What is E-Commerce?

The name given to the process of selling your products, goods and services over the Internet. It allows visitors to your website to see what you have to sell and then place orders. Many e-commerce websites allow customers to pay using a credit or debit card and offer a facility for their card details to be entered securely.

What do I need?

It depends. An existing site can often be updated to include an e-commerce facility or, if not, we will be pleased to design a new e-commerce site for you. If you are selling just a few products you may find that a relatively simple order form is all that is needed to enable you to start doing business online. If you are selling a larger number of products, or offer choices in terms of sizes or quantities, you will almost certainly need a shopping cart to calculate and keep a running total of the purchases made by your customers.

How can I take payments?

You can take payments online by means of credit/debit cards or you can choose to invoice your customers in the normal way. Much will depend upon what you are selling, how your customers expect to make payment and how much you are prepared to spend on your website. A website that does not incorporate an online payment facility is obviously less complex than a similar sized site that accepts payments, and the savings, in terms of design time, will be reflected in the cost.

Do I need a secure site?

It depends whether you intend to take payments online. Everyone making payment over the Internet expects his or her payment details to be handled securely. This is normally achieved by means of a secure server facility that encrypts information, making it unreadable to third parties. We will provide a suitable secure server facility as part of the design process or, if you intend to use a payment processor such as WorldPay, your customers will be taken to a secure area of their site before entering their card details.

How do I actually receive my money?

You can choose to process online payments manually, using the credit/debit card details submitted by your customer, or you can subscribe to a payment processor such as WorldPay, who will authorise the transaction online in real time and deposit the money into your bank account automatically.

Do I need a merchants account?

Not necessarily. If you intend to process the payments yourself you will need an Internet merchants account, normally arranged through your bank. However, if you prefer payments to be processed by WorldPay we can normally arrange this without the need for a merchants account. More information can be found here.

How much will it all cost?

For a simple e-commerce site, as little as £200! For that you could expect two web pages with limited graphics plus an order form that would enable visitors to place orders online. However, it would not include any secure facility, so taking payments online would not be possible. A larger, more complex site, containing 5 pages, a number of graphics and a secure online payment form might cost around £350, while a similar-sized site containing a 25-product shopping cart would start at around £500.

Whatever type or size of site you require, get an instant online quotation by clicking here.