eCommerce Systems
An eCommerce system is like having a high street shop that retails products direct to public for a fraction of the cost with absolutely no lease costs, no rates and very little staffing costs. B2B eCommerce requirements are somewhat different but the vast majority of eCommerce out there today is B2C. If you have a product that you want to sell directly to the public, or to other businesses and you want them to ‘self serve’ then you need an eCommerce system.
You may still be thinking that you are none the wiser and you really need to understand what an eCommerce system really is.
- How do you create one?
- What will you have to do and what does the system do for you?
- How do you manage it?
- What software is going to be right for your business?
- What about the cost – this thing must be expensive right?
- How do I interface with this and my accounting or business software?
- Will it manage my stock control?
- How do I actually get the money out of it?
- Do I need a merchant account?
- What is a payment gateway?
- Maybe I don’t need one after all, perhaps I’m doing just fine as I am.
Well eCommerce systems are not simple. The good tools are extremely powerful and you can often customise them to do just about whatever you want. So how do you choose them and what do you need to know?
Well there is an old saying that goes something like this, ‘If you are thinking about running your own business selling shoes then first you should do is get a job selling shoes’. Learn the business before you run the business.
As best as possible we advise the same for an eCommerce system. It is not a web site. It is a complex online high street shop that does everything you could possibly want from a high street outlet and more – but it is on the Internet.
A good eCommerce system will be tailored and highly customised for your exact business requirements, but if you don’t know the products available and your technical team don’t know your business then they’ll give you an off-the-shelf solution and you’ll be calling us in a year’s time.
If you think you need an online shop – an eCommerce application – then your best bet is to sit down with us and we can show you a selection of online shops. What they do from the front end and how they are managed at the back end. We can cover the way you manage your products, stock control, marketing promotions, up-sell, cross-sell, email strategies and a host of other very important things that you need to know before you part with all your hard earned cash. So when you are ready we’re confident that you’ll come back to us for a long term successful, online, retail or wholesale business.
