In order to sell products on the internet, you have two choices.
- GIVE CUSTOMERS YOUR CONTACT INFO: You can give customers a way to contact you by phone or email to order products
- GET A SHOPPING CART: You can take it a step further and get an "online" shopping cart.
Online commerce is a bit involved. There are several steps you must take to set up an effective shopping cart.
Below are the major components of getting a shopping cart for your website. With solutions in place, we will help you every step of the way to achieve your goals.
STEP 1: Identify Your Products
You will have to determine what you are going to sell online. The more products you have, the more your shopping cart will cost. There is a charge for the initial setup which includes 10 items and then the price goes up in blocks of 10. See our price list for details. You may only have one item, you may want to sell hundreds of items, or you may only wish to place your best selling items online.
STEP 2: Organize Your Products
If applicable, you should group your products into logical categories so customers can easily find what they are looking for. For example, if you were selling music you may wish to group titles in the following groups: country, rock, rap, pop, classical and jazz.
STEP 3: Get Pictures of Your Products
NICE PICTURES MEANS MORE SALES!
The most effective way to share your products with clients
is through pictures. If you want to sell, you'll need a digital
image (preferably jpg, gif or tif) of each product. If your
photographs are sharp and clear, your website will look professional
and customers will want to buy from you. In some cases we
can take pictures of your products or you can have digital photos
taken by a commercial photographer. You may already have prints
of your products which need to be scanned. There may be an additional
charge to scan the photos you wish to include in your cart.
You should discuss that when you consult with our company.
STEP 4: List Your Products
We will need some sort of electronic list of your products. The most accurate effective way to provide us with a list of your products is with a spreadsheet. If you are capable of using Microsoft Works or Excel Spreadsheet, you can create a list of products that can be imported directly into the product database. The more you help with this list, the quicker your cart can be up and running. You'll want to include the: price, weight, title, category etc. Don't start building a list until you consult with our company first.
| Example Spreadsheet: | example list of products |
STEP 5: Decide on Shipping
You will have to decide which shipping method to use. If you don't have a preference, we recommend United States Postal Service (USPS) and our shopping cart provides an automatic price calculation based on weight. That means that when a product is ordered, your webpage will connect with the USPS tools webpage to find out how much it will cost to ship a product from your location to the location of your customer. To get this out of the way, you should sign up for the one of the folowing services:
| USPS web tools: | Register for USPS Web Tools |
| FedEx: | Register for an account |
STEP 6: Decide How You Will Accept Payment
You will need to decide how you wish to accept payment from customers.
| Merchant Account: | visa, mastercard, amex, discover |
| PayPal: | Sign up for Paypal Account |
Paypal is clearly the cheapest easiest way to accept payments, especially if you are a startup company. However, the cheapest, easiest way isn't always the 'best" way. As they say, you get what you pay for.
THE SAFEST WAY
If you would like to choose the safest most effective way to accept credit cards online, spend a little more money and accept credit cards though a Merchant Account and Gateway. To get more info, click here.
STEP 7: Order Your Shopping Cart
ECommerce Templates
A licensed copy of Ecommerce Templates costs approximately $150. Click on the ad to visit their site and get an idea of what their carts look like.
Also, if the standard Ecommerce Templates Shopping Cart doesn't meet all of your needs, ModsForECT.com does a fantastic job of making custom modifications to meet your needs.
Get Started Today!
In order to start the shopping cart process, please click the
link below to fill out a form which will help us determine what
your shopping cart needs are.
Tell me about your shopping cart