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ECOMMERCE SOLUTION – CHOOSING THE RIGHT
ONE
More and more companies
are going online to sell their services
and products on the internet. It is a
complete win – win situation because
retailers are able to access markets
that are outside their geographic
location and consumers can choose from a
wide range of products with varying
prices. However, depending on which type
of e – commerce site you want to
develop, the cost of implementing it
will range from a few hundred to a
couple of thousand dollars. You can
avail of cost efficient e – commerce
solutions that may be less professional
or a high end solution which will beat
the other e – commerce web sites around
you. This article explains some of the
various options that are available to
the owners together with the costs that
are associated with them.
E – Commerce – not very
expensive
Most people think that
starting an online business is an
expensive process since involves
obtaining an expensive merchant account
to accept credit card payments from your
customers. Initially, this is how it
worked, but today there are several
options that have made e – commerce very
affordable. These services can be
availed through 3rd party
processors.
A 3rd Party
processor of credit cards in an
intermediary between your website and
the customer. This happens in this way:
when the customer clicks the “buy now”
button, he will be taken to the 3rd
party’s web site where the customer will
have to enter his credit card details in
an environment that is secure. The
payment for this transaction will be
deposited in to your business account
and the order details forwarded to you.
The only expenditure for the ecommerce
web site owner is a small percentage of
the transaction amount or, in some
cases, a small fixed fee.
This is the best option
for a new business which is going to
jump in to the e – commerce industry
because the initial costs that have to
be paid are very low. An example of a 3rd
party credit card processor is
2CheckOut. They charge $49 as set up fee
and then charge $0.45 and 5.5% of each
transaction. Using PayPal will cost you
much lesser than this route. The only
drawback with PayPal is; the customer
should also have an account with PayPal
to make the payment. But, both these
products come with in built shopping
cart application which will save you
some money.
Taking the plunge
Developing an online
store that is fully functional and which
accepts credit cards is a costly
proposition. The list of components
required for such a site is very long:
merchant account, payment gateway,
secure web server and a shopping cart
application.
There are a few shopping
cart applications which can be got for
free. However, if you want a system that
can calculate shipping charges and
taxes, has advanced features, is able to
seamlessly integrate with your site,
easy to use and is fully featured, then
you will have to pay several hundred
dollars. |
