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E-Commerce
Shopping Carts
Selling
online means you can market your products on a national or even global
basis. It works best when you have niche products - this enables your
website to be more easily optimised for the search engines using your
keywords. If you have a niche product that can be purchased online AND
that comes up on page one of a search engine when a prospect searches
for it using your keyword, you could have a great online business. Niche
products could be identified by brand names.
As
the internet continues to grow many small businesses are adding an
e-commerce website to their marketing effort - finding new customers for
a minimal investment.
Having
a website where people can buy online is not as expensive or complicated
as you may think. If you already have the ability to take credit cards,
it is a simple procedure :-
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The
customer makes an online purchase on your website.
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The
credit card details are sent to a secure checkout server.
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A
'Gateway' company processes the credit cards and sends the money to
your bank.
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You
receive email notification of the purchase.
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You
then send the product to the customer.
Ensure
your website is listed on the Search Engines.
Many
cart websites are written using asp or php language which is not readily
picked up by search engines and owners may not get their pages listed at
all. The shopping cart I use enables the website to be written in html
which is the standard language of the Internet.
Keep
in contact with customers
The
admin panel of my shopping carts has an option to allow you to collect
and send automated emails to customers. Regular email contact is proven
to increase sales.
Costs
Typically,
if you have say 50 products, you should add around £500 to the cost of
your website for the shopping cart. There is also an additional charge
of £25 per month.
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