What is eCommerce?

eCommerce simply means having the internet as a sales channel.
You don't need a top-end shopping-cart website to make sales via the internet.
Your business and your needs will dictate how you approach eCommerce.

How do I get it?

We offer a range of methods to add eCommerce to your web-site. A shopping-cart web-site is the most common requirement, but if your needs are simpler or budget smaller, we can provide alternatives.
If you start with a simpler option, you can upgrade it to a shopping-cart at a later date.

eCommerce options:

Shopping Cart	Enabling customers to browse and select products and pay for them online with a credit card.
Online brochure	An online brochure for the customer to make their choice, plus a phone contact and/or shop address to make the purchase.
Advetising only	A simple web-site with contact details if the customer wants to enquire further about products and purchasing.
Custom	A web-site customised for the needs of a specific business incorporating some or all of the above and other business-specific elements.

Try our cost calcualtor to see how much a shopping-cart web-site will cost.

Do I need it?

Its not right for every business. Here are a few considerations:

Quantity and size of sales	If your sales are low volume and high value, eCommerce may not be worth the investment, or you may want to choose a very simple option. For high value goods and services, new customers are unlikely to make impulse purchases, and likely to put more effort into buying, so ease-of-purchase wiill not be a big factor in their decision.
Type of product	Products that work best in eCommerce are ones where the customer knows exactly what they are getting - e.g. DVD's and cornflakes. For products such as jewellery and hand-made goods, and also for most services, it is more difficult to make sales without meeting the customer or the customer seeing the product first-hand. That doesn't mean you can't benefit from eCommece, it just means geting the web-site right is that bit more challenging.
Costs	eCommerce can often offer extremely low costs-of-sale. However, don't be fooled into thinking that once you have a web-site, sales will start to flow in. There can be considerable marketing costs. Getting people to look at your website is on ongoing effort. There are techniques to maximise hits on you web-site with minimum cost and effort, and we can help with this.