses. In this way both buyer and seller trust their bank account numbers or credit card company as a macro PayPal (owned by eBay) that has gained confidence after hundreds of millions of successful business transactions in recent years. In this case PayPal acts as an intermediary so that the buyer does not give your bank details to the seller if not simply authorize a payment through eBay. To authorize an income immediately appears on the seller’s PayPal account and this can no longer be canceled by the buyer. Parallel to this system there are other more minor competitors. In Spain, we can cite ePages owned by Bankinter. Open an account with either system, both seller and buyer is free. As discussed, including PayPal fees are negotiable, but yes, after being sold 3 or more months of 3000 € per month.
Want to order?
There are many options for displaying your product and receive orders online. The most basic solutions do not consist of nothing more than simple HTML forms. If you only have 1 or 2 are products that may be all you need. However, if you have more items to sell and there is the possibility that your customer can buy you more than one at a time, you should consider other more comprehensive solutions.
Apart from the simple forms, the solutions are divided into two:
- Scripts free / shareware (Java, CGI, etc.).
- Hosted Applications
The scripts have the advantage that it can cost little or no money. In some cases they are a viable solution. There are some disadvantages, however, when compared with applications that offer hosting companies:
* More difficult installation.
* Increased difficulty in terms of maintenance and upgrade pricing.
* Limited ability to display special promotions.
* Normally not allow cross-promotion.
* There may be compatibility problems with certain browsers.
* Do not have utilities for managing the portfolio.
* There are limitations to manage databases. They can make the browser crash when overload.
For many applications, scripts freeware / shareware available on the developer will probably have a demo version to try. It should also be able to download that version and install it on your server to check whether it meets your needs, do not be fooled by simple pictures of how the program, try it. When considering a web application for their business will not leave any fringe at the time of listing your needs and above all take into account future needs. You may see as enough of a certain application possibilities in the future but not allowed to implement new options, with the damage that this implies.
The vast majority of hosting providers include a shopping cart option, usually free to its customers. These applications have a complex and specific programming to interact with databases and meet all the needs required by electronic commerce. In a dynamic display of products, pricing, taxation, total costs are calculated, have maintenance, reporting, client tracking and many more. In some cases allow you to perform special functions such as cross-promotions based on customer habits, customize the content to regular customers, etc. Many of these applications can be used for Business to Business (B2B) eCommerce Web sites. In fact it is easier to run a business B2B – for the simple that most transactions are for pre-accredited customers that have already been addressed. This eliminates the need for merchant accounts, card processing, etc., since these transactions are usually paid by check or wire transfer.
Because of this integration with databases and dynamic display of content, these applications require an owner compo0nente server side; this is often referred to as the “back-end ecommerce. Naturally, it makes sense for the Hosting provider to include these e-commerce options as part of their value-added services.
In any case always is the option to search directly for a software vendor, purchase and install applications directly on our server, always check the compatibility of these.
The real beauty of shopping cart applications is centralized in the fact that all this, including the initial configuration of the stock, you can do from your browser. Most hosting providers even offer services to help companies that need support in the creation and maintenance of their online businesses.
Some of the most important advantages of hosted eCommerce applications include:
Although centralized applications cost more than most applications, scripts, numbers have to do to verify that this is true. We must not forget the time of installation, the learning curve, and the time used to include the stock. Also as mentioned, many hosting companies provide a free eCommerce hosting by hiring them.
* Significantly easier to configure initially.
* Much easier to maintain in terms of price and product update
* Management of stock from your web browser
* Additional functions for monitoring and managing the portfolio.
* The business can grow or shrink depending on the needs.
* You may have additional features such as cross-promotions and additional options.
* You can integrate transaction processing in real time easily.
Remember to have the list of features of their products when comparing the various options you research your options. Unless you have thousands and thousands of articles, or special needs applications centralized shopping cart are the preferred solution. We recommend that after reading this guide will go through our comparison of e-commerce hosting.
Online payment methods
In the previous section we have seen the most commonly used types of accounts to accept payments online. Let’s see now what the payment methods available to us are.
There are a lot of options when it comes to online payment methods, and choice of one or more of these methods depend on whether we are a business client to Business, B2C, Business to Business or B2B. Some of these options include credit cards, debit cards, bank transfers, etc… The most common method of payment for B2C is the credit card, while the majority of B2B transactions and often by wire transfers. In any case, your shopping cart application will certainly have several methods of receiving payments and prepare the shipping information.
