Below is a bit of Information for anyone who is considering starting their own business selling items online. Some of it may be overwhelming, but it is important to do your research before approaching anyone about creating an ecommerce website for you (many things you don’t need a professional developer for, and if you are computer savvy, you can do it yourself).
If you do need help in setting up and designing an e-commerce website after reading the information below, feel free to contact me and we can discuss your needs and how we can go about building you a website which will keep in demand with your business needs.
Things to consider before starting a website selling items (E-Commerce)
- Design and structure ( How it looks, your storefront, features, functionality)
- Website name and domain (e.g .com or com.au) – Yearly fees to vendor (you “lease” a website, never actually own the name)
- Hosting (your website needs to be sitting somewhere and not overload or go down) – yearly fees to hosting company
- Inventory Management
- Shopping cart and associated security (you don’t want customers sending their credit cards without any security) – PCI compliance, SSL, etc – Yearly Fees to vendor
- Merchant Account – Yearly Fees to vendor
- Payment gateway (How the customers actually pay you) – E.g Paypal, Credit cards, bank deposit – Yearly Fees to vendor
- Receipts (usually linked with shopping cart software on the website)
Some companies to consider
Hosting + Domain purchase
Zuver.net.au
There are many more but I found for my own use, they were one of the most affordable.
Design Platforms
WordPress + Ecommerce plugin (WooCommerce, WP E-commerce, Easy Digital Downloads)
With WordPress you still need to have a secure shopping cart and receipts, a company such as Cart66 which is designed for wordpress is one of the best options
Magento
All in one Solutions (with easy integration with both payment gateway and merchant accounts and hosting)
Shopify.com.au – examples can be found at http://www.shopify.com.au/examples and http://www.shopify.com.au/blog/6277292-22-beautiful-australian-shopify-stores
BigCommerce.com –examples can be found at https://www.bigcommerce.com/showcase/
Weebly.com – examples can be found at http://featured.weebly.com/
Square Space – examples can be found at http://www.squarespace.com/customers
Some articles –
http://stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/shopify-vs-squarespace
http://stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/bigcommerce-vs-shopify
Payment Gateway
ANZ
Westpac
NAB
Bankwest
Paypal
Stripe
Merchant accounts information
There are two different types of merchant accounts.
A dedicated merchant account is an account set up just for you, the merchant. This is like your very own online bank account set up just for your online business. If you set up an account with a payment gateway like Authorize.net or PayLeap, you will also get a dedicated merchant account. With a dedicated merchant account you can often negotiate custom rates for your sales. The rates are based on the volume of sales you process and the types of products you sell. If you like the idea of having more control over your money and the ability to negotiate custom rates, you may want a dedicated merchant account. To get a dedicated merchant account you and your company will need to go through a fairly in depth credit check and underwriting process. This takes time and involves faxing over bank records and other information about yourself and your business.
An aggregate merchant account is one where your money gets dropped in a pool with a large number of other companies. Stripe and PayPal are examples of services that provide aggregate merchant accounts. You still need to provide some information about your company and the types of products you intend to sell, but the process of getting connected with an aggregate merchant account is far less complicated and faster. The downside is you have a little bit less control over how long it takes to get your money and you generally can’t negotiate the rates. – See more at: http://cart66.com/blog/payment-gateway-vs-merchant-account/#sthash.FVCBAdP0.dpuf