Archive for June, 2008

30
Jun

Starting Your E-Commerce Site

Posted by admin in Ecommerce

So you’ve decided to start an e-commerce web site. Congratulations! There has never been a better time than now to start an e-commerce web site. To the average business person, starting an e-commerce site is a daunting task. The purpose of this article is to point you in the right direction and inform you of some of your options.

The first step in creating your e-commerce site is to decide how to create your site. Since e-commerce has exploded over the last few years, there are more design options. The “easier” option is to use an all in one package from one of the larger hosting companies. Another option is to use an e-commerce system like osCommerce or X-Cart. Finally, another option is you can have a web developer design a custom site for you. Now let’s take a look at these options.

All in One Packages
Are you new to the internet? This could possibly be the best option for you. Hosting companies such as GoDaddy, Yahoo, 1and1, and Homestead have created plans where you can setup e-commerce sites yourself using a sitebuilder. Instead of paying a large price for your site, you pay a monthly cost to cover hosting. For about $10 a month, you can have an e-commerce site.

E-Commerce Systems
Do you have a little experience with designing web sites? Then you can use an e-commerce system for your site. Systems such as osCommerce and X-Cart are full-functioning e-commerce solutions that make doing business easy. All you have to do is buy the hosting, install the software, and personalize the system. Although that is easier said than done, it is still a low cost solution.

Custom Design
If you’re looking for a specific type of e-commerce system or want a truly unique site, you can hire a web development company to design your site. While this is the more expensive option, you get what you pay for. If you choose the right company, you’ll get a designed to order e-commerce system and some search engine optimization. They can also provide information about online marketing and how to make your site successful.

Starting an e-commerce site is by no means an easy task, but it is a great idea. If done correctly, you can take your business to customers in different states, countries, or even continents! The door is in front of you, all you have to do is knock. Good luck with your online venture!

Discuss this article at ecommerceboards.com!
Eric Friese owns custom-ecommerce.com and is President of Tiger Web Solutions. Eric Friese has been in the web development industry for 10 years. Eric can be reached through the Tiger Web Solutions web site.

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An Exploding Marketplace

The world has become a busy place, with trillions of dollars changing hands each year in business transactions and consumer spending. While the customary method of doing business in person or via telephone is still in use, the growing trend is to conduct ecommerce transactions on-line, with the use of computers.

On-line revenues from ecommerce in the U.S. alone have grown from 24.1 billion in 2000, to over 100 billion in 2005. And, the number of on-line users in the U.S. has exploded from 124.7 million in 2000 to over 200 million.

Canada’s combined private and public online sales have also experienced a boom. Up almost 40% in 2003 from a 27% jump in 2002; public sector enterprises realized nearly $511.4 million in sales.

Along with the skyrocketing use of the virtual marketplace comes the need for special tools, such as ecommerce web hosting, ecommerce software, and the ecommerce shopping cart.

How Does it All Work?

Ecommerce web hosting provides a business web site with special tools for doing business over the internet. Features such as extended data storage and monthly data transfer capacities, security certificates, and complex data bases are required to make a business web site run smoothly.

Higher data capacities allow for the sheer size of a business site, and the enormous exchange of information involved. Security certificates make the site safe for monetary transactions, and databases such as SQL keep track of individual accounts, purchases, inventory, or any transaction.

The ecommerce shopping cart allows the customer to select items and then purchase them at a virtual check out stand, usually with several payment method options, such as credit cards and PayPal.

Businesses require skilled personnel to implement and monitor these special tools for marketing goods or services on-line. There are many ecommerce web hosting firms that meet these and other special needs for a successful ecommerce solution.

Acecomp.com offers experienced ecommerce web site design and hosting, and ecommerce solutions for any type ecommerce web site. Visit them on-line at www.acecomp.com

Max Sheppard is Co-Owner of Acecomp Plus at http://www.acecomp.com Customer Website Design, Website Development, E-Commerce and Content Management Solutions to maximize our clients online potential.

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Ecommerce is doing business online, the buying and selling of services and products over the web. It allows you to promote your goods or services, advertise promos, and tap into your sales targets in an easier way. Your clients will make their orders by browsing on your web site and send their payments through your merchant account, which in turn, transfers these payments to your bank account.

Thus, a permanent connection of your web site to the Internet is a basic requirement. This is what web hosting merchant accounts offer. They provide this complete and continuous link by allowing your site to occupy a space on their own web server, where all the information about your site is stored. Being connected to this server will enable you to acquire the all-time web accessibility, for it stays on for 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.

These web hosting merchant accounts will save you the cost of owning and maintaining the needed server. You just have to pay for their service. In looking for a web host, you need to consider their reliability and reputation history, the disk or storage space of their web server, and its capability of accommodating simultaneous access to your web site. Make sure there is a database server and scripting software, operating and web content management systems, and web interface.

And most significantly, make sure your web host offers payment processing capabilities such as SSL or Secure Sockets Layer, a communications protocol that provides security. This is very important since there are sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, that need to be encrypted to ensure that the information passes securely between you and your client, so as to prevent opportunity for fraud.

A web hosting ecommerce merchant account offers you the ability to accept all modes of payment in a faster, safer and more accessible means. It ensures you that all your payment transactions can be continuously processed anytime, may it be day or night, and that no piece of information in the communication and payment transaction process will be missed since your web site is online all the time.

Ecommerce Merchant Accounts provides detailed information on Ecommerce Merchant Accounts, Web Hosting Ecommerce Merchant Accounts, International Ecommerce Merchant Accounts, Offshore Ecommerce Merchant Accounts and more. Ecommerce Merchant Accounts is affiliated with Ecommerce Internet Merchant Accounts.

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