E-Commerce Website Design
This is a website solution for anyone who needs to sell a product or service to someone else. There are many different ways of technically setting-up an e-commerce site, but the principle is the same. The principle is basically you make your product available on your website, make it possible for people to find your product and lastly make it possible for people to buy your product.
Making it Work
There are a number of decisions to be made when designing an e-commerce site that will effect how well it works, and each solution will suit a different organisation:
- Website Technology - to manage your products or services
- E-Cart - to hold items your customers want to purhcase
- Payment Processing - to process the payment
- Merchant Account - to collect the the payment
The Technologies
Content Management System (CMS)
This is the newest of the three systems we are listing; the CMS builds on the concept of the data driven website by adding an easy to use interface to add content and also by tracking links on web pages and even generating its own website navigation.
The CMS allows you to add your products and business information easily to a database, when viewed by a customer they see a page that is only created the moment they actually view it so that they have up to the minute information on your products and services. The information is pulled from the database and placed inside a page template that will have been designed by us.
Click here for more information on CMS (Content Management Systems).
Data Driven Website
This is the bare bones used to build a CMS, but it can also be a cheaper option if you just need content on a database for a specific purpose, such as to sell your products or a members group zone. Whilst a CMS can do this they are designed to do a lot more, thus they are generally more expensive than a data driven website.
Click here for more information on Data Driven Websites.
Static Website
This is the oldest of the solutions and still very common on information sites and even data driven website will have a large number of static pages. If you are using static pages for selling products or services they will need to be added and removed manually, also it will be more difficult for a customer to find a product as the website will not be able to produce a search results list. However it is the cheapest of the solutions, and it ideal if you are only looking to sell a small number of items.
E-cart
An e-cart can be build as part of a CMS or data driven website as these typically both how the tools available to track a customer and the products that they select. An alternative is to but a dedicated e-cart that offers a range of services to make the buying experience easier for customers or to use one provided by a company such as PayPal that offers the E-cart, Payment Processing and Merchant Account as one package.
Payment Processing (or Payment Gateway)
This is a facility that is used online to clear a transaction and collect money from the debit or credit card account of your customer and transfer the funds to your Merchant Account. There are dedicated companies that do this, or you can use an all-in-one service like PayPal or your business bank may offer this service.
Merchant Account
You will need a Merchant Account as online transactions cannot be paid directly into a business account. There are a number of Merchant Account providers available, but again you may prefer to use your own bank or an all-in-one provider such as PayPal.