E-commerce
Good e-commerce tips
Plan for good service
Buying online is wonderful and most clients will shop around, pick their products and pay for them all by themselves, but there is always those situations where someone is not sure about something or can not find an specific information. A good online shopping is prepared for that, with easy to find human interaction, either through e-mail, phone or online chat.
Have a refund policy in place and easy to find
Show clear information about delivery and freight
Prepare good pictures of your products
Ensure your clients details are kept secure
Buying over the web is safe, quick and convenient. A recent report from consulting company AC Nielsen shows that four in five Australian Internet users are shopping online. Books, air tickets and accommodation are some of the most common e-commerce products, while over half of the population has adopted Internet banking. In 2009, the online advertising market only is expected to go over $2 billion.
The small business sector is no different, with the majority of SMEs doing transactions online and selling products and services directly or indirectly through the net. If your website has been successfully informing costumers and bringing them to you personally or over the phone, now may be time to use the full potential of the Internet and complete transactions entirely electronically.
Setting up on online shop and opening its doors to costumers takes some time and involves a good amount of technology to expose your products on the right way and also ensure secure transactions for your costumers.
A typical online shop will have at least three parts: the web pages with information about the products being offered; a shopping cart where the clients can pick their products and prepare a final order for checkout; and a payment gateway allowing the safe interaction between your site and the financial institution processing the payment, such as a credit card operator, your bank or online systems such as PayPal.
A good e-commerce systems will also have a range of back-office tools to help you manage your shop. In its simplest form, it will offer you an easy way to add or remove products, manage your orders and change particular informations such as products description, sale price or delivery details. In its most complex form, an e-commerce tool can help you managing things such items in stock or giving you detailed business reports on what is being searched or bought.
Depending on your preferences and the scale of your project, it may be worth to invest heavily in one of those robust systems. Or, in other cases, a good and flexible low-cost e-commerce solution or even a free open-source application is all you need. For those cases where intense customisation is an issue, it is always possible to create a brand new shopping cart just for a specific project.
How we can help
Act as a consultant to fine tune your project and help you choosing the ideal e-commerce solution for your business.
Design your website or the area of your website where your products will be exposed.
Install, configure and customize your shopping cart.
Set up the secure infra-structure to enable your site to interact with financial service providers and process payments.
Teach you how to use the back-office management tools of your online shop.
Advise on issues about integrating your e-commerce system with other management systems you may have in place.