Friday, October 12, 2007

Ecommerce Software And The Changing Utility Of The Internet

The Internet proved to be extremely promising from the very start. At first, people respected it for its wealth of information. When the first e-mail service began operations, it became a new sensation in the communication world. Then search engines happened upon the scene and made it infinitely easier for people to sift through all the information on the Internet in a matter of seconds.

As the Internet evolves, it is now frequently used today for e-business and e-commerce. Clarification of the buzzwords e-business and e-business is important. Electronic commerce is the buying and selling of products, services, and information on networks such as the Internet. Electronic business encompasses any business conducted via the Internet, including e-commerce, dealing with customers, working with business partners, and other business to business communication.

The difference between e-commerce and e-business can be rather tricky to define in neutral terms. We might say that e-commerce involves the buying and selling of goods, services, and information over the internet. E-business, on the other hand, also includes other aspects of business conducted over the internet, including customer service and business collaboration. An ecommerce based website functions exclusively with ecommerce shopping cart software. There are so many quality options out there, designed specifically to make starting your online store as simple as possible. You really need to find a multipurpose ecommerce store platform that comes with built-in features to organize inventory, deal with credit cards, and doling out offers and discounts.

The shopping cart program utilized by ecommerce software should be dynamic and expandable. It should have a powerful templating subsystem to allow for unique and comfortable design development, allowing for creativity. Additionally, custom development and web design services at a decent price point are highly desirable and will provide clients with a top-notch custom commerce solution. Not only that, any ecommerce software should be scalable too with various extension add-ons available to allow start selling online with basic functionality extended later. Add-on development like API is open, so any additional modules can be designed freely and then uploaded when needed on the website.

It is important that ecommerce software be easy to use. Such software should permit simple management of an online shopping site using a web browser and quick switching of the overall look of the storefront by changing templates.

How E-Commerce Works

The first thing that you need to understand is how e-commerce works: A consumer, or potential customer, accesses the Internet and navigates to your Web site. If you have a brick-and-mortar business, you'll want to have vital information on your Web site so that your customers can find you; this would be a static Web site. This may include current products that are on special as well as other product listings that make consumers believe that your business is where they want to make their purchase and is both appealing and a good value to the consumer.

Likewise, if you have an online business, you'll want to convince your potential customers or Web site browsers to make a purchase for the products you are selling from your Web site. Once consumers decide that they're ready to make a purchase, they'll need to be guided to an online transaction or secure Web server so that you can collect their personal and payment information using a secure encryption method. It is possible to create a Web site that can collect credit card and other sensitive data without offering encryption; however, most savvy shoppers will never enter credit card information into a nonsecure Web site. Therefore, we highly discourage any attempt to create a simple shopping cart that does not include secure socket layer encryption of personal or sensitive data. Operating a Web site without encryption for personal or credit card data is a sure-fire formula for disaster and loss of potential customers.

To enable your Web site for e-commerce, you must install and configure your products in a shopping cart. It is important to recognize the elements of a credit card transaction: your Web site contains the product pricing, description, and images, and the shopping cart is embedded into your Web site and stores the dynamic data regarding your product. When he or she is ready to "check out" from the Web site store, the customer typically clicks a "checkout" button and is taken to the encrypted version of the company Web site. The customer will typically continue with the checkout process by calculating shipping costs, entering personal information such as credit card data and a shipping address, and securely completing the transaction. All credit card companies charge a percentage of the sale as an overhead fee for using their credit processing services. The added service layer between your credit card processor and your Web site is known as a transaction service or gateway service. This layer recognizes an e-commerce transaction, performs immediate credit card authorization, and processes the transaction. While this service is not uncommon, it does add a layer of cost to operating your Web site. There are two distinct possibilities that account for how your order may be processed: after the order has been placed, all of the necessary information travels through a private gateway toward the "transaction/gateway processing network." This processing network is where the transaction is approved or denied, depending on the credit history of the consumer and the funds available. Although this may seem like a long process, it takes only a few seconds to complete. For the business owner, offering an e-commerce service is an added service and an added fee.

Another lower-cost option is to eliminate the transaction/gateway processing network. Many Web site owners prefer to manually "run" credit card payments through their desktop credit card processing/authorization systems and merely use the shopping cart as an order processing and retrieval system, where the credit card is processed manually after the online session is completed. This low-cost alternative eliminates the cost of the middle-tier authorization and does not affect what the consumer sees after completing the checkout process. With both options, the consumer should be sent an order confirmation by e-mail.

As mentioned, you will be able to use many different systems of payment to accommodate your online transactions, depending on how many transactions you average in one day. No matter what type of payment method you choose, you need to ensure that it is encrypted and secure so that the privacy and personal information of your customers is never jeopardized. As a reminder, never operate a Web site where you collect personal data or financial information without offering a secure and encrypted connection.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Ecommerce Hosting - Online Selling Solutions

If you wish to start an online store like a magazine subscription service you need to search for ecommerce hosting services. Today we have many sites that do these jobs. They offer you similar facilities and services yet different companies may have different charges. The money is generally charged on monthly basis. As we are aware that even Internet is prone to frauds so it is best to hire services from a reputable service provider.

