E-Commerce

What is E-Commerce? What's Involved in Getting Started?

OttawaWEB, has been providing e-commerce solutions since its inception. We tailor the solution to our client's needs. Whether you have a few items to sell or a few thousand, we can guide you through the options.

E-Commerce is the buzzword. Everyone is talking about it, usually in hushed tones as if they know something special that everyone else doesn't. Let's take the mystery out of it. E-Commerce is simply: "Selling via the Internet".

There are various levels of E-Commerce:

1. A form which clients print out and fax back to you with their order.
2. A form that takes credit card information securely emails or faxes you to let you know you have an order and you pick up the credit card information securely via a secure site or encryption.
3. A shopping cart that allows clients to chose multiple items before the final processing of their credit card information. The cart then notifies you of the order via email or fax and you pick up the information via the cart's administrative interface.
4. A shopping cart as described above, but the credit card information is processed automatically by a third party (InternetSecure, Paypal) so that all you have to do is ship the product.
5. A system as described above that links with your inventory and shipping as well as your accounting system.
6. A system as above that is distributed over many servers sometimes located in multiple locations that can also link with distributors and mobile sales forces.

If you only have a few items to sell, then a shopping cart isn't required. If you are not expecting a high volume of orders, not shipping virtual products (software for example), and you have your own merchant accounts, then automatic credit card processing may not be necessary.

If you expect a high volume of transactions, then using an credit card processing service is recommended. For lower volumes you may want to use your own merchant account if you have one, or use the services of companies such as PayPal.

For most of our clients, the third option is the best compromise between cost and effectiveness, at least initially. This option gets your company online and selling products without a large cash outlay.

So What's Involved?

• A shopping cart.
• A web site with other information about your company.
• A secure server
• Someone to put it all together.
• Somewhere to host it when it's done.

On average, you can put it all together for an initial investment of between $1000-5000. Pricing varies depending on the size of your web site, whether you purchase or rent your shopping cart, other features you want to incorporate into your web site, number of items you want to sell, if they are already in a database of some kind, whether your items need to be photographed or the pictures scanned, etc.

Contact us for a free no-obligation quote on your next e-commerce project and let us help you chose the solution that will work best for you.

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