E-Commerce Services and Tutorial
An overview of our e-commerce website design solutions.
Contents |
Introduction
For e-commerce websites, there are basically two ways to go. The first is the “All-In-One” solution, such as Yahoo Small Business, GoDaddy E-Commerce or Homestead E-Commerce. The other option is an Independent Site.
With the “All-In-One” solution everything is pretty much taken care of for you:
- You use the company’s hosting solution.
- They supply you with a shopping cart solution.
- They supply you with a wide selection of templates.
- They have a standard set of payment processing options (PayPal, Merchant Accounts).
With the “Independent Site” solution you make the choices.
- You select the Host.
- You select the shopping cart (osCommerce, Zen Cart, Magento…)
- You select the template.
- You select the payment processing option.
The advantage of the “All-In-One” solution is its ease of use. The disadvantage is that you are tied to their service. To leave means switching to a completely different ecommerce platform, essentially starting over from scratch.
If over time their quality and reliability goes down or they decide to drastically raise prices, you’re in trouble.
The advantage of the “Independent Site” is its flexibility. The disadvantage is that it’s more complicated and time-consuming to set up.
In the end it’s a tradeoff between flexibility vs ease of use.
All-In-One Solutions
Below is a comparison of “All-In-One” solutions from Homestead and Yahoo:
| Feature | Homestead | Yahoo | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | Enhanced | Prof | Enterprise | Starter | Std | Prof | |
| Monthly Fee | $9.99 | $24.99 | $59.99 | $229.99 | $84.47 | $194.97 | $299.95 |
| Monthly Hosting Fee | $19.99 or $49.99 | $19.99 or $49.99 | $19.99 or $49.99 | $19.99 or $49.99 | |||
| Transaction Fee | None | None | None | None | 1.5% | 1.0% | 0.75% |
| Maximum Products | 100 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | 50,000 | 50,000 | 50,000 |
| PayPal | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PayPal Standard | yes | - | - | - | |||
| PayPal Pro | |||||||
| PayPal Direct | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||
| PayPal Express | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||
| Merchant Account Gateway | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| PayPal PayFlow | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