e Commerce Web design - II

Continuing a look at e commerce web design and the solutions and options open for you to setup an ecommerce store.

What if you don't have a few hundred dollars to get started with an e commerce web design ?

Then one choice is to build an e commerce site using separate bolt on packages, often referred to as add ons.

The advantage to this approach can be that you add what you want as you need it. The disadvantage is that it can take quite a lot of technical know-how to put all this together and to maintain it.

What ever solution you chose it needs to have some form of content management system to be maintainable by the user.

It may also need to be capable of communicating with different databases, integrating with an accounts package and coping with global taxation and VAT requirements.

If you are running a large e commerce website with more than 100 products it will not be long before you need an accounts package to keep track of orders, inventory control, payment processing, printing invoices etc.

The leading accounts packages for e commerce web sites are by a Sage, a company that has over 15 different applications aimed at the requirements of different users and costing from $70 to over $3,500.

The two accounting applications of interest to the small business e commerce web site owner are Peachtree First Accounting and Peachtree Pro Accounting.

Peachtree First Accounting is an entry-level solution designed for small businesses that want automated billing and payments, plus basic accounting tools. Peachtree Pro Accounting is ideal for small businesses moving from a manual or personal finance system, especially those with inventory, payroll or credit card processing.

You might also need a variety of add ons, like membership access, visitor tracking, Ad rotation and Ad management, the ability to create dynamic pricing offers, to integrate with an opt-in mailing list and even an autoresponder.

As well as interfacing with different payment processors an e commerce web design may also need to manage an affiliate program and make commission payments to affiliates.

The financial investment required for an e commerce web design company to create these sites can easily run into 10's of thousands of dollars.

This can often put this type of integrated e commerce web design well out of the reach of the little guy who just wants to sell a few products online with the minimum of upfront cost.

Another way to achieve an e commerce web design is to use one of the out of the box e commerce solutions of which there are many. These range from the free open source solutions to those costing up to several hundred or thousands of dollars.

Shopping carts like Agora often come as standard options with many web hosting accounts.

Whilst free open source solutions seem attractive because they are free, you should be aware that support is often limited and some free e commerce web designs often have frequent security holes.

This can make them vulnerable to attack by hackers bent on stealing customer details or just simply taking over control of your site.

Some e commerce web design solutions integrate with an existing website by adding some code to a page, whilst others with extra functionality run on your own web hosting server.

If you just want to add a simple payment system to an existing website then by far the easiest option is to use something like PayPal, PayQuake or Worldpay.

If you want more functionality there are packages like Actinic, Quick PayPro, Miva and Website Automator and many others. Solutions like Actinic are more suited to large catalogue sites with dozens if not 100's and 1,000's of products.

A new e commerce web design solution backed by eBay enables small and medium sized businesses to sell products and services online through a fully customized web store.

They have made creating a web store easy to use, with built-in, step-by-step wizards that help you design the look of your store, upload products, and set up shipping and sales tax information.

They provide 4 different store packages tailored to the needs of different sized businesses along with functionality to suit your requirements:

• Domain registration and hosting
• Shopping cart
• Secure, SSL-encrypted credit card processing
• Integration with eBay and PayPal
• Marketing and Merchandising Tools
• Product catalog

Before you choose an e commerce web design solution decide if you really need the features being offered, if not now, in 12 months time.

Consider also if the solution is something that you have the technical know-how to integrate and manage on your website, or through a providers website, and decide if it's the most cost effective.

You will also discover more about e commerce web design in other sections on this website.

e Commerce Web Design - I

Small business website development

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