What Is E-Commerce?

E-Commerce can be defined as business activities conducted using electronic data transmission via the Internet and WWW. A lot of people think only of business-to-consumer (B2C) shopping on the web as E-Commerce, but in fact, business-to-business (B2B) transactions account for a much larger proportion of revenue generated directly by electronic commerce.

Core Components Of An E-Commerce Website

If you break down any E-Commerce website into its primary components, you would see that it basically involves combining an easy-to-use, manageable website design with a Shopping Cart Program and an Online Merchant Account -- then setting those up through a reliable E-Commerce Hosting provider. If you acquire each of these components and integrate them together, you will have the basics you need to start attracting customers and selling your products & services online.

• Hosting Account - You will need an account from a web hosting provider and you will need to register a domain name for your business (such as www.adamssite.com). To ensure security of online transactions, your E-Commerce Hosting account must have SSL capability -- which is provided by SSL Certificates.
• Business Website - For this component you will either have to build a site yourself, or hire a professional design company to do it for you. We suggest looking into using low-cost Webpage Templates or E-Commerce Templates to fulfill this part of your E-Commerce puzzle rather than paying the higher costs of custom web design.
• Shopping Cart - As with your website's files, any shopping cart program you select will need to be uploaded to you hosting account and installed there. A good Shopping Cart Program will have its own online administrative webpage that allows you to easily add / remove product offerings and update information & pricing on each product.
• Merchant Account - In order to process credit card orders and eChecks from Internet customers, you will need to select an affordable merchant account provider. You can obtain an Online Merchant Account either from your bank or from one of many merchant account services available on the Internet.

Putting them all together into a working E-Commerce website does require some technical knowledge. If you don't have any experience at all within your company for configuring shopping carts and coding them correctly to work with your merchant account, you should seek assistance from a professional web developer.

Your Site Is Up, Your Ready To Receive Orders . . Now What?

A simple explanation of E-Commerce activities would stop at what it takes to build a such a website, but anyone who plans on running an online business will need to address several additional issues. View our E-Commerce Information section to learn more about such topics as attracting customers, order delivery and online customer support.

E-Commerce Information - Beyond Building Your Site

Getting your site up on the Internet is a big step, but its only one step of many that you will have to take to get visitors to your website and turn them into customers. This section is meant to serve as a checklist of E-Commerce information that you should be aware of as you continue to establish your business presence on the Internet.

Wilson Internet - A Site Worth Bookmarking

One great source of E-Commerce information we personally use at Adams Site is Wilson Internet. This website is one of the original E-Commerce information sites on the Internet -- and it continues to be a treasure trove of tips and advice for online business owners. Dr. Wilson provides a wealth of free E-Commerce information, as well as numerous eBooks on E-Commerce and marketing.

Attracting Visitors & Potential Customers

The biggest reason for the failure of so many online businesses is poor marketing. There is not a "Build It And They Will Come" reality on the Internet any longer. New online businesses have to compete with an increasing amount of competition in order to acquire their customers online. Besides including your website and email addresses in your traditional marketing efforts, be aware of the following methods for gaining business exposure on the Internet:

• Get your website listed in Search Engines, and Google in particular. Also get listed in Internet Directories such as Yahoo!, Looksmart and the Open Directory Project.
• Don't just get listed in search engines -- research keywords that searchers type in to find the products and services you offer and optimize your site for these keywords.
• Explore Pay-Per Click Advertising -- the main players in this medium are Google and Yahoo.
• Learn more about Opt-In Email Marketing -- there are plenty of email lists where people are actually asking for information about certain types of products and services, and where no spam is involved.

Order Fulfillment & Package Delivery Services

Ensuring that your order fulfillment procedures are working efficiently will save your business a lot of cancelled orders and credit card charge backs, while keep your customers happy:

• Know beforehand what package delivery system you will use and figure their shipping costs into the pricing of your products.
• If your products are all electronic and downloadable, take some time to learn more about Online Delivery Systems.
• See if your delivery service offers Email Notifications of when packages are shipped or orders are delayed.
• If you'll be taking thousands of orders online, look into integrating Package Tracking on your website. Services like FedEx have a service for this that you can request if you use them for delivering customer orders.

Online Customer Support

Doing business over the Internet has created an entirely new means for providing customer support. Good online support information and processes can help cut some of the costs and time involved in supporting your clients:

• Clearly state support phone numbers, email addresses and hours of operation for your support department.
• Make sure your support department has personnel assigned to quickly answer email support inquiries.
• Have your support personnel put together a good set of Support FAQs for your customers to look at online. Make sure this information is easily found by customers on your website. This kind of information can answer many of the most commonly-asked support questions without requiring customers to email or call you.
• Look into possibly using Live Online Customer Support software to provide another immediate means for customers to contact your support personnel. This type of support is much cheaper than traditional phone support!
• If you will be developing a large online customer base, explore the possibility of using Online Trouble Ticket software to keep track of service requests and the resolutions of each trouble ticket.
• Write an online Privacy Policy -- let your potential visitors know how you will handle their financial information.