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How to Set Up an Online Ecommerce Store |
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How to Set Up an Online Ecommerce Store |
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Step 1 - Get A Domain Name Your first step will be to get a domain name (web address). By having your domain name, you will establish your own identity on the Internet. This provides surfers with an address to your website. By typing in your domain name they are able to come to your location/address on the internet. Click Here to sign up for your domain name Step
2 - Sign up with a Web Hosting Company You will want to sign up with a web hosting company (such as ours) so that you will have the ability to display your new ecommerce store on the internet and have the ability to use your domain name. Our web hosting company provides you with storage space on our servers for the web pages that you create to display the pictures of your products. WebBusiness has hosting services with plans as low as $4.95/month. For more information on our web hosting services, please click on this link. Step 3 - Design Your Online Store Create a web store that displays your products, describes them and indicates the cost, sizes, etc. You can create your online store yourself or have a web designer do it for you. Prior to setting up your e-commerce web store, one should take the following into consideration:
The ability to input information for a database that includes: Item Number, Product ID, Description, Price, Weight (if applicable for UPS shipping rates)... Your ecommerce store will need to provide a shopping cart for your clients so that they can place their orders. What is a "Shopping Cart"? A shopping cart is the software that gives your clients the ability to place an order for your product(s). They can indicate what they want to buy, the quantity and color. It also calculates the price, shipping amount and any applicable taxes and provides them with payment options, i.e. credit cards, check or money order. The Shopping Cart will also have an administrative area for you to log into whereby you can input all of the information on your products. Our Plans include the popular OsCommerce Shopping Cart . It is easy to set up and will get you up and running in a short period of time. We have also aligned ourselves with two affiliates who provide small business and professionals with an online presence. With their online E-commerce Store Wizard you can pick and choose from a number of ecommerce templates and plans, as well. ) For more information, click on the e-commerce banners
below
and sign up with one of our affiliates to create your E-commerce Store
today. Don't forget to get your domain name first Step
4- Accepting Credit Card Transactions Your Shopping Cart will be integrated with a Payment Gateway service which links the shopping cart software to a financial institution, that actually processes your credit cards using a secured method so that the client's information remains secured. The Shopping Cart that is selected should be compatible with the Payment Gateway Service that you use. If you don't have the ability to process credit cards already, you will need to set up a merchant account through a bank that accepts Internet transactions so you can process your orders . Check with the bank you currently do business with or you can sign up with online merchants such as Paypal who provides merchants with an easy and fast way to create "Buy Now" buttons and process credit cards. The processing fees are low and the service is easy to set up with your store. Click on the banner below to visit their site and sign up for a business account for your store. Also, understand that if you are already able to process credit cards in your retail business, you cannot assume that your current bank will allow you to accept internet orders. You need to talk to them first to see if they allow the processing of internet type orders.
Click Here to for Information on our Step 5 - Advertise Your Online Store Once your site is online, you will need to let others know about it by advertising. You can use various media, i.e. newspapers, radio, tv, cable, flyers, etc. Also, it will be important to register your web site with search engine companies. Some of the popular search engine sites include Yahoo, Google and AOL and exchange links with other sites. |
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