The E-Commerce website is the approach that you should
consider if you sell an actual product. This assumes that you have
already established a merchant account and are taking credit cards as
payment for your product.
The E-Commerce Web site has all of the elements of the
information web site, but also includes a catalog of your products. This
catalog includes:
- A picture of
your product or products.
- The general
description of your product or products.
- The cost for
your product or products.
The E-Commerce Web site also includes a shopping cart
system that allows visitors to place products in their shopping cart. The
system will also allow the customer to view the items in his shopping cart,
increase quantities, delete items and continue shopping. When the customer
is ready, the shopping cart system will allow him to check out and pay for
his products using a credit card.
I don't want to unduly complicate the procedure, but
there are few important aspects of this that you need to consider. You're
going to have to incur some front end setup charges in order to establish an
easy to use shopping cart system and a secure gateway to an established
credit card processor.
The shopping cart system that I use is
developed and supported by a company called "Just Add Commerce". They have a
yearly licensing fee for the use of their system that is priced at $400.00.
In addition, there is an additional start up charge of around $50.00 from a credit
card processor. As with your bank, the credit card processor will also
charge you a small fee for each credit card transaction. Typically, this fee
is passed on to the customer in the form of an increase in the product
price.
Recently, Banks have begun to pass along data security costs for
PCI DSS compliance. This cost varies depending on the compliance company used, however, you can use $135.00 as a budgetary number.
If you are interested in setting up an E-Commerce
website, I will be glad to meet with you to discuss the costs and help you
evaluate whether your projected credit card sales make the E-Commerce
approach a cost effective option.
My one time setup charge for this website is
between $300.00 and $500.00 depending upon the extent of the setup needed.
In addition, there is a monthly maintenance fee of $150.00. This monthly
maintenance fee covers all changes and additions to your website.
As you can see, an E-Commerce website requires not
only logistical planning but also the development of a good business plan
focused upon Internet online sales. I have the business experience to ask
the right questions as together, we evaluate the advisability and potential
profitability of your E-Commerce website.
