There were many things that I and my partner didn't know (and should have known) before launching our ecommerce website.
Fortunately, we had an excellent web developer to help me iron things out.
Here I list the 10 most important points I think one should think about before launching an ecommerce website...
Fortunately, we had an excellent web developer to help me iron things out.
Here I list the 10 most important points I think one should think about before launching an ecommerce website...
- Get yourself a brilliant web developer - unless you are already an expert it is too difficult to manage on your own
- Choose the bank that you'd like to have your business account with FIRST, and more importantly - WAIT UNTIL YOU GET ACCEPTED before choosing your payment option - banks have their own lists of PSP's (payment service providers) that are compatible with their systems.
- After opening your account, you will then need to open an Internet Merchant account.
You don't have to open one with your bank, but it makes sense to keep it as simple as possible.
CHECK INTERNET MERCHANT ACCOUNT RATES before opening account, and take the charges for accepting credit/debit cards into account when compiling your pricing structure.
- Choose your payment option next - not all carts (the software that allows people to put goods in a basket and buy them) work with all payment systems.
We initially chose Protx and bought a cart to suit, however, we eventually went with Paypal (reasons detailed in point 8 below.
)We were very lucky that Paypal integrated with our cart with little fuss. - Once you have your bank account, internet merchant account and PSP, NOW you can purchase your shopping cart.
Get expert advice and read reviews - make sure you are happy with what your cart can and can't do. - If you are intending to update the site yourself - can a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) content management system (CMS) be bolted on to it?If not, you will have to get to grips with HTML or pay your developer/optimiser to do it.
- Know before you progress further that with some carts (ours!) you cannot put £POA into the price space, neither can you change the BUY NOW link.
This is especially important if you have bespoke products/services as well as ready-to-buy items on your site.
This happened to us and we had to have a separate section built in to the site to sell our bespoke experiences. - Consider Paypal as your PSP.
We learned that you don't need a Paypal account to pay online with them, and although there has been some negative American press about them, we felt that using such a recognisable payment method would help our customers when buying online.
We also find that the charges are reasonable, the range of cards accepted is extensive, in addition to the paying via Paypal account option. - If you prefer not to use Paypal as your PSP, consider adding the option to pay by Paypal account to your site - there are a lot of people out there with money sitting around in Paypal accounts - somehow it doesn't feel that you are actually spending money so much.
- Whenever you expect your website launch date to be - think again.
There are always glitches to be ironed out.
We launched 5 months after our original date, nobody's fault, just things we hadn't thought of.
SHARE
