If you are looking for a definition of e-commerce, an explanation of how it works and what it can do for you, look no further. This article aims to give you an idea of what the theme entails and how it can be used to the benefit of your business.
Electronic commerce (electronic commerce) is the process of selling goods or services over the Internet. The advantages of using the Internet as a platform to sell your products are numerous, but the pitfalls are many. To avoid pitfalls and get the most out of this sales outlet, there are a few things to consider.
The e-commerce website
The e-commerce website is the place where your products can be found. A good way to start taking advantage of the Internet as a sales tool is to use an established website to advertise your products, such as eBay or Amazon. While this method ensures some exposure to your products, due to the constant traffic on these sites, the company you choose will charge you a fee for listing them and a commission once they are sold. This method is also limited in terms of forging your company’s online brand. Establishing your own eCommerce website gives you full control over how your products are listed and how the site looks. You can also use your own website to advertise contact details and allow visitors to make inquiries.
Get Visitors to Your Ecommerce Website
The appeal of established auction or sales websites is their constant traffic. When creating an ecommerce website for your own business, you will need to make sure people see it. This is an ongoing process known as SEO (search engine optimization) that ensures that search engines remove the correct information from your site and rank it as high as possible. Also, SEO includes promoting the site and should be an ongoing process.
Ecommerce software solutions
This is the system that runs on your website and creates the content for visitors to see. There are numerous e-commerce software solutions. They can be classified as follows:
Open source e-commerce solution – These solutions are free to download and try, but please note that they were developed by a community and as such cannot support your implementation.
Commercial e-commerce solution – These solutions are similar to open source packages, except that they are produced by a company and require a license to purchase. The advantage of this solution is that the company that produced the software can be trusted to provide support.
Custom e-commerce solution – These solutions are produced specifically for a website by a web design company. This should give you a unique looking online store and you can agree with the design company on the exact features you are looking for. While this may require the largest initial outlay, it will go a long way toward achieving a complete online presence for your business.
Ecommerce hosting
This is the service used to host your online store. There are many different ecommerce hosting service providers that provide suitable packages, but you will essentially need web space, server-side scripts (ASP or PHP for example), a database (to store your product information ) and an SSL certificate. An SSL certificate allows your visitors to encrypt the data they send to your site. This is essential to operating a store safely wherever you require visitors to enter sensitive information, such as their credit card details.
The hosting functions extend far beyond those mentioned above, but they are the essential requirements for setting up an e-commerce online store.
