What are the options to sell online

Sell Online - Multi-channel, Social, Mobile - These are all part of selling online

You can easily start an online store as a hobby or for your business and start selling online. But there are other options to enable you to sell your products and services online.

If you use the right technology and hosting partner we will take care of all the technical stuff and also provide you with a service level agreement. That leaves you to get on with the business.

You can get more information at our FAQ page on Costs & Issues Starting an Online Business.

TIP # 1: - starting an online store can involve some work; you need to manage orders and customers, update and add content, manage marketing and social media, and setup the store. So you need to be able to use the administration and content management system provided. The best way to find out if you can manage it for yourself is to try. eCorner provide a free 30 Day Trial system so you can try it for yourself.

Our solution is hosted here in Australia, but the world wide web means that you can sell to any country or from any country without an issue. Our systems are regularly upgraded in features and functions free in the hosting environment and with a maintenance agreement if your website is with us on a dedicated server.

Are you selling to businesses or consumers?

You may have heard people talking about their online bsuiness model. Typically it will be B2C - Selling to Consumer or B2B - Selling to Businesses. Some online stores want to support both. B2C is the basis of most online retail. If you want to sell to other businesses like wholesale or re-sellers then the model will be B2B. The main difference is that not everyone can access and buy from a B2B online store and in general the customer will need a user name and password to login.

B2B Basic Functionality

There are certain features that are needed to make a B2B online store work well. These include:

1. Multiple customers groups and prices lists
2. Log-in to access
3. View group pricing after log-in
4. Price lists with volume and value based discount structures
5. Simple and complex order forms
6. Multiple delivery addresses per account
7. Save orders to shopping lists and reprocess as new orders

Standard B2C Functionality built-in:

1. Integrated website and online store
2. Customer order online with payment and shipping
3. Range of themes with built-in functionality supporting all devices
4. Predictive search and filtered search results
5. Automated up-sell and cross-sell support
6. Multi-channel with eBay, Amazon and other marketplaces supported
7. Newsletters and coupons built-in
8. Fully multi-media content management

What languages and currencies do you want?

You may only want to sell in Australian Dollars right now but things can change. The solution that you choose should be multilingual and multi-currency meaning it can support many languages and every currency type in the world. You will need to setup tax, payment and shipping to support your requirements. 

Security and safety online

Website terms and conditions and terms of use are a must for any ecommerce website, while a privacy policy is a good idea if you’re planning on using customer information for marketing or to sell to advertisers.

Now more than ever you need to ensure that your online store is safe for your customers and for you.

Hosting, Security and PCI Compliance:

eCorner provided a secure environment that is Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS V3.2) certified by an external quality assurance auditor.

1. eCorner is hosted in one of Australia’s most secure data centers - Macquarie Telecom.
2. There is full real-time denial of service monitoring, blocking and management
3. Systems are monitored for virus and malicious software intrusion
4. There are quarterly penetration tests carried out by our security audit providers
5. We do not publish source code or provide any critical components via 3^rd parties
6. We undertake full PCI DSS annual reviews and audits through Hivint - a qualified security auditor.

Covering the core business issues

An Online Store - A hosted eCommerce Online Store package from eCorner can give you everything you need to successfully sell online and all managed from the administration system. All of the features are out-of-the-box which means you do not have to worry. More importantly they are maintained by eCorner so we will make sure that all the features always work. This allows you to manage your business and not have to worry about the technology.

Internet Marketing - regardless of what you build you still need to promote your business so marketing is essential to success you can read an inetresting article at Linkedin on Marketing.

Payment Solutions - in order to make a sale online you need to collect a payment and you can read more on this further on. All of our hosted ecommerce packages and our ecommerce software integrate with Payment Gateways such as PayPal and eWAY that allow you to accept payments and Credit Cards Online. All of our Payment Partners comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) and eCorner is PCI DSS V3.2 Compliant.

Shipping and Freight - this can be a complex area if you are selling large, fragile or dangerous items. Butf for most online stores it is covered with the built in shipping calculators supported by eCorner.

Customer and Order manager - customers are your key assets so managing the order and customer data is essential. You can find more information on this further on in the article.

Customer support - customer service and trust are linked together in an online business. If you have a happy customer then you have a return customer.

TIP # 2: - If you want to accept payment online and collect customer personal information then your online store will need to be secure and support SSL encryption. When taking payment online you will also need a hosting company that is PCI DSS Compliant. If you show that your store is secure it will improve your shopping basket conversion rate.

