How to Get Started with eCommerce

Needed Items:

1. Domain Name
2. Web Site Hosting
3. Web Site Design
4. Online Shopping System
5. Payment Processor
6. SSL Certificate

Domain Name
The domain name registration is the process in which you register your on-line presence. The name is then lined to an IP address, the address where your site is hosted. The registration works to insure that only the official entity can have a domain name. This prevents redundant names being created and allows for a central system. Domain names can be registered for a period of 1 to 10 years, and must be renewed before the expiration date. If the domain is not renewed it will go back into the "available" pool after a length of time and anyone can register it.

Web Site Hosting
The domain name is only a pointer, taking a word and translating it to an IP address. The web site hosting is the service that physically hosts your website and usally also the email for the domain. The two main things to look for when selecting a host are the storage space, and the bandwidth. Storage space is the amount of physical space on the server's hard drive that can be used to store your content. This usually includes all of the web files, images, videos, programs, and email. Bandwidth, on the other hand, is the amount of data that is transferred from the server to clients. If you have an image that you distribute that is 1 megabyte in size, it takes 1megabyte of storage, and 1megabyte of bandwdith each time somebody loads it from the server. So if you have a 100 visitors a day, each downloading that file then you would need (1 * 100 * 31) 3.10gigagbytes of bandwidth a month.

Most sites do not use this much bandwidth though. Hosting is usually paid for in advance, by one to twelve months.

Web Site Design
Website design is the service of actually creating the web site. Depending on your needs the site design can be completely done by the designer, or he can work from your ideas, content, and layouts. The process is very dependent on the client's needs and is the biggest variable cost. Depending on the service you use the price can range from free to tens of thousands of dollars.

Onlne Shopping System
Commonly referred to as a shopping cart this can be created along with the base web site, or as a latter addition. Sometimes the entire web site is a large scale shopping cart system. The shopping cart must fit your needs to be effective, there are many options to choose from in this area with the main consideration being on your product line. Some businesses, especially in the service sector do not need any type of shopping cart. On the other hand retail businesses may have thousands of products which need to be cataloged and sold on-line. There are also solutions for sellers that need to sell digital goods such as e-books and software.

Payment Processor
During the checkout process from the shopping cart the user needs to be able to pay you somehow. The standard method is to use a credit card with a 3rd party payment processor. These systems link into the shopping cart system to provide a seamless transaction for the customer. The biggest drawback to this setup though are the fees and steps to setup. For many small businesses just starting these costs can be very high. There are some other ways for the small business owner to start accepting payments. The commonly used alternative method is to use a service such as PayPal. PayPal used to require customers to be members of the PayPal service too, now however they allow anyone to make a credit card payment, without having their own PayPal account. All of the payment methods must integrate smoothly with the shopping cart system, especially when you are dealing with digital goods which the buyer expects to receive immediately. You do not want to give these digital goods away until you are reasonably sure that the payment has been approved.

SSL Certificate
An SSL Certificate is really a combination of a couple of items combined. The first thing to consider is that at the basic level, SSL provides for a secure encrypted connection between the web server and the web browser on the client. The encryption works based on a trusted key. The web server can create what is known as a self signed certificate and the site can still be secure. However, this will cause the browser to display a security warning. This is because if it is self signed then it is still possible to intercept the communication. This is why you need a separate SSL Certificate from a trusted source.

This pretty much sums up the basics for the technology side of the business. You would still need all of the standard processes of a store with the order fulfillment, customer service, and marketing aspects.