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Position your business to sell online.
By Michael Astrachan
Purchasing products and services online has become a standard practice for
consumers worldwide. In fact, according to global Internet information provider
comScore, 2006 online retail spending reached $102.1 billion, marking a
24-percent increase versus 2005.
There are a growing number of options available for companies that want to sell
their products online. Following are some common components to e-commerce
solutions that are important to be familiar with when opening an online store.
The Shopping Cart
At the heart of an e-commerce solution is the shopping cart. This is the
mechanism that holds the product information, which typically includes product
imagery, features and price. The shopping cart, as the name implies, allows
customers of an online store to add or remove products that are being
considered for purchase. Once ready to check out of the store, customers fill
out pertinent shipping and payment information to complete their order. A
confirmation is typically sent via e-mail or displayed onscreen as a receipt
for the customer.
Secure Transactions
A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate refers to the digital certificate used
with the most popular security protocol on the Internet. When you make a
purchase on the Web and notice the closed lock icon at the bottom of your
browser, or the "https" prefix in the URL, it means you have established a
secure SSL connection. It is important to utilize an SSL certificate when
setting up your online store in order to ensure the secure transfer of customer
order information. VeriSign and Thawte are two popular resellers of SSL
certificates.
The Merchant Account
Businesses wishing to sell online with real-time purchasing must have access to
a merchant account. This is an account opened through a bank that is a member
of Visa, MasterCard or other credit card network, which allows merchants to
accept credit cards from purchasers. Once an order is placed online, the funds
are then transferred electronically to the merchant's bank account.
Payment Processing
The authorization gateway provides a link between an online store and the
merchant account. This is the point at which the purchase transaction takes
place. Some of the companies that provide payment processing solutions are
VeriSign, with their PayFlow solution, and Authorize.Net.
Order Fulfillment
It's important to be prepared to fulfill your orders in a timely manner.
Therefore, be sure to have a plan for doing so. Fulfilling orders for smaller
operations might be as easy as packaging and shipping in-house. For higher
volume orders, it might be more efficient to employ a professional fulfillment
house to field and ship orders to customers.
The Shopping Experience
When setting up an online store, be sure to create an online environment that
has a clean and professional design and clearly displays that the store's
connection is secure for ordering. This is typically accomplished by displaying
the logo for the SSL Certificate on your Web site.
And don't overlook having the ability to provide cross-sell and up-sell offers
to your customers.
"Cross-sell" is a marketing term for the practice of suggesting related
products or services to a customer who is considering buying something. If a
customer is buying a book on Amazon.com, for example, they may be shown a list
of books similar to the one they have chosen or books purchased by other
customers that bought the same book the customer is buying.
"Up-sell" is a marketing term for the practice of suggesting higher-priced
products or services to a customer who is considering a purchase. An up-sell
offer is typically for a better version of the same product or service they are
considering, such as a gym membership with more privileges, or a faster
computer.
With careful preparation and attention to the details of setting up an online
store, you can quickly begin to realize the positive impact that e-commerce
will have for your business.
Michael Astrachan is president of Astrachan Inc., a full-service interactive
marketing and business solutions company. You can contact him at
mikea@astrachan.com or at (816) 363-3287 or by visiting
www.astrachan.com.
This article first appeared in the Kansas City Small Business Monthly.
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