10 Steps to get your Business eCommerce ONLINE

Business owners striving to sell online have many questions about what is needed. This section is meant as a short overview/checklist of things you will need to conduct business on the Internet.

Each business has different/unique requirements, but the basics are shared in common by nearly all businesses. We have tried to list them in the order that they seem to occur, i.e. step 1 is generally required before step 2, and so on.

Should you decide to work with us, we can assist you along the way, and we will actually be performing many of these steps for you.

STEP 1: DEFINE YOUR BUSINESS AND PRODUCT ATTRIBUTES

This may seem obvious, but you need to understand what you are selling, and so on. If you are in business already, then this is already done. The basics of selling online and offline are mostly the same from an business operations standpoint.

At this point, your focus should be on understanding the products you are selling, e.g. if you are selling software vs. clothing goods, because they have very different characteristics, etc. You should also start defining the requirements that you will need to be supported by your chosen "shopping cart" or e-commerce storefront platform as you define your product attributes.

It is also prudent at this time to do walk flows of the sequence by which you expect your customers to order, and any "custom" logic that must be applied (i.e. must order in quantities of 3, 6, 9, user must upload logo, etc). After defining how your customers order from you, you should also define your return policy, privacy policy, security policy, etc at this time.

STEP 2: SELECT A DOMAIN

Why is this step 2...because good domain names are VERY hard to come by anymore, so you may find that you have to change your business marketing & positioning strategy if your preferred domain names are not available. Short and sweet for the domain name is best. Consult with your Intellectual Property advisers/attorneys if required.

Once you have picked a domain, register it. We offer a service to do this directly for you (see DOMAIN REGISTRATION for more details), but you can use your registrar of choice. Do not worry about who is hosting your domain at this time. Your domain name can be "pointed" (by updating it's DNS records) to your real server (or hosted server) later. Of course if Tech Solutions is your Hosting company, then we take care of all of this for you automatically.

STEP 3: SELECT A SITE DESIGN

Site design is a critical part of the process. The main reason for this is that a consumer who purchases products over the Internet always has a concern as to whether the company they are buying from is legitimate or not. The Internet isn't like a regular 'brick & mortar' storefront, in that you can physically go into the store and deal with the people there. We consumers sacrifice this for the convenience of 24 hour a day, 7 day a week shopping online. But we still need to know that we are dealing with a legitimate company.

The web site of a company sends a clear message to the consumer. A badly designed website sends a message that "this business doesn't care about their web appearance - how I can feel that they care about me as a customer?", whereas a well designed web site sends the message, "This company has taken pride in their electronic appearance and therefore I should be safe dealing with them". This is a critical thing to realize with eCommerce - site quality = more sales. Plain and simple.

Tech Solutions offer a range of pre-defined site styles that can be used for your web site look & feel, that are specifically chosen to send the right messages to your customers. For a full list of our sample sites, or to consult with our web site design team, CONTACT US.

STEP 4: GET YOUR INTERNET MERCHANT ACCOUNT

In order to sell online, you have to have an "Internet merchant account". This is the same as a normal retail POS system, except your bank has authorized you to accept credit card payments via the Internet. Contact your business bank to start. They will tell you what Payment Gateways are supported. You will need that when choosing your shopping cart.

This step can take from 1 day to several weeks, so start on it early. Your bank will need to see a hard-copy printout of your WORKING web site, but that will have to wait until step 6 is completed below. They know this, don't panic when they say they have to see your completed "shopping cart" :)

You should also think about what payment types you will be accepting: Check, Credit Card, PayPal, Purchase Orders, etc...

Your bank will want to charge you a one-time startup fee (typically $0 to $150), and a monthly service fee, PLUS a per-transaction fee, PLUS your credit card discount fees for credit card orders! Do not be surprised at this later.

STEP 5: GET YOUR SHOPPING CART SYSTEM SETUP

At Tech Solutions, we specialize in OSCommerce, an Open Source PHP based shopping cart system with MySQL back-end database. Our servers have this configured and ready to go, so you will need this setup for your company.

OSCommerce comes with pre-defined styles that you can use for it, or you can have us customize it to your liking. Pricing varies based on the amount of work involved in customizing, so if its minimal (and usually this is the case), you should be able to get up and running inexpensively here.

For more information on OSCommerce, visit their web site at www.oscommerce.com.

STEP 6: GET YOUR SECURED SSL CERTIFICATE SETUP

Your customers will expect that if they are dealing with your company online, that their transaction details are secured. This means that you will need a 'SSL' certificate setup for your business. These are pretty straightforward to get, but can be complex to setup in a web server. Don't worry - Tech Solutions provides this service for you as part of the setup of your eCommerce system.

STEP 7: SETUP YOUR SITE

Once designed, and you have the SSL certificate in place, Tech Solutions can then setup your site on our servers for you.

STEP 8: ENTER OR UPLOAD YOUR PRODUCTS

Now that you have a web site, shopping cart, internet merchant account, you're almost ready to open for business. You will need to use your shopping cart system to enter your products into their "database". Most "shopping carts" allow you to do this via web based interface or bulk upload routine. We support both.

This step also usually involves uploading product pictures, define the categories and departments you want on your store, etc. Ancillary duties include understanding your local tax law requirements, shipping requirements, etc...

STEP 9: TEST YOUR SITE

Of course, it always makes sense to test your site before going "live".

STEP 10: START YOUR MARKETING PLAN

Now that you have a full live store site, you should turn on your marketing (e.g. Google, other search engines, direct mail, etc) to attract visitors to your site.

Marketing is key in attracting visitors and generating customers. There are so many ways to bring traffic to your site, but combining our SEARCH ENGINE SUBMISSION services, along with tricks such as selling some items on high traffic sites such as eBay, but clearly telling customers about YOUR web site, will help move over customers who become loyal users of your eCommerce facilities. Also advertising your web site just like a business would advertise its store is advisable. Think in terms of newspaper, radio, etc. based on your budget for marketing, of course.

And don't forget to build a mailing list of interested parties. This will ensure that new specials, new products, etc. that are offered are announced appropriately. Yes, there are laws against SPAMming (unsolicited advertising) that you should be aware of, but assuming you are not SPAMMING, Tech Solutions can offer you electronic MAILING LIST services to help get the word out about your new store.

As you can see, there are a wide range of services to allow you to get your business online and start trading today. Tech Solutions have helped out hundreds of small businesses who are looking to build a web pressence, some of which are making millions in sales right now on their systems. So if you are interested in doing the same, CONTACT US to get more information. We'd love to help.