This brings up different options depending on the type of transaction to be performed. In the case of B2B business, as stated above, the majority of revenue is by check or bank transfer, then be a matter of confirming the economic status of the buyer before shipping. Normally take into account the relationship of trust between buyer and supplier.
In the event that our business is B2C, i.e., an online store, then the usual method of payment is credit card and therefore will have two options.
Manual processing is as it sounds and involves the following:
* Authentication: Ensures that the number of credit card is legitimate and not stolen
* Authorization: Confirms that funds in the buyer’s account and the reserve for such sale.
* Confirmation – This starts the process of transfer to your account.
These steps are carried out by entering the card information on a touch-tone phone or through the physical POS are available for this purpose. Authentication and authorization occur simultaneously, while the confirmation must be made after the goods have been shipped. This is little known in Internet transactions unless they have been involved in a business by mail / phone; you can not initiate the transfer of funds until the product has been sent. In any case this depends on the country in which it is sold, although it is very common in the laws of Western countries.
The real time data processing removes almost all human involvement. However, it is considerably more complicated in relation to what happens behind the scenes. Involves the cooperation of different independent service providers including banks, bank customers, credit card companies and big banks that manage them all. They all relate to your business through the Buy Now button. “Amazing, is not it?
Although this seems extremely difficult, their hosting company, your bank, the developers of eCommerce applications, etc. have worked hard to make all this simple. In fact there are companies other than banks that provide this service too. But be careful. Its main source of help in this process will be your hosting provider. Note that once hired their web hosting plan, your provider will not make money because you sell more or less, what your opinion is the most independent, well known all compatibility issues that may arise between different applications and is better prepared technically the “Helpdesk” banks ..
Regardless of the varying cost of a real-time system, we can conclude from their use can very quickly become indispensable. Consider for a moment to process 120 transactions by hand, to an average of 4 minutes (on a good day) for the transaction, do the math…. Just to 8 hours. Therefore strongly recommend you start your business with integrated real-time transactions will save time and money later.
You can expand the information in our article: Internet Payment Methods currently available
Marketing for your shop
“Build it and they will come” only works if you sell apartments in a great city, and on the internet or so. This philosophy has no effect on commerce Web sites. It is imperative that we take an active role in marketing your Web site, the important thing here is the word “active.”
It is assumed that you must include your WWW address all traditional media that is involved. This includes business cards, letterhead, newspaper, custom pages, TV, radio, pens and other merchandising, etc…. Well, I see that you get the idea. Apart from this critical practice, you must also market their e-commerce company active on the Internet.
The following Internet marketing strategies are entire books dedicated to exposing their respective virtues. You can try for yourself any or all of these techniques for yourself or you can outsource these tasks to professionals. In any case, what should not is to ignore this need.
* Affiliate programs – very effective program where you pay the owner of a website (other than your competitor) to redirect customers to its Web site so that these visits will become sales. Is achieved by using banners and text links to your site strategically located on the Web site of its members and by complicated applications to ensure all sales are rewarded effective.
* Directories of payment: specialized vertical markets that charge a fee to include a link to your website.
* Banners: advertising graphic images are linked to your site normally placed on high traffic sites. Rates are charged by “printing” (the display by a user of your banner) on the basis of more recent statistics site. For example, for a fee of 20 € for every thousand impressions of your banner (CPM), if the Web site received 1,000,000 views this month and your banner is rotated with the banners of other companies in the ratio of 1:10), you pay € 20,000.00, which obviously is something that is only available to medium and large enterprises.
* Submit the website to a search engine, Lycos, Google, Yahoo, etc… It is free, but it’s hard work to achieve a good position in a search for a particular keyword.
* Adwords advertising campaigns are displayed on the side of Google and Yahoo when you search: They are almost essential when embarking on a major Web business and require some skill.
* Reciprocal Links: We negotiate with another Web site we do not have the authority to place a link to your website on ours and vice versa. It is imperative, and perhaps the best and cheapest way to get our business flourishes.
* Banner Exchange Programs. These are programs where the number of times that our banner on a Web site depends on the number of times published a banner on another site, for example in 1:3 ratio
* Web Rings: These exchange programs link text around a specific issue that allowed a visit to the “See the following Web ring, for example,” The Star Trekkers of America. ”
If you are planning on creating a business of considerable size, we recommend that you hire professionals to define it a good strategy to maximize their profits.
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