Prayagasoft - web designer India, Ecommerce developer india, Ecommerce design

Taking the Money

In selling something you'll want to be paid as quickly, safely and painlessly as possible. Ecommerce now has many options. Starting with the simplest, these are:

1. Display your goods online, but take payment off-line - by check, bank transfer, credit card details given over the phone.

2. Display your goods online and take payment online through some simple wallet system .

3. Display and take payment online, but employ a payment service provider . A link to your shopping cart or catalogue will seamlessly transfer the customer to the payment provider for immediate card processing, transferring the customer back for you to handle the purchase. You can use your online merchant account if you possess one, but that is not required. The payment service provider will verify the credit card purchase, collect the payments, deduct the commissions, and send you the balance, usually by bank transfer monthly.

4. Display and take payment online, but use your own online merchant account , which you have obtained from your local bank or from a Merchant Account Provider .

Wondering how to link your site to the payment process? Links will be built in automatically if you use an out-of-the box shopping cart, employ a web design company, or rent space on an online ecommerce-hosting site. Otherwise - if you've built your own site - you'll have to add code to the pages concerned. With payment service providers that's fairly easy: they'll supply a snippet of code for you to paste in. Using your own merchant account, particularly if you're hosting the site on your own server, will require liaison with the credit card processing company, and good programming experience. You'll probably have to employ a professional.

Promoting Your Site

With hundreds of new ecommerce sites appearing every day on the Internet, it's getting mighty crowded out there. How is your site going to be noticed? By:

1. Getting out a press release .

2. Featuring in business directories, in online and off-line versions.

3. Submitting to the search engines , perhaps employing a site optimization compan y to get a high ranking.

4. Using the pay-per-click search engines, which charge a few cents to a few dollars for each visitor that clicks through to your site with a particular search phrase.

5. Signing up other sites as affiliates , paying them a commission on the sales they achieve for you.

6. Using search engine ads .

7. Persuading other sites to link to yours, possibly through a reciprocal links director y.

8. Winning awards for your site.

9. Offering online competitions, introductory deals and promotions .

10. Providing free and helpful information on your site.

11. Advertising off-line in newspapers and specialist magazines.

In Detail

Each ecommerce business is different , of course, and brings further considerations into play. To get a broader perspective we suggest you read the help-sheets located in the top right panel of the site, and consult the directories for ecommerce resources and product comparisons .

Will The Business Be Successful?

Now the vital question. Having followed these steps faithfully, you can surely expect your site to be successful?

Possibly - if you're in a particularly favorable position. You're the sole suppliers of spare parts for some particular machinery. Or yours is the only guest house in a popular tourist area. Yes, in those cases, free information may be all you need. Similarly if you have only an academic interest in commerce, and are not running an e-business yourself.

But in all other cases we have to issue this stark warning. Ecommerce is not easy, and if you follow the blandishments of advertising and ecommerce journalism it's unlikely that you'll even get your expenses back.

The early e-business casualties believed otherwise, of course, and there are still many sites, books and e-books that assure you that ecommerce is entirely a matter of following certain procedures. It isn't, and you can readily see why.

1. Ecommerce is an extremely crowded marketplace. In many areas you'll need a well-researched strategy backed by a large marketing budget.

2. It's easy to get locked into the wrong goal or business model - as the spectacular dotcom failures discovered (read about them in our e-book).

3. You've built a site and then thought about promoting it. Wrong. Your site has to be a selling machine, which means, from the very first, designing around some well-honed selling proposition. That in turn calls for careful thought, competitor research and detailed analysis.

4. The number of ecommerce products and services is immense, and all are heavily promoted. Without specialist advice you'll make the wrong choice, which is costly in money, time and sales.

5. Ecommerce has its own insider knowledge, which sets newcomers at a disadvantage. You need to look beyond the 'How I made a fortune and so can you ' sort of guides, which generally enrich their originators more than partners.