MarketeerMum.com A Mum’s experience of working from home using the Internet

So you're looking to have an ecommerce web site created and need a fast, affordable way to start selling online - but you're not sure where to start?This article answers your most common questions!Here, you'll find out what three steps you need to build a thriving ecommerce store.

1. Create your online business plan – You have to know what you want to do before you can start an online business.Thankfully this isn't a long, boring process. It also doesn't have to be set in stone. 

   For starters, get a spiral notebook and jot down your plans for your website.What pages will you include? How many products will you carry? Where do you see your site in 3 months, 6 months or a year from now?What are your plans for this website and how will you set yourself apart from your competitors?

2. Hire a web designer – There are lots of e-commerce web site design companies out there.  To make sure you choose a reputable designer, look through their portfolio. 

   Ask for client references and read over their testimonials.  Many good designers will offer a free web design quote.  Take advantage of this and compare prices and features to get what you want.

3. Get a reliable shopping cart – There are about as many shopping cart solutions online as there are web designers, so finding a good one can be a challenge.  You can always ask your designer or web developer what they recommend. 

   The shopping cart can be customized to blend in perfectly with your web design, and you have all the tools you need to manage, ship and stock products with ease.  If you’re on a tight budget, you might also want to try a Yahoo! Store, although you can't always customize the design the way you want.

In the end, these three steps can get you up and running quickly with your own ecommerce web site.Here's to your online success! 

P.S. If you enjoyed reading this article, you can find even more web design tips at http://www.iElectrify.com

Posted under Ecommerce

Accepting credit cards online is massively important to any company wanting to actively sell goods and services on the Internet. Back in the early days of the Internet it was thought that relying on credit cards was not ideal, because it was forcing a real world technology to the Web. Various companies offered online payment currencies such as “flooz”, but the web-based currencies didn’t flourish. Therefore, ten years on from the launch of businesses online, still typing in credit card numbers to buy online and therefore accepting credit cards when trying to sell goods online is still as important as ever.

There are basically two ways to accept credit cards online. Let’s compare merchant accounts. Businesses can either sign up for a merchant account, which allows the business to process credit cards in their own business name, or the business can sign up with a third party processor, who actually processed the credit card orders for the merchant. Getting a merchant account has higher upfront costs, but has smaller per transaction charges. Using the services of a third party service provider costs less initially, but has higher per transaction charges.

Deciding whether or not to go for a full merchant account or use a third party payment service is just a question of crunching the numbers. Let’s look at two different business types and compare merchant account benefits…

In most cases, established businesses who are already trading locally and simply want to expand online will be suited to getting a merchant card processing account. Most likely, Usually they will already have an offline merchant account and will expand the remit of that account to also do “MOTO”, which is “Mail Order Telephone Order” credit card orders and only means that the card holder is not there at the time of purchase.

For small businesses starting to sell products online, it’s think about testing their marketing using a third-party processor. The advantage to the new business is that there’s hardly any upfront cost which means they can test their business model cheaply and easily. If the market is profitable, they can think about reducing the per-transaction fees by applying for their own credit card processing account. If the market isn’t profitable, they can quickly leave the marketplace without having paid significant upfront costs to get their own merchant account.

Posted under Ecommerce