E-Commerce: Hosted web solutions
From www.entrepreneurstoolkit.org
Most hosted web or e-commerce solutions will help you to:
- Create your Web site using a URL you own. That is advantageous from the persepective of managing change (eg: moving to a different host if you want to).
- Get your online store listings up and running quickly
- Monitor and fulfill your orders
- Product catalogs
- Shopping carts
- Adopt the same look and feel as the rest of your site
- Accept credit card payments
- Generate invoices
- Send purchase confirmation e-mails
- Tax calculations
- Arrange shipping
- Generate real-time sales reports to keep you on top of your revenue and orders
If you are looking at stand alone e-commerce solutions, see also E-Commerce: Setting up your own site.
Here is a list of what you will likely need to do on our own. [1]
- Get a domain name and hosting package from a website host (around $150 per year).
- Either buy a ecommerce package pre-setup (around $500 once off) or get a free package such as os-commerce and have it modified by a website designer and coder.
- Have a webmaster (someone who knows about FTP uploading) to upload your site
- Add your products and customize your store
- Work with an search engine optimization (SEO) expert to get your website ranked higher in Google yahoo and other search engines. As with the real world its all about location location location. Being at the top of Google for your keyword is paramount for a profitable business. (Make note SEO will take 6 to 12 months to work, there are a lot of SEO scammers out there so make sure it’s a large company or a trusted company. And no one can guaranty a top position is Google walk away if they do).
- Make sure to have as many electronic payment options available, from PayPal, to credit card, to Google checkout.
NOTE: According to Volusion, one of the solution providers listed below, if you sell online and accept credit cards, then you MUST be Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standardcompliant. The deadline to become compliant has passed and it’s not something you can claim ignorance toward. As well, if you are using a hosted solution, your provider must be CISP Certified and appear on Visa’s approved list. If you host your own store, then you must go through the very time consuming and costly process of becoming certified on your own. [2]
Non-PCI/CISP Compliant Merchants Face:
- Class-action lawsuits
- up to $10,000 in monthly fines
- up to $500,000 in fines (per incident)
- Losing the ability to process transactions altogether
Hosted web solutions typically take care of all of the above steps for an affordable price and fees, and in most cases, cost less than that of online auctions when calculated on a monthly basis. Companies that offer e-commerce websites usually also have other essentials such as email, weblogs, search engine optimization and marketing packages that are usually included in the price.
There are numerous hosted web and e-commerce solutions on the market. Before signing up for a store it is wise to read the fine print. Make sure you understand how customer data will be used. And look for marketing tools. Just because you built the store doesn't mean people will come. Here are a few of the most prominant in no particular order.
- Monthly fee of $60. Payment processing is included. You pay a 7% fee on sold items.
- You can promote your products with Amazon's reviews and ratings.
- Anti-fraud, order and inventory management tools.
- Option to integrate with Amazon's fulfillment services.
- Credit card processing and transaction fees. There are no other fees such as hosting, payment gateways or Merchant Account fees.
- Payment Fraud Protection - same fraud detection tools in use on Amazon.com.
- Purchase protection - same A-to-z Guarantee that protects shoppers on Amazon.com.
- Add multiple WebStore within your account. Each WebStore can be a customized and independent Web presence for no additional monthly fee.
- Amazon Associates Referral Fees - offer items from Amazon.com through your WebStore and the Amazon Associates Program allows you to collect a referral fee when these items are sold.
- Very search-engine friendly
- offers stores ranging from $10 to $250 monthly for a varying amount of traffic and storage space.
- With ProStores Starter ($10), you pay 1.5% per transaction. Other stores are Business ($30), Advanced ($75) or Enterprise ($250). There's a 0.5% transaction fee for each.
- Each store includes a setup wizard and professionally designed templates. All but Express can be customized with third-party programs.
- ProStores Starter is limited to displaying 20 products. The other stores are 10,000+.
- Shopping cart and checkout pages using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption (see Online secure transactions)
- Help with calculating shipping and tax
- Process Payments With Paypal or use your own.
- Help with organizing, managing and tracking your inventory.
- Click here for a more detailed ProStores - Feature Comparison
- Offers three types of stores ranging from $40 to $300 monthly. Your domain name is included, but there's a $50 setup fee. Transaction fees range from 0.75% to 1.5%.
- Each level is optimized by projected monthly sales. If you sell less than $18,000 monthly it is recommended you open a Starter store ($40). For greater sales or advanced features, Yahoo offers Standard ($100) and Professional ($300) stores.
- Wizards help you design your store and add products. You can upload a product database if you have one. You can list up to 50,000 products.
- Includes a shopping cart and encrypted payment pages.
- You can apply for a Merchant Account for online credit card processing through Yahoo's partner, First Data, or use your own Merchant Account.
- PayPal Express Checkout for online credit card processing is also supported.
- Integrate your site with accounting and inventory management software. Additional tools help you manage inventory and calculate shipping.
- Tools are also available to help reduce fraud. For example, you can block suspect customers.
- Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption with 128 bit encryption to shield transactions (see Online secure transactions)
- Click here for a more details regarding Yahoo! Merchant Solutions Plan Differences
Microsoft Office Live Small Business
- For selling products on your site and on eBay with Store Manager
- List up to 10,000 products
- First month free and thereafter at $14.95/month for 12 months. $39.95/month after promotional offer ends. Transaction fees waived. Additional listing fees may be charged by and paid to the third-party marketplace provider.
- Accept credit card payments and PayPal, generate invoices, and send purchase confirmation e-mails
- Generate real-time sales reports to monitor revenue and orders
- Shopping cart with the same look and feel as the rest of your site
- comes with free access to Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2008
- Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption - shopping cart and all online store pages are protected with 128-bit SSL encryption (see Online secure transactions)
- Charge more upfront and more each month than some other solutions but do not charge a final value fee (FVF). Monthly pricing from $30 (Steel) up to $200 (Platinum).
- Steel package allows you to post up to 20 products. Platinum is unlimited.
- Need your own Merchant account]] or use Google Checkout
- Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard / CISP certified
- Search engine optimization (SEO) included
- Pay extra for each store additional store
- Integrates with Quickbooks
- 75 ready to go store designs
- Click here for a more detailed comparison of Volusion solutions
Pinnacle Shopping Cart Software
- choose from two different solutions - hosted or licensed
- Completely customizable
- Several reporting tools
- Newsletter and product update wizards
- Supports digital downloads
- Supports multiple wholesaler levels
- Product data feeds to multiple sites
- QuickBooks integration
- Google site maps support
- Express checkout with multi-currency and language support
- Search engine optimization (SEO) support
- Accepts all major payment gateways including PayPal, Paypal Payments Pro, Verisign, Google Payments
- Full support of HTTPS and Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption protocols (see Online secure transactions)
- Works with FEDEX, UPS and USPS real-time shipping tools
- Developers get source code access
