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Ecommerce is the term used to describe the selling of goods and services over the Internet. In the most general sense, simply creating a Web site that advertises and promotes your products can be considered “ecommerce.” In recent years, however, ecommerce has become much more sophisticated.
Ecommerce businesses now offer elaborate online stores where customers can browse thousands of products, place an order, select the desired shipping method and pay for their purchases using their credit cards.
Should I open an online store? If you are reading this, you are probably already half-sold
on the idea of extending your business online. Online sales in the coming
year are expected to total at least £7 billion, and that's a conservative
estimate; as more people world-wide gain access to the Internet, ecommerce
and online shopping will become second nature to consumers and businesses
alike. Can you afford to open an online store? With our Ecommerce plans,
you can launch your online store and take your business into the information
age—all for less than the cost of digital TV.
What software do I need to set
up an online store? With Hostway's Ecommerce plans, all you need to set up
your online store is the browser you are using to view this page. If you
know how to point and click, you're ready to start.
Do I need to know HTML to set up
an online store? No, you don't. The bundled shopping carts are also store building tools. You don't need to know any HTML or Web programming. We provide you with a StoreBuilder that helps you format a store without any prior HTML knowledge. However, integrating the store with your Web site will require some HTML or Web editing knowledge.
How many products can I sell in my online
store? You can sell any number of products on your site, from
just a few items to thousands. Once you decide how many products you want
to sell, you can pick the hosting plan that best meets your needs. For
detailed information on the different plans, visit hostway-uk.com
or contact sales@hostway-uk.com.
When you chose a plan, be sure to consider how your site and your product offerings may grow in the future, as well as what advanced features and functionalities you want to offer your customers. For example, you may want to provide a search feature that lets your customers search for a specific product. You want to be sure that the plan you choose will be able to accommodate your growth and your changing needs as your customer base expands and your traffic increases.
Can I sell products that can be downloaded,
such as music or software? Hostway's shared Web hosting accounts are not configured
for the purposes of distributing software and/or multimedia products.
If you wish to distribute software and/or multimedia files, please contact
sales@hostway-uk.com
to make special arrangements.
How much does it cost to set up
an online store? Is there a minimum time commitment? Ecommerce plans may range anywhere from £29.95 a
month to £99.95 a month, depending upon the number of products you
want to sell, the traffic you anticipate and the features and functionalities
you want to provide to your customers. If you are on a monthly billing
schedule, you can move your site at any time with no transfer/disconnection
fee.
There may be other costs associated with an online store. For example, if you want to be able to accept credit cards and process those transactions online, you will need a merchant account and a payment gateway service. Typically, there are initial setup fees as well as on-going costs for these services that will be in addition to your hosting costs.
How long will it take for my store
to go online? Once you place your order online with a credit card, you
can start building your store within 24 to 72 hours. This is the time
needed to activate your domain name (if it is new) and to spread information
around the world about the physical location of your site on the Internet.
If you have a new domain name, this process takes 24 to 48 hours; if you
are transferring your domain from another hosting provider, it takes 48
to 72 hours. For more information, see the Domain
Name FAQ.
Once you start building the site, it doesn't take long. Sites with just a few products can be set up in less than an hour. For most stores, however, it takes from a few hours to several days. One day is about average for our customers.
I already have a Web site. Can I integrate
an online store into it? Yes. Hostway makes it easy for you to add ecommerce to
your site. You can order a plan that includes ecommerce or, if you are
already a Hostway customer, you can add ecommerce directly from SiteControl.
For more information, contact Hostway support at support@hostway-uk.com.
Once you have built your online store, you can easily integrate it into your existing site by either providing a link to your new store front or incorporating your products into your existing site’s pages.
What is Hostway Merchant Manager? Merchant Manager is Hostway's Web-based online store creation
and management tool. With Merchant Manager, you can quickly and easily
create an online catalogue and get your store up and running. Merchant
Manager is available for both Windows and Linux hosting plans and supports
a number of the most popular payment gateways.
When you order an ecommerce plan from Hostway, you get Merchant Manager automatically. We will handle the initial installation and configuration of the shopping cart software. You can then use the Web-based interfaces to design and maintain your store.
