Why trade online ?

Trading online means you can reach a national or international market, for much less than the costs of a high-street shop. Your clients probably want you to trade online, too : it makes your products available to them at home, whenever they want.

But before you commit to your online store, make sure you’ve thought through the logistics of sending out your products, and the time it will take to keep the store up-to-date.

Not every web developer can offer e-commerce. Those that do will use a standard framework, to provide the background functionality, then add to it your brand and your products.

Taking Money

Theres no point in trading online if you cannot take payments from your customers! The government provides detailed information on on-line payments here. There are three basic approaches.

1) Collect the card details, then do a CNP transaction
This is quickest and easiest if you already have a PDQ machine and a merchant account – but check with your bank that your agreement covers this. The disadvantages are the time it takes, and the lack of realtime feedback to the client. If they’ve entered a card number incorrectly, you will have to get in touch with them.

2) Use a Bureau Service
With a bureau service, when the customer comes to pay they step from your site to the bureau’s site. The clients transaction is done with the bureau service, who then forward the funds to you – minus a fee, of course.

The bureau service handles all the security issues, which may be a comfort to clients worried about using their card online. Well-known services include PayPal, WorldPay and Protx.

3) Full Integration
All the transaction is handled within your site. You’ll still need to integrate with a payment service, but this is done behind the scenes. This approach gives the best customer experience, but is also the most expensive to develop. You’ll also need to make your site secure, with an SSL certificate.

Costs vary between payment service providers. Some have set-up and annual fees. All charge a percentage, up to 4%, and many charge a per-transaction fee as well. The settlement period can be very long, up to 60 days, as the providers protect themselves against chargebacks. SSL certificates cost around £400 to £600.

The Law

There are a couple pieces of legislation that cover e-commerce, the Electronic Commerce Regulations 2002, and the Distance Selling Regulations 2000. The main points are below but, please note, this is a brief summary, and we cannot give legal advice.

Both require the business to provide pre-contract information before a purchase. That’s the obvious information about the purchase : cost, tax, delivery charges. Plus information about the supplier : the business name, it’s physical address and email address.  Plus the company registration number and VAT number, if they exist.

The Distance Selling Regulations cover any distance selling between a business and a consumer, and provide a right for the customer to withdraw. They can withdraw up to 7 days after ordering, for no reason, and with no penalty. They just have to pay the direct cost of returning the goods. There are exceptions, including if they’ve bought a service that has already commenced, or bought perishable goods, or a bespoke item.

Earn money without selling

If you have a popular site with lots of visitors then you can make money without selling anything. You can sell advertising space to other businesses. Amazon and Google will also advertise on your site, and pay you a share of the proceeds. Amazon will show items of interest to your visitors, and Google will show PPC ads relevant to your page content. Because the adverts are relevant, and constantly changing, they add to the interest of your site.

We hope you have found this briefing useful.  Please use these links if you would like to review the previous sections, Getting Started and Getting Better Online.