Sell on other platforms like eBay and Amazon

If you have done some eBay selling or maybe have some experience in the web then you can get the most from a hosted eCommerce solution. There are many advanced features in the eCorner Stores Packages that you can utilise with a bit of confidence and experience. One of those is our advanced eBay connector. It allows you to list and manage sales from your store directly onto eBay. It supports all the eBay features as well as eBay stores. Getting the design just right may need some assistance but once that is done then adding content and building the store is straight forward for an experienced person. eCorner is there with free phone and email support and there are lots of tips in our Selling On eBay Frequently Asked Questions . Want to sign-up for eBay now?

TIP # 3: - If you support multiple channels to market like an online store, eBay and other shopping portals or even a bricks and mortar store you can improve your results by as much as 300%.

Attracting and retailing customers online

Graphic Design - Create a great User Experience

With a Hosted eCommerce Solution like eCorner you generally do not need to spend anything. If you have something special in mind for a custom logo or banner then it might need to be designed by a professional graphics designer. In general we would recommend that you get started with the designs available from eCorner. These are very flexible and you can change colours, add logos and banners. If you want a special design then we can help by working with you to refine your requirements but take a look at what is available from eCorner for free first. A custom design can cost as little as $600 - $1,200 to produce and add to the online shop.

Great Content Means More Customers

If you ask most eCommerce professionals what is the most important aspect of a successful online store they will all tell you that it is CONTENT. You will often hear that CONTENT IS KING which means that the more effort you put into the content the better will be the result. Content includes the images that you use, the product descriptions, the names of products and pages and the layout of the content. The online system that you use should include a Content Management System (CMS) so that you can add and change the content within your own business and not need costly technical resources.

Payment Gateway - make sure your customers feel Secure

If you want to accept credit cards online we recommend that you use a Payment Service Provider and process the credit cards via a Payment Gateway. There are strict regulations around the use and storage of credit card information which are regulated by the Payment Card Industry via their Data Security Standards you can find more information at their website www.pcisecuritystandards.org or through your bank.

All eCorner Stores are PCI DSS compliant. Payment Gateways have to be integrated into your website. eCorner has already integrated a number of leading Payment Gateways including PayPal (Standard, Express and Payflow), eWAY, Dialect Solutions, Payment Express, SecurePay and Worldpay. These are made available as part of the package from eCorner. You will need to setup an account with the Payment Service Provider (and maybe also and online merchant account with your bank) to take online payments.

Buy now pay later services like ZipPay, Afterpay and Openpay can also help to get you more customers and more sales.

Shipping and Logistics - get your products to your customers efficiently

eCorner provide a wide variety of shipping methods built in which you can setup on your website. These handle just about any possibility. We also provide integration to Australia Post for calculating shipping cost in the shopping basket. The actual shipping cost to send your packages is not part of the eCommerce package and you need to make sure that you calculate and add shipping cost correctly.

Connect to accounting systems to automate your business

Orders that come in online need to be added to your business accounting software such as MYOB or Xero for example. Most eCommerce software has the ability to export orders to a file that can be used to update other systems. There are also connectors that can automate that process such as OneSaas.

Now with Xero integration. All of our online store packages are now enabled with direct Xero integration. Orders received on the online shop from direct customers or eBay orders are sent to your Xero account. Learn more about Xero Integration....

TIP # 4: - Return customers cost you less to retain that getting new customers. Return customer's order value is generally higher than first time customers. Offer your customers coupons, discounts and special offers to promote customer retention and loyalty.

Web Analytics - Visitor and Page Tracking - Know your customers

A good online shop can often fail because the owners don't know what is really happening on the website. In order to understand the activity on the website you need to collect information about what visitors there are and what they do. This is collected by a web analytics program like Wagtail or Google Analytics. Every eCorner store comes already integrated with a free version of our business and analytics system - Wagtail. However you can also use analytics like Google Analytics on your online store.

SEO and SEM - Get your Online Store found by Search Engines

Search Engines like Google and Bing are responsible for driving 80% of the traffic and sales to your online store. If your store is not set up to be friendly for search engines then you will not be as successful as you want.

Search Engine Optimisation and Search Engine Marketing can cost a lot of money. Luckily if you have decided on eCorner you will find that the websites have SEO capabilities built in. We have an extensive SEO Manager that will advise you on every product and page that you create to ensure you get the best result. This can save you $1000's on SEO specialists. You really just need to follow the guidelines and advice in our FAQs and your website will be search engine friendly. Search Engine Marketing is a cost you need to consider carefully. We have seen good web businesses fail because they spent too much on Cost Per Click programs which were not targeted. Again we have some good advice in our FAQs.

We also have built-in capability to support your Google Adwords conversion tracking code should you decide to do search engine marketing and pay per click on your website. We can support the tracking code for any paid search or affiliate marketing program.

Published on

03/06/2019 03:08 PM

by eCorner Pty Ltd

Updated 03/06/2019