What are my options for handling transactions? You have a number of options for handling transactions. The most basic approach is to handle all of your transactions offline. For example, you could publish your address and have your customers send their orders along with a check or money order directly to you. You could also collect your customers’ credit card information via email or phone and then process the credit card transactions offline using your retail merchant account.
These are probably not the best approaches, though, because one the main reasons customers shop at an online store is for the speed and convenience it provides. To increase the chances that customers will want to shop at your online store, it should be able to accept and process credit card transactions online and in “real time.” You can handle your own online transactions or outsource them to a third-party credit card processor.
What are third-party online credit
card processors? If you want to be able to accept credit cards but do not want to handle these yourself, you can use a third-party online credit card processor. When your customers want to purchase a product, they click a link that takes them to the third-party’s Web site. There, they will submit their order and credit card information, which is then processed by the third-party processor. Essentially, these processors act as resellers. They may charge you a variety of fees for this service, including an initial set up fee, monthly fees and/or per-transaction fees.
While outsourcing your online transactions may seem appealing, you should consider the fact that it will be obvious to your customers that their transactions are being handled not by your company but by a third-party.
What do I need to handle "real time"
online credit card transactions myself? If you want to handle online credit card transactions
yourself, you will need an Internet-ready merchant
account, a payment gateway service
and an SSL certificate.
What is a merchant account? How
do I get one? A merchant account enables you to accept credit cards as payment
for the purchase of goods and services. There are different types of merchant
accounts. For example, if you have a traditional “brick and mortar” store,
you can get a retail merchant account. If you want to accept credit cards
on your Web site, however, you need a specialise type of merchant account
known as an “Internet-ready” merchant account. Internet-ready merchant accounts enable you to handle Internet transactions in "real time" without any human intervention. Because the risk of credit card fraud is greater when you are accepting credit cards over the Internet, these specialised merchant accounts also provide additional checks that can significantly reduce the chance of credit card fraud. Once the transactions are processed, the merchant account provider transfers the funds received from the credit card transactions from your merchant account to your bank account. A number of companies offer Internet-ready merchant accounts. You are free to choose any merchant account provider, as long as they support one of the following payment methods:
I already have a merchant account. Can
I use it with Hostway's ecommerce plans? Yes. If you already have an Internet-ready merchant account you can use it with Hostway’s ecommerce plans as long as it supports one of the following payment methods:
What is a payment gateway? How
do I find one? A payment gateway is a service that connects your online store
with your merchant account provider.
This service reads the information from the order forms and translates
that information for the merchant account. The payment gateway also
verifies that the customer’s credit card account has the necessary credit
available for the purchase.
You can obtain a payment gateway separately from your merchant account, however you may find it simpler to choose a merchant account provider that also offers a payment gateway.
How can I assure my customers that their
transactions are secure? Obviously, if your customers will be submitting their credit card information to you online they will want to know that this information is safe. If they are not comfortable with the security your site offers, they will probably not buy products from you.
The best way to alleviate your customers’ concerns is to secure your site using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). When a site is secured with SSL—the standard form of encryption currently used on the Web—visitors will see a special symbol in their browser window that indicates the site is secure. Visitors can also tell that a page is secured by looking at the URL. A secure page’s URL begins with the letters “HTTPS” instead of the standard “HTTP.”
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a method of ensuring that information
submitted through your Web site is secure and cannot be accessed by
unauthorised users. When a site offers an SSL-secured form, the information
submitted via that form (typically credit card information) is encrypted
using a special “certificate key” and then decrypted with another key
after it has been transmitted.
When users access a site secured with SSL using either Netscape or Internet Explorer, a symbol displays in their browser windows indicating that the site is secure.
What is an SSL Certificate?
How do I get one? An SSL Certificate, or a digital certificate, is an electronic
document that contains the information necessary to establish a secure
SSL connection. When used in credit
card transactions, the Web site collecting the credit card information
and the site to which the information is being transmitted must both
have an SSL Certificate.
Hostway can provide both the secure server and secure server certificate needed to support SSL. Shared SSL certificates are free with the Gold Plan and above.
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