Getting Started in E-Commerce

If your business sells any kind of product, chances are that you could benefit from including some kind of e-commerce functionality on your website. However, once you've decided to step into the realm of e-commerce, the next question becomes "How?". There are a wide range of e-commerce solutions, ranging from inexpensive "canned" shopping carts to comparatively expensive custom built applications. Our job is to help you find a solution that will meet both your needs and your budget.

Preliminary Questions

Before we can begin to sort through the various alternatives, there are a number of questions which we need to answer up front:

1. How many products will you be selling (approximately)?

2. Do your products come in one standard version (like a book or cd), or do they have various attributes that need to be selected by the customer (size, color, etc.)? Do they require custom input from the customer (like text for a business card)?

3. Will you constantly be adding and removing products from your online catalog, or will your product selection remain static? Will your prices change often?

4. Will your system need to track inventory?

5. How will you deliver the product to your customer? Do you already have standard shipping methods? If not, what shipping methods will you want to offer? (FedEx? UPS? USPS? Second Day? Overnight?)

6. Will you want credit card purchases to be processed automatically, or will you manually process every transaction?

7. Is your budget for implementing e-commerce on your site several hundred or several thousand?

Answered those questions? Good. Basically, there are three different ways of proceeding, and answering the above will help us to begin to decide which one might be right for you.

Option One: The "Canned" Shopping Cart

If you need to implement e-commerce on your site but want to do it as inexpensively as possible, this may be the option for you. What we call "canned" shopping carts are e-commerce systems that are pre-built and actually run by a third-party company. That company provides the shopping cart and handles all of the back-end technology, such as credit-card processing and transaction security. They may charge you a monthly fee and/or a perctage of each transaction.

To actually implement the cart on your site, they usually will provide us with code to insert into your site to produce the "Add to Cart" buttons, etc. We might also be allowed to select certain options to customize the "look and feel" of your shopping cart (such as selecting colors and inserting a logo). Then it's just a matter of us building your storefront and inserting the necessary code next to each product. The cost of building the storefront will vary depending on how many products you have and how elaborate you want to get in terms of category structures and navigation.

Pros: Inexpensive and quick to set up.

Cons: Limited options on customizing the "look and feel" of the cart and checkout pages. Limited options on shipping and other features. No control over server-side processes. Monthly and/or per-transaction fees.

Option Two: Hosted E-Commerce Systems

Hosted E-Commerce Systems are pre-built systems which are generally purchased by your hosting provider and installed on your server, and then included as part of your monthly hosting fee. A web-based administration control panel is provided, through which you can build and administer your online catalog. You can add, edit and delete products, update prices, select options for shipping and other aspects of your system and even process orders. Options are usually provided that allow you to either integrate with a credit card processing system, or to choose to process your credit card orders manually. Most of the time, our clients that use these kinds of systems pay us to actually design and implement the storefront, after which they take over to maintain and update the catalog as needed.

Pros: Included in hosting fees. Relatively quick set up. Changes and updates to the product catalog can be made by customer.

Cons: May not allow certain specialized or custom functions, such as inventory control. Merchant account and credit card gateway services may be additional. Because the actual e-commerce system is installed on your server, you must find a host who offers the system that you want to use. Also, should you become dissatisfied with your hosting service, you would have to find another host who offers the same system in order to transfer your site to a new server and keep your catalog intact.

Option Three: Custom-Built E-Commerce Applications

This is the most expensive option, but also the most flexible and the most scalable. Customers who go with this option usually want to offer custom features which pre-built systems do not offer, such as customer tracking, special discounting structures, etc. Because the system is custom-built, it can be made to operate on any kind of server, and can be modified over time to accomodate new demands.

When building a custom e-commerce application, we always begin by working closely with our client to determine what features the system will need to integrate. We develop a project specification outlining the requirements of the project, including the specificatons for the server, database, shipping, payment processing, order tracking, inventory control, etc. Once we have finalized the specifications and received client approval, the project goes into production. Custom e-commerce applications can take anywhere from several weeks to several months to develop, depending on the level of complexity.

Pros: Fully customizable. Allows for inclusion of custom functions and special requirements. Can be modified over time to grow and evolve with your business.

Cons: More expensive than pre-built e-commerce systems. Takes time to develop.

Now that you've answered some preliminary questions and reviewed the options, you may have a better idea of which direction is right for you. We encourage you to give us a call to set up a consultation where we can discuss your project at length. Implementing e-commerce on your site is an important step, and one that deserves thoughtful consideration. Whatever your needs and budget, we're confident that we can help you develop an e-commerce system that will thrive.