There are many ways to create a successful e-commerce but there are four crucial points that you should keep
in mind while launching your website.
1. Website
Your website is like your showroom, airy and attractive. When online, the equivalent of a showroom is an
uncluttered website where the eyes can move freely up and down finding the details they need without much effort.
It is extremely important that the website be easy to navigate since the surfer should not have to search for the
product or details he or she is looking for. The website should project its products in a provocative way so
the surfer wants to see more.
Place testimonials or photos of your product so people can create a positive image of its usage.
If your products are guaranteed, post this information conspicuously.
2. Your merchant account
This feature is a must for any commercial website because without it you will not be able to receive payment
by credit cards. Reports show that as high as 99 percent of the trade online is done through credit cards.
Hence, if you do not have a merchant account you lose business. You will need to be able to accept all major
credit cards and without this feature that is not possible.
3. Shopping cart and secure server
This is interconnected with the above. When you have a merchant account to accept credit cards,
you will need an online shopping cart. This feature allows your customers to choose and place their chosen
products in the cart just as one would do in shopping mall. This cart will, at the end of the shopping,
total the products and give the total cost of the products chosen.
In order to have your shopping cart work well you need to have its software installed on your website or
on the server that hosts your website. If you choose to have your own server you will need to have a
certificate from Verisign and Thawrte, which encrypts the financial information given by your customers so
they can feel safe while giving you this sensitive information.
4. Payment gateway
This is another crucial aspect in setting up a successful e-commerce website.
The payment gateway is the link from your website to the credit card processor.
This gateway helps information to pass from your site to the authorization centre where the credit card
is verified and then charged; after that the reply will come back to your website that the processing has
been successful. A payment gateway will always check for details in credit card information and reject any
discrepancy in the information. In this way it reduces the use of fraudulent cards by almost 80 percent.
