Setting up an online business is more than building a website and then sitting back and waiting for the money to start rolling in. There are many issues you need to consider before starting your e-commerce initiative to improve your chances of success. This article discusses some of things you need to be thinking about from the outset.

Strategy

Initially, you need to consider your overall e-commerce strategy. You need to be asking yourself:

- What is the scope of your online business?
- What products are you going to sell?
- How do your competitors approach online selling?
- What makes you unique?
- Who is going to develop the website?
- How are you going to manage the website?
- How are you going to take payments?
- How are you going to fulfil orders that are placed?
- How you are going to manage the risk of online trading?
- We consider a few of these points below in more detail.

Web Developer

Contracting out your website offers several advantages. A professional developer has the technical knowledge to create a site that works with all browsers and should be fluent with the current technologies. Investing in a professional developer will allow you to spend more time on creating a successful business and less time learning the new trade of being your own website developer.

You should consider issues such as:

- Is the web developer able to project manage your solution and capable of delivering your

  requirements on time and within budget?
- Will you get the level of strategic consultancy you need to provide a solution that meets

  your needs and provides a unique offering within your market?
- What is the track record of the key people in the web development company
- What is the calibre of the partners associated with the vendor?
- How ‘future-proof’ are the company’s technologies?
- Does the hosted solution provider have disaster recovery procedures?

Technology

When considering which e-commerce platform to base your business on it is important you are happy with the technology you are going to invest in.

- Ensure sure that your web solution is scalable so that as your business grows you do

   not need to change technology.
- Make sure that the technology you choose can be easily integrated with other parts of

   your business, such as your CRM and Order Management System.
- Check that the technology you chose has state-of-the-art sales and marketing

  functionality to help with customer acquisition, customer retention, cross and up-selling
- Does your web developer understand usability and accessibility?

- Your web solution needs to focus on customer experience that will do justice to your

   business and enhance your brand.
- Will the technology be easy to use and manage?

- You do not want to incur extra costs because the technology can not handle changes

  quickly or is too inflexible for your staff to handle.
- Web analytics are important to ensure that you can measure what is happening so you

  can adapt and grow accordingly.

Regulation

If you are selling online, there are a number of pieces of legislation and regulation that you need to be familiar with. These include:

- The Data Protection Act - which governs how you use and store customer information
- The EU's Distance Selling Directive - which covers cooling off periods, returns and the

   information you must display on your site
- The Electronic Communications Act - which sets out how the government is reforming the

   law to support eCommerce.

Another major consideration is that, if you are selling overseas, you will be subject to other countries' regulatory regimes.

Fulfilment

Taking orders and payments online is just the first step. You've got to have a fulfilment process that means you can dispatch and deliver goods or services in a reasonable time. The danger is that you could be overwhelmed if your site attracts a large number of orders before you are geared up for them.

It's essential to test your site and processes thoroughly. Start with a soft launch - perhaps just to existing customers and see how the website beds down before you begin to give it stronger marketing support.

Payment Options

Most goods bought on the Internet are paid for by credit or debit card. There are several methods for accepting card payments - each with different set up costs, pricing structures and technology requirements. The two most common are:

(1) Getting an Internet Merchant Service (ISM) from a bank, to let you accept credit and debit card payments, and a Payment Service Provider (PSP), which is a piece of software that collects card numbers and passes them to your bank, and

(2) Using a Payment Bureau. These bureaux, like WorldPay or Netbanx, collect and process card details for you without the need for a ISM or PSP

Security

There is a lot of attention paid to internet security and there is much concern about security levels on the internet. However with the use of encryption technology, virus scanning software and a 'firewall', eCommerce transactions can be more secure than offline ones. For example, your customers are more likely to have money stolen from their credit cards in a restaurant than on the internet. Half the battle here is creating confidence. If you have a professional-looking website; you explain your security precautions; and you consult with larger customers prior to launching your site, customers will respond positively.

Online Marketing and Promotion

You need to have a clear online marketing strategy that involved e-mail broadcasts, optimised search engine submission and online advertising.

There are thousands of well-designed websites but very few are visible on the search engines. Almost 90% of Internet users today use search engines to find the information they need. Yet, many businesses are not registered with search engines.

It is important to monitor your search engine rankings so that you can track changes, monitor the ones that you need to improve and identify engines with whom you are not listed. If your customers did a search for specific keywords on a search engine, would they find your site? Are you in the first 10 results or the first 30? The average visitor scrolls through 1.8 page results during a typical search. If your business does not appear in those first 1.8 results, that could translate to lost business.

Managing risk

Providing an e-commerce solution carries with it some risks. In order to limit the risks, and to ensure that you mange the expectations of your online customers, you should develop and then explain clearly on the website your policies covering:

- privacy - what you will and will not do with their details.
- returns policy - under what circumstances you will accept returned items and how will

                               they be returned?
- shipping policy - freight costs, insurance, import duties, where you will not deliver

                                  goods.
- fulfilment policy - what you will do if an item/service is purchased but you cannot fulfil

                                    the order in reasonable time.
- security - of their personal details, their payment records, credit card or account details

                    if given.

Conclusion

The success of failure of any e-commerce initiative depends on one crucial point: TRUST. If today’s Internet shopper feels even vaguely uncomfortable with your Website, there are plenty of other e-vendors that can provide similar products and they are only a click away.

Your online store must provide the same “shopping clues” to your shopper that any good brick-and-mortar store would. The e-store needs to be clean, organised, with a lot of help available and an obvious, quick and easy checkout point. It needs to be easy to find on the web and be built on a scalable platform that can grow with your business. At the end of the day your e-commerce website is your business and it needs to be right if you want it to succeed.