Ecommerce Made Simple

There are four basic steps needed to facilitate ecommerce on your website.  This diagram combined with our ecommerce FAQ's will give you a good foundation to move forward.

#1 - Get a domain name and start a hosting plan - Finding a good hosting company that will meet your needs is critical. Don't use price as the deciding factor or you may find yourself in trouble down the road when you realize what corners are being cut to give you that low price. You want a dependable and customer service oriented company with secure high-speed servers so that you don't lose customers to website congestion and failures.

Build an Online store - Build an online store (a database driven computer program which contains your products and price information). We offer ShopSite Starter, Manager & Pro.

Graphics - Work with someone who knows how to scan, photograph, and/or manipulate images and files or teach yourself some graphics basics for your new store to upload. If you want to do it yourself then we suggest that you purchase the most current version of Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Fireworks, Adobe Dreamweaver, or other equivalent programs.

Market your business - Let people know where you are and what you're selling. Give them a reason to come to your site. Use search engines, make doorway pages, and advertise in whatever fashion you can afford.

#2 - Payment Processing Services / Gateway - Handles secure, encrypted, real-time credit card transactions over the internet. The merchant account is needed to coordinate the transfer of funds between your bank, a payment-processing service, and a customer's bank.

#3-4 - Payment Processing Services / Merchant Account - Payments get processed and deposited into the company's bank.

Are you ready for ecommerce? Take the Ecommerce Quiz