Increasingly more businesses nowadays are starting to sell and distribute their products and services via the Internet. It is a win-win situation – customers get the very best selection at the lowest costs, and retailers get access to markets outside their geographic location. But dependent on the kind of e-commerce web site the business is using, the cost to implement the project could vary from a couple hundred to several thousand dollars.
E-commerce on the Cheap
It’s a common misconception that so as to conduct business over the Internet you have to have a pricey merchant account that will permit your customers to pay you by credit card. This was previously the case, but these days there are numerous services obtainable that make e-commerce a very inexpensive choice. These services come in the form of third party credit card processors.
A third party credit card processor functions as an intermediary between the customer and your website. In general, a customer will click on a link to buy a product and be taken to the third party’s website to process the credit card information in a secure environment. The payment for the purchase is deposited in your account, and the order information is forwarded to you. The only cost to the e-commerce retailer is generally a minute fixed charge and / or a small percentage of the sale.
Even though using a third party credit card processor could be inexpensive, it does have its disadvantages. The shopping cart system may not seamlessly integrate with your web site because it’s not easily customizable. Furthermore, it looks a bit less professional when the buyer should leave your website so as to enter their credit card information. However, when weighing these disadvantages with the costs associated with creating a professional e-commerce web site, they really don’t seem like a big deal.
Really Taking the Plunge
Opening a fully functional online store with the ability to process credit cards on-site could be quite a costly production. Here’s a list of elements that all need to be integrated: a shopping cart system, secure web server, payment gateway, and a merchant account.
There are some shopping cart systems that are obtainable for free, and many web hosts provide the capability to integrate a shopping cart system into your website. However, if you’d prefer your system to be fully featured, easy to use, seamlessly integrated with your web site, and include advanced functions for example automatically calculating tax and shipping charges, the price could run several hundred dollars.
The most expensive and hard part of the procedure is obtaining a merchant account to process credit card numbers. These accounts generally have monthly and transaction fees associated with them. Luckily, the majority of businesses already have merchant accounts, and these can be used to process credit cards over the Internet as well.
In addition to the extra expenses associated with processing transactions right on your website, there’s also a significant difference in the price. Your webmaster will charge to setup the various solutions. Utilizing a third party to process transactions usually just involves inserting a few lines of code into the website which shouldn’t cost very much.
As with any project, it is most likely best to begin small before shelling out big bucks for a professional e-commerce solution. And don’t forget, even after you’ve spent thousands of dollars getting your e-commerce website launched, you’re probably going to have to spend thousands more marketing your website so as to recover your investment. E-commerce is not inexpensive!
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