Selling Online
Online sales are expected to grow to more than $144 billion a year. If you currently have a brick and mortar establishment, an online store is a must-have compliment to your existing office.
Many options are available for online selling, ranging from simple to set up systems using PayPal, to more complex operations using full-featured online shopping carts.
At Trinity Web Design, we can help you select the solution that best fits both your needs and your budget. Regardless of the complexity of your solution, there are a few basic steps that anyone should follow when beginning to sell online.
Steps to Get Online
- Register Your Domain Name
- Select a Shopping Cart and Add Products
- Set Up a Merchant Account/Payment Solution
- Secure Your Site
- Promote Your Online Business
Register Your Domain Name
A domain name is your "address" on the internet. Think of it as your physical address online. Registering a domain name allows you to take ownership of the name by registering it with an approved domain name registrar. Domain name registration is the first step in establishing your online store.
You may want to consider registering several variations of a domain name to capture users who may misspell or attempt to guess your name. If you plan to add an e-commerce component to an existing web presence, it may still be a good idea to register an additional domain name to highlight your store's existence.
Select a Shopping Cart
Several options are available for creating an online shopping cart.
Factors to consider when selecting a shopping cart
- How much can I afford to spend?
- How many products do I anticipate selling?
- Will I offer customizable products (different sizes, colors, bundles, etc.)?
- How important is the ability to customize the look and feel of the site?
- What types of payment options do I want to offer?
- Do I want the ability to update the store myself or should I rely on professional maintenance by a web designer?
- Do I need my shopping cart to integrate with my financial accounting software (such as QuickBooks)?
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How We Can Help
We can assist you in selecting the best shopping cart software to meet your needs. Our service doesn't stop there; we're also available to help you set up and configure your cart and link it to your accounting software.
Set Up a Merchant Account/Payment Solution
In order to accept payments for goods online, you'll need a merchant account and payment gateway. A merchant account is a special account in which funds are deposited once the online customer pays for the goods. A payment gateway facilitates the transfer of funds between the customer's credit, debit or bank account and your merchant account. Many options exist for merchant accounts and payment gateways. Some companies even offer integrated solutions which combine both services into one.
Factors to consider when selecting a merchant account
- How much do I expect to sell on a monthly basis?
- Which forms of payment do I want to offer?
- Which solutions are compatible with my financial software (i.e. Quickbooks)?
How We Can Help
We can assist you in comparing the features of different merchant accounts and selecting the best one to suit your needs. We're also available to help you evaluate and understand merchant account features such as monthly minimums, discount rates and transactions fees.
Secure Your Site
Since you'll be accepting sensitive financial and personal information, such as credit card numbers and addresses, from your online customers, you'll want to communicate that transactions are secure and protected. The industry standard for protecting sensitive online information requires an SSL (Secure Socket Layering) Certificate. SSL Certificates encrypt the transfer of information from your web site so that financial and personal information cannot be intercepted by a third party.
SSL Certificates authenticate the ownership of the domain name, reassuring your customers that they are sharing their information with the individual/company with whom they intend to do business, not a phony site masked as an authentic one.
Some shopping cart systems, such as PayPal, include this technology as a part of their service. Usually, the SSL Certificate must be purchased as a seperate component.
Discerning shoppers look for the signs of a secured site, such as an "https:" in the browser or the gold "padlock" in the task bar, both of which indicate that the transaction is secure. Without these or other badges of security, some shoppers may elect not to do business, for fear that their personal or financial information may be compromised.
Factors to Consider When Selecting an SSL Certificate
- How many domains do you want to secure?
- What level of confidence do you want to communicate to your visitors
How We Can Help
We are happy to consult with you on securing your site and selecting the most effective SSL certificate to meet your needs.
Promote Your Online Business
One your site is live online, it's important to both maintain and promote it to your target audeince. Trinity Web Design offers several services to assist you with these efforts.
How We Can Help
See our special section on promotion.