ECommerce


*E-Commerce Websites*	Related Resources
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Definition of E-Commerce:
Electronic commerce or e-commerce consists of the buying, selling, marketing and servicing of products or services over the internet. This is usually done with a “shopping cart” on the website, and the buyer can purchase with their credit card and often by other means as well.
Reasons to Sell Online:
	Other Resources
Whether you are a brick and mortar retailer or service, or an individual interested in selling your products or someone elses, the internet provides a vast world of opportunity. The internet can benefit any business if used appropriately. Selling your product or service locally or worldwide are both possible. You can sell a very specialized product worldwide to a smaller audience or a more generic item to a broad audience. What you sell is not as important as HOW you sell it. (More on that topic is discussed below.) Anyone can successfully sell online given that they take two important things into consideration: Time and Investment. It takes a good deal of both to get started successfully online. If either of these requirements are a problem, you will definitely want to plan to start your venture at a more appropriate time.
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E-Commerce Basics:
Build your own site or hire a professional? This is an important question. No matter which you choose, you should be prepared to spend between $1,000-2,500 dollars to get started. Be sure to do your homework by comparing both options. You may often be able to save money by doing it yourself, but you will definitely spend more time on the project, learning how to do everything yourself. Find a hosting company that provides good customer service and support thru online chat or a toll free number. Hosting and secure shopping cart capabilities will cost between $25 and $150 dollars a month. You may have to open a merchant account separate from your hosting costs to accept any or all major credit cards. Now, how do you build your website? If you are a beginner, you probable chose a hosting company that provides their own templates. Templates are limited but a good place to start, since they are usually fairly easy to learn and put you online faster. You can always buy a website design program separately, but it will cost more in both cost and time to learn. Do your research before making such a decision. Familiarize yourself with your hosting company’s capabilities. For instance, do you have a limit on how many products you can have on the site at a time? How much available disc space or traffic is allowed per month? Is everything in real-time? If you buy a package deal, make sure you understand what comes with the package. Specifically, a toll-free number for technical support and whether or not there are any hidden or additional fees. After your site is built is when the fun really begins! You see, the product or service that you sell online doesn’t matter nearly as much as how you market your site. We are not saying that your product type and site layout isn't important, just be aware of the “build it and they will come” theory! Because the internet is so crowded with billions of websites, the only way to attract customers or traffic to your site is to market your website. This means advertising your site both on the internet and offline (in the real world)! There are a lot of free marketing strategies available online, but the quickest way to attract site visitors is to pay for the traffic. (Of course! It takes money to make money!) The most popular paid advertising method is called PPC or Pay-Per-Click campaigns. There are more than enough options when it comes to paying for online advertising, however, the most popular are search engines such as Google and Yahoo. We'll use Yahoo to explain PPC: By bidding against other site owners, you get the chance to have your site listed at the top of a key search. An example would be if someone is searching online for candles. There are many variations, but let’s say they sit down at their computer and type candles into Yahoo’s search bar. The sponsored links that appear in the first three spots are paid for by businesses that sell candles. If the listing is appealing to the searcher they will click on the link that takes them to that business’ website. This click will have cost the business whatever the bid amount is to be in that position. Good news! I want to make it clear that even though they call it pay-per-click, you only pay once for each unique visitor (or technically, each unique visitor’s computer). Be prepared to spend a minimum of $50 dollars per month on a decent pay-per-click campaign! There you have it! An extremely basic over-view of E-Commerce websites. If you would like to learn much more in depth, we recommend downloading Verisign's ebook or call us toll free at 877.246.4183! See our resources on the side panel for more information on any of the items discussed above.