At first look for a provider. As I said before there're a lot of ecommerce hosting to choose from on the web. Afterwards, after you have chosen a service, spend some time to build your own internet site. Design is very important since the most beautiful web sites will get more visits. A simple, plane and easy to navigate web site will likely be appreciated by your possible customers.

Once you are ready with the online store its time now to put some products in it that you want to sell. You should create some categories and then keep products in them. The product must have a product description. Besides that you should also try to upload its image if available so that the customer is able to view its photograph also. These links should also look attractive like the whole website.

To let people use their credit cards, you should have a business account to receive the bills which are paid by credit cards. When you have online shopping cart on your shop,the dealing becomes easier and can be carried out without any complications. Ecommerce hosting services cater to these kind of e shopping carts and it is better when the user can select whatever he wants.

Eventually, think about security for the new web shop to avoid hackers to attack it from the outside to steal credit cards numbers or any other information. To have a hacker-proof shop will create credibility and trust for the new store since your customers know that any private info is sound. So security is a requirement, since customers will return if you are able to gain their trust.

This is a fairly easy guide to follow when setting up an online store using ecommerce hosting services available on the Internet. As a last tip, when your store starts taking off, use software such as Quickbooks to manage funds and keep track of transactions. Good luck with your new online store!

Free Ecommerce Hosting

Finding the right ecommerce host that will match your company’s needs, wants and demands is quite a challenge. Due to the overwhelming demands for web hosting, numerous ecommerce hosting service providers offer many options to choose from, and you should look for the best and most cost-effective ecommerce hosting company out there. Do some research and compare as many ecommerce web hosting service providers as possible.

Ecommerce hosting is one very potentially profitable business. The hosting charge varies based on the services, supports and the types, quality and quantity of the features provided. Even though some of the hosting companies do offer their services for free, there are many varied ways for them to make a profit – the most popular being that of selling ads to the prospective clients that are hosted on their websites. However, this type of ecommerce hosting offers no security and/or guaranteed service. Records of free ecommerce hosting show the instability, as they tend to close down within weeks, months and first year of operation. There are even those that close down within a span of a day or two. In such cases, the free ecommerce hosting proves to be effective for personal advances such as the posting of personal information, family photographs, and profiles, and for individuals who seek the fundamentals of web hosting by experimenting with programming scripts.

It never fails to verify how quite dependable a certain ecommerce hosting service provider can get by checking out the various websites that are currently owned and being maintained by the company or companies.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

McAfee sets e-commerce boost for SiteAdvisor

We have antiphishing technologies today that try to assure that you don't connect to a site that's imitating a legitimate business," he says. "We can now combine the McAfee content with the SiteAdvisor database and make that a much more powerful solution."

In April, McAfee paid more than $70 million for SiteAdvisor, a remarkable sum for a 14-person company that had just released its first product, a free browser plug-in. But McAfee says SiteAdvisor will be a key point of differentiation from competitors Symantec and Microsoft.

The SiteAdvisor product is compelling to McAfee, the company says, because it focuses on something that most security software isn't doing: helping users "make better decisions about how they use risky areas of the "Net," says Christopher Bolin, McAfee's chief technology officer, speaking at the company's financial analyst conference this week.
SiteAdvisor works with Web browsers to warn people when they are about to visit a site that's been associated with spam.spyware or computer viruses. The company has built a database of Website ratings, combined from millions of automated visits.

The company had been planning to release a premium version of SiteAdvisor in September, but that target has now been pushed back to year's end because of the acquisition.

Art online: when it comes to establishing an online presence, artists and publishers are pushing the envelope with their cyber initiatives

"The Internet will eventually rival sales of physical products made in brick-and-mortar stores," predicts Barbara Brundage, president of Printscapes.com, a division of Pacific Stock Inc., an online company specializing in imagery from the Pacific Rim. "The Internet is the perfect medium to sell art, offering easy viewing of many more items than any store could ever offer."

Whether art companies are simply beefing up their online presence to boost exposure, or they are building their entire business models around it, the Web can be a powerful tool--if used with the proper strategy and integrity in regards to the art world.

"I think there's a new consumer--a Gen Y consumer--who is very tech-savvy and gets most of his or her information online," says Steve McKenzie, chief curator of Artaissance, an online art provider that allows consumers to choose one of its 2,000-plus images online and pick up the finished framed piece at a participating local frameshop. "As the industry matures, we have to adapt to the way consumers buy online."
After researching the buying habits of online shoppers, and with the knowledge that Gen Y (a generation of individuals who have grown up with instant options for virtually everything) will approach an income level that surpasses that of the baby boomers, McKenzie sought to create a flexible online art offering that allowed consumers to purchase "art their style and for their space." With search capabilities for artist, interest, color, style, setting, edition type and orientation, Artaissance provides an interactive experience that's specific to every customer.

But McKenzie still sees the value in the traditional brick-and-mortar experience. "Artaissance is the marriage of an online platform and the traditional brick-and-mortar experience," McKenzie explains. "The Internet provides the perfect way to browse artwork, but many still want to have the assurance of a brick-and-mortar behind it."

