The UK e-commerce market is said to be worth £68.4 billion in 2009. It’s not just big hitter’s with deep pockets and huge TV marketing campaigns that make the numbers up, these sales are made up of thousands of small businesses selling to niche markets that are difficult to find off-line.
There are reports that suggest that the market is expanding rapidly as high street shops close in the economic down turn. Shop owners aren’t selling up all together they are simply dropping the expensive overheads, rates and staffing costs of a traditional shop and turning to an online business – same stock – same margins – lower overheads and a bigger profit.
E-commerce means simply trading on line. That might be just placing orders but can also mean taking payments online too. Online shops are usually pre written packages that have been fine tuned and developed into sophisticated packages that cover pretty much every application.
In its simplest form, a BUY NOW button can be added to a page that takes you to a third party payment gateway (like PayPal) where you buy the item over a secure connection on an external site.
Online shops have a basket system that allows the user to pick multiple items and multiple volumes, add them to a basket and then check-out though a secure gateway. There are a lot more features that come with a shopping cart – but that is the essence.
Shopping carts can also be combined with a brochure website or with a CMS to create a hybrid that allows the owner to control virtually every aspect.
Elements
Electronic Commerce includes all forms of business communication and transactions conducted across the internet. This can include e-tailing (shopping carts), B2B, intranets and extranets, online advertising (e.g. advertising banners), and simply put – an online presence in any form, that is used for some type of trading communication (customer service for example).
E-commerce may also refer to electronic data interchange (EDI), in which one company’s computer queries and transmits purchase orders to another company’s computer.
From a website design perspective e-tailing (buying and selling of goods and services, and the transfer of funds) are the most commonly requested aspect of e-commerce.
The basic elements required are:
1. An SSL Certificate – provides an encrypted area for the checkout, securely coding your personal details and credit card data.
2. A payment gateway to talk to the credit card company electronically to check if you have the credit available and the card is not stolen.
3. An internet merchant bank account to deposit the funds into after the transaction
Some provider such as PayPal, NoChex and WorldPay offer item 2 & 3 combined, whichever route you chose, and there are many, they all take around 3% of the transaction value and some have additional charges for processing or maintaining your account.
Note: If you have FSB (Federation of Small Businesses) membership you can get very good rates through WorldPay and a free virtual terminal (allows you to take credit cards over the phone and process online).
Please request our e-commerce guide for more details of payment processes and shopping cart systems.
