What is an E-Commerce website all about?
For anyone who wants to sell products and accept payments through their website, a form of E-Commerce package is absolutely vital. E-Commerce software allows your users to make purchases on your website through the form of a shopping basket. The software package will then handle all payments and prepare the orders for you to dispatch. .
Every E-Commerce website development project essentially consists of two components: the storefront and administration areas. The storefront is the area of the website which your potential customers see, allowing them to browse or search your products and make purchases. The administration area of the site is the part which you, as the merchant, use to manage your online shop. Admin can add or edit products, enable discounts and manage shipping costs and payment methods as well as much more. This administration area is usually either accessed through a web browser or a desktop-based piece of software.
In addition to the two variations listed above, you may also be asked by your E-Commerce website development company to choose between a licensed and hosted shopping cart solution. In effect, licensed solutions are able to be downloaded and then installed on your web server. This usually incurs a one-time purchase fee, enabling you or your E-Commerce website development company to edit and customise the software as required. Alternatively, another option is a hosted solution which is situated on a remote server and is usually paid for on an interim basis. Some providers may also charge a percentage fee on sales.
What software packages should you use?
In terms of the most popular E-Commerce website development options available, many users choose to opt for Magento, a popular E-Commerce system which has over 100,000 users. There are a number of different options to choose from, including Enterprise and Small Business editions. Highwire, on the other hand, also has the facility to sell products on eBay and Facebook, allowing you to synchronise your inventory across multiple channels of E-Commerce. Another popular option is CubeCart, which is very flexible in terms of customisation and has a very simple pricing policy, making things much easier for you when choosing which package to go for.
On the open source front, Zen Cart is very easy to get started with and is fully customisable; as is osCommerce, a solution which is used on over 12,000 websites with an active community of 260,000 members. As osCommerce has been around for a long time in E-Commerce website development, a number of plugins and add-ons are also available. If you’re looking at a hosted option, Volusion is probably the most popular solution, but has many downsides as a hosted solution.
Let’s get started! What’s next?
There are literally thousands of different E-Commerce options available: the above mentioned ones are but a small selection of what’s out there. However, you should be prepared to be guided by your E-Commerce website development company for a number of reasons. Firstly, they will have set up many E-Commerce websites and will know which software packages are generally easiest to set up and operate. They will also usually be most familiar with one particular package, which gives you a number of advantages in terms of set-up – particularly if you are paying your E-Commerce website development company by the hour! Don’t feel you have to go with whatever they suggest, but you should certainly be prepared to take a look at their suggestions. After all, they’re the experts.
E-Commerce website development is not prohibitively expensive, but you must always bear in mind that a lot of work goes into setting up an E-Commerce website and the costs are great for the E-Commerce website development company: they have to purchase a software license, set up a hosting package for you and ensure that a safe and secure payment system is in place. This is all highly technical and time-consuming work and prices tend to reflect this. However, it’s worth bearing in mind that without an E-Commerce system you simply cannot sell online to the same market as you can with one. A well designed, set-up and calibrated E-Commerce package will ensure that you are able to stay more than one step ahead of your competition and reap the benefits of your new online sales. Done properly, the increase in business will far outweigh whatever investment you are required to make in terms of E-Commerce software development.
