Build an eCommerce Website in 5 Steps (part 2)
Continuing from the first half of 5 Things to Consider When Building an osCommerce Website, we will talk about online payment processors, customizing your shop and evaluating your business after the first year.
Online Payments
For an online business to be successful, it is very important to offer the right payment methods. Consider your options carefully as some options like wire transfers are often very customer friendly but are very time intensive.
If your margins are high enough, you should offer credit card payments. The best option is PayPal; they even offer online credit card payments where the buyer is not required to have a PayPal account.
Once you establish some baselines and know your average number of monthly transactions, be sure to check the other online payment providers to see if they offer better rates. Don't forget to check what services the bank where you have your business account offers as well.
Styling your eCommerce site
By using one of the free shopping cart applications, you should be able to invest in a professionally designed template. You will have a much easier time of customizing your online shop if you choose a template before you begin customization. The quickest and cheapest solution to finding a unique design for your web shop is to start with one of the many available pre- designed templates and make the necessary modifications to make it your own.
If you have an existing web shop and you add one of the pre-made templates, you will need to add the modules again to retain all of your current customizations.
After the first year
You should ask yourself, what have I learned in that past year?, where have I failed?, and where have I excelled?
Review your sales to determine if there are any hidden gems or leeches. Your number one or two best-selling item may be costing you money instead of making you money; while that item you never truly promote is yielding the highest returns.
Review your shopping cart and payment options. Is there a better plan available for your sales volume? Are you paying too much per transaction? Are you losing sales because your payment option doesn't allow for foreign sales?
Plan on expanding your product line? Research if your current payment service can handle the changes. If you plan on expanding into another country, be sure to research language and currency options.
Two Final Hints
Think about your future business plans every time you consider making modifications to your shopping cart application. Never modify your application because you think it is a nice feature or because YOU like it. Everything you do should be about your customers and enticing them to buy your products.
Create a testing area where you can test every modification before you make changes to your live application. Sometimes one small change can cause the entire website to stop working correctly - better to test offline then to lose business by having a non-functioning site.
