eCommerce: Planning your Website
Planning your eCommerce Website
An eCommerce website allows you to present products for sale online with support for real time credit card payments and/or offline payments.
Simple eCommerce websites might have just a few products and manual pick/pack/ship processes. More sophisticated eCommerce websites might have thousands of products and automated pick/pack/ship services from a 3rd party warehouse.
Some examples:
To help you get an accurate quotation to develop an eCommerce website, it will help if you think through these questions and identify your own requirements clearly.
Design: Who are you selling your products to? A well designed eCommerce website looks appealing to your target customers, helps them feel confident in buying from you, and above all makes it easy for customers to find what they are after.
Product Categories: what categories of product will you be selling? The type and number of categories of products you sell will influence how your products are presented, and need to be clearly defined.
Products: How many products will you be presenting on your website?
Images: Do you have category images to help explain your range and any special features and benefits of your range to your customers?
Do you have images of your products? How many images per product?
Countries: What countries do you want to be able to ship to?
Shipping and Payment: Standard eCommerce websites can use free shipping or establish simple shipping cost rules, and use PayPal as a payment processor to accept Visa/MasterCard payments.
eCommerce Terms & Conditions
When you launch an online store that sells products or services, you should consider your terms and conditions as well as your policies and business processes. Like any aspect of running a business, there are many factors to consider, and you may need advice from specialists depending on your own business circumstances.
Some businesses publish a single Terms & Conditions page that covers all related policies. Others publish separate pages for specific policies (such as Shipping, Returns or Privacy). The choice is yours.
To develop your policies, document what is important to your business. You might review the policies being used by other businesses that you consider relevant. Once you have drafted and refined your own policy (or policies), consider whether you need a review from relevant business advisers such as legal, accounting or export specialists.
Defining your business policies is a big decision. OM4 articles may suggest areas you may wish to consider when developing your business policies, but overall you are responsible for deciding on what your policies should be and preparing them. OM4 can offer you tools that help you operate a business and some aspects you might need to plan for. But every business has different factors to consider, and you should always analyse your own situation and come to your own decision about going into business online. Do your research and make your own call.
Options
Blog: Will you use an integrated blog to talk about new products and build search engine rankings?
Email Marketing: Will you use an integrated email marketing tool to promote special offers and new products?
More Advanced eCommerce Websites
Shipping Costs: Free shipping is still a good option for advanced sites, but automated shipping rate calculators such as Australia Post / USPS / UPS are also available – you’ll need to supply the weight and as-packed length/height/width for each product to use these services). Or do you have a custom cost model for shipping?
Inventory: Will you be setting inventory levels (how many in stock) so item inventory levels can be managed?
Pick/Pack/Ship: Will you be be picking, packing and shipping your products? An alternative is to send your stock to a 3rd party warehouse and have orders picked/packed/shipped for you. OM4 has integrated warehouse options available through Express Fulfillment (Australia/World) and Shipwire (US/Canada/Europe).
Payment Gateway: Where a payment processor other than PayPal is required, what are the requirements and what merchant account / payment gateway are you considering?
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