E-commerce web sites

By adding e-commerce functionality to your web site, you make it extremely easy for customers to buy from you and pay you directly. Your e-commerce site can bring these benefits:

  • selling online through your web site adds another channel to grow your sales
  • take orders at all times twenty-four hours a day from a wide geographic market

E-commerce market size

UK consumers spent about £59 billion shopping online in 2010 (up 18% on the previous year) according to IMRG, making the UK the second-largest market in the world by value – see www.imrg.org/.

Against this background, the desire to sell online is often a key motivation behind the development of a web site.

Small and simple

If you have only a few products, or if you are asking for donations to a charity, you may be happy just to add "Buy now" or "Donate now" buttons, or a simple hosted shopping cart, to your web site. These can take your web site visitors through the process of providing their payment details using, for example, their PayPal account or credit/debit cards.

Sophisticated e-commerce system

But if you have a larger number of products or you need a greater degree of control over your shop site, you may need a more sophisticated system with some of the following features:

  • hierarchy of product categories, sub-categories and individual products
  • pictures of each product with "click to enlarge" button
  • search function
  • shopping basket, to which products can be added or deleted and allowing the customer to specify the quantity they wish to buy of each product
  • a range of delivery methods
  • a range of payment methods
  • customers can save multiple delivery and billing addresses
  • "What's New" page showing new products
  • "Bestsellers" list showing the best-selling products
  • products on special offer with reduced prices
  • reviews for products written by users of the site
  • registered customers can view their order history
  • customers can request email updates about specific products
  • customers can subscribe to newsletters
  • "Tell a Friend" page enabling customers to send information about products to their friends
  • "static" information about the business - such as "About us" and "Contact us" pages - as well as dynamic product pages

Administration area

E-commerce systems have an administration area on the web site offering a range of functions:

  • add or delete products, categories and manufacturers
  • unlimited numbers of products and categories
  • edit product descriptions
  • upload product photographs
  • specify the stock quantity for each product
  • view customer details
  • view orders
  • print invoices and packing slips
  • send emails
  • send newsletters
  • backup the web site database
  • control page titles and header tags to improve search engine rankings
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