e-commerce
e-commerce websites & banking solutions to match your business
selling online and taking payments
It rarely happens that you set up your first e-commerce site and walk away to make money in your sleep. You will need to be alert, learning what your website visitors are doing, being available via phone, live web chat, email, forums, blogs to let your customers know you are serious. Track your web statistics and learn from feedback.
E-commerce success for small to medium business depends on focusing on niche markets. Define, narrow and know the service or product by limiting it to a small area of expertise. Attracting attention on the internet for being a specialist for that one thing means a more realistic chance of gaining a foothold on the internet market. Make life easy on yourself by utilising the power of Search Engine Optimisation by aiming for a realistic slice of the market for your website.
For example if it's 'toys' you are interested in selling, specialise in 'toy cars', narrow it down more - sell 'vintage toy cars'. Be a big fish in a small pond.
Shopping Carts - what's right for your website?
Open Cart
Shopify
Xero
Magento
WooCommerce
Zen Cart
Volusion
3DCart
PrestaShop
NetSuite
X-Cart
OZCART
What we offer
e-commerce websites and taking payments online
Payment Gateway
Decide how payments are going to process - direct to bank via their API or via a gateway such as eWAY, Braintree or a service like PayPal.
Shopping Carts
Manage your products from the admin panel, Orders emailed directly to you, Unlimited sub-categories, Product shipping rates.
Services, Subscriptions
Taking payments for services may not require a physical postal addresss - you may just want an invoicing system, but you will still need a shopping cart & secure online card processor solution.
online checkout
Invest in a good SSL certificate or TLS security protocol, that's the little padlock that verifies your data is encrypted and you are a legitimate business.
Shopping Carts - more
Upload product images, Wholesale and retail login, Choice of checkout methods, Display or hide products, Stock Control, Search products by price, Shipping cost by fixed or weight or region.
e-commerce newsletter
If you are taking payments online it is a good idea to stay in touch with customers via a newsletter - seeing as you may not have a shop front, a newsletter keeps your customers informed and loyal.
Foreign Currency
Taking foreign currency may require a little more time to arrange on your e-commerce portal, however there will always be a payment gateway for you that is suitable.
Hosting and Servers
There is no point paying for a private server if your traffic and needs are very simple, however if your business grows and you find you are having seasonal or even daily peak bursts something like a VPS host or AWS Cloud service may be worthy.
Three click/seconds rule
Various research confirms that prospective buyers will not wait much more than three seconds for web content to load and/or three clicks when it comes to a purchasing decision moment.
more information
marketing your e-commerce shop front online
New In The Market
So you have built your online e-commerce store, now how to tell the world about it? This is actually the hard part. The marketing mix will depend on what you are selling. You may already have a shop front and loyal customers in which case you can advertise it through existing channels. If you are starting with a new product, it's important to optimise each page on your e-commerce website so that it gets visits when potential customers are searching on the web. Organic search engine optimisation or Pay Per Click, please ask about ideas for the best strategy for you.
Tailor the payment gateway to save money
You may be selling a small quantity of products/services at a large price or many products/services at a small price, the point being that whether it's the bank taking their percentage of the transaction or another card processor there will be a system that is best suited to your transaction needs. For example you don't want to be paying high monthly fixed costs if you have a small turnover. You also need to ask yourself do you already have a 'merchant account' with your bank. Do you want to grow your e-commerce website rapidly (more risk) or take it slowly (less risk but less revenue)?