eCommerce Websites for Beginners (Stephen Grisham Sr.)
Sep 13, 2009
eCommerce continues to be a promising alternative, commercially. Regardless of economic conditions, eCommerce continues to expand. It is a profitable enterprise, and it is possible that you can earn a living with it once you become a success at it.
What are good products to sell? When it comes to picking a product, go with what you know. If you happen to be a crafty person, you might decide to market supplies for hobbyist.
Getting it set up.
1. A good domain name is essential.
(a) Stay away from hyphenated domain names (it's too easy for people to forget the hyphen and end up on another site).
(b) If possible at all, pick a ".com" TLD. If .com is already used, and you pick .net or .biz, people may key in .com out of habit and end up visiting somebody else's website.
2. Hosting will be required. The server you put your website on is called a "host". Be selective. There are a lot of bargain hosts available. However, it's true that it's sometimes worth it to pay a little more. You have to have a dedicated IP address as well as a SSL certificate if you want to have individuals pay directly on your website (See item 4, below to discuss payment options.)
3. You have to have eCommerce software (shopping cart software). An excellent brand is OSCommerce. It is relatively simple to learn and it's free. OSCommerce has themes available (also known as skins or templates). There is also no charge for ZenCart and it is reasonably simple to learn. It also has themes that you can use to change the look. A PHP programmer will be needed to make any major changes the appearance of either of these packages. Several eCommerce packages are available that need a programmer to load and set up. This will generally require a lot of money, and nearly all of the large eCommerce packages won't operate with a shared hosting plan because it needs extensive server resources. So figure on paying more for hosting for a deluxe software package.
4. The requirements for accepting payment. You will need a payment gateway and a "merchant" account. It is really not feasible to operate an eCommerce site unless you will accept credit cards. In the event that you obtain (or already have) a merchant account, you need to be sure your bank accepts web-based credit card payments. While the majority will, there are those that won't.
Do you want to avoid the hassle of using a merchant account and gateway? There is an answer. Using Paypal really simplifies this process. They provide the payment gateway as well as the merchant account all in one, plus they can even do all the secure transactions on their website so you will not need an SSL certificate. One other gateway that takes care of your order payments on their secure page is 2Checkout. One excellent gateway is authorize.net and, as far as I know, just about every shopping cart has a plug-in to utilize authorize.net. With authorize.net, you will have to have a secure site and your own merchant account. You will be required to pay a percentage of your earnings regardless of whether you choose to create a merchant account and gateway or use Paypal. Usually, the most costly option is Paypal. If your line of business does not allow any more than a very small markup, you will probably need to do the legwork of the gateway and merchant account, yourself.
About the AuthorStephen Grisham, Sr. is a copy writer for InfoServe Media, LLC. If you are looking for a Houston web site designer, look no further. If you need a few changes to your current site, InfoServe Media also offers website maintenance whether we host your site or not..