One admitted challenge of selling art online is the ability of consumers to connect with a piece because most art Web sites don't provide much more than an artist's biography. McKenzie's solution: videos created by the artists to personalize the art and bring back the human element.

Promoting the quality of the art offered through Artaissance was also important to McKenzie. "I think you have to work hard to explain to your consumers what they are getting," he says. "With Artaissance, you really are getting a fine-art reproduction."

Testing in the Atlanta, Indianapolis and San Francisco markets, Artaissance is poised to launch nationwide by the end of 2007. Artaissance isn't currently advertising to the consumer market, but it has been featured in Domino magazine and USA Today. The company plans on reaching tech-savvy consumers in other ways that are more directly tied to the Web.

Richard Gipe, president of Art-Exchange.com, took a different approach to online art with a business-to-business initiative that began in 1995.

"I was an investment banker [with] access to the various stock exchanges," Gipe explains. "When I moved into the art [industry], there were no comparable resources to locate needed art. It appeared both buyers and sellers of art would benefit from such an exchange, and it appeared it would be relatively inexpensive (by way of comparison to what it cost to build the NYSE and NASDAQ) to build an art exchange given the maturity of the Internet. So, I put my investment banker hat back on, raised the capital and built Art-Exchange.com."

Designed to serve the needs of the supply side of the fine-art market--artists, publishers and other sellers--and the purchase side--designers and dealers--Art-Exchange brings professionals an array of services that make the selling and buying of art more efficient.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Double play: could sending a paper catalog to customers boost your e-commerce business?

Catalogs also work well as a channel for e-tailers because they can easily leverage the Web site's marketing, creative, infrastructure and fulfillment systems and repurpose them for a catalog. "They can use the same call center that's listed on the [toll-free] number for the Web site, for instance," says Dawn Brozeck, a senior analyst at Nielsen//NetRatings, a Web traffic anaylsis firm with head quarters in New York City.

Catalogs also reinforce an e-tailer's brand. Especially for growing businesses, they are a quick and easy way to add legitimacy to your company. An e-tailer with a multichannel presence appears as "more established" to consumers.

Taking the Plunge

Gift Services Inc. dba GiftTree (www. gifttree.com) is just one e-tailer that has made catalogs a key part of its marketing plan. Online since 1997, the Vancouver, Washington, online seller of gift baskets targeting the corporate market sent out its first catalog to 60,000 customers and prospects during last year's holiday season. According to Craig Bowen, 41, GiftTree's CEO and co-founder (with Esther Diez, also 41), catalogs are a necessary marketing tool for e-tailers. Catalogs keep e-tailers "top of mind" with customers and ultimately encourage those customers to come back for more.

"Our customers typically have purchased with our competition, and the company they purchase with next is the company that's in the right place at the right time," says Bowen, whose company had sales of $12 million last year. "It allows consumers to [shop for couches] at home, then [be] reminded about your company when they're leaning against theft kitchen counters--and then they place the order online" Without a catalog he warns, "They might forget about you altogether."

GiftTree decided to create and design its catalog in-house. Employees took photographs of GiftTree's products in the company's own photo studio. The company hired a printer to print and manufacture the catalogs, and then mailed the catalogs through the USPS.

Since the catalog was launched in tandem with other fliers it printed--and since GiftTree used in-house employees for the work--Bowen could not provide an exact figure for how much the whole project cost. However, taking on this kind of project is "definitely not cheap," Bowen says, adding that it can cost at least $100,000 once you factor in the costs of hiring an agency to produce it, in addition to printing, mailing and perhaps buying or renting a prospect list.

But for those who can afford it, a Web site and a catalog make the perfect marriage, says Bowen, who adds that launching the catalog was a logical channel for GiftTree to explore. The company's fulfillment system was already in place, ready to take orders. And GiftTree had already collected the names and addresses of customers to whom it could send catalogs.

Risks and Rewards

Considering all the work and expense inherent in such an endeavor, is launching a catalog really worth it? "Definitely," says Bowen. "We saw a lift in sales." In fact, GiftTree is already planning to send out a second holiday catalog this November.

"There's a reason people do catalogs," Bowen explains. "They work. If you make a very beautiful catalog, and it's got what [consumers] want in it when they see it, they are far more likely to order from you than if you didn't send them something."

In reality, not every e-taller will have the funds required to launch a full-fledged catalog. An affordable option for business owners on a budget is to send out postcards or brochures as a way to keep in contact with customers. "It's really just reminding your customers that they're important," Bowen says. "If you can't print a beautiful catalog, maybe it's a better idea to save your money and instead offer your customers a dollar-off postcard."

Peter Honey Publications adds e-commerce facility to its web site

Learning tools provider Peter Honey Publications has upgraded its web site so that it can now take payments online for its products.

Visitors to the company's web site at http://www.peterhoney.com can view the complete range of Peter Honey Publications products, order them and pay for them online.

A spokesperson for Peter Honey Publications said the e-commerce functionality was added in a bid to simplify the acquisition process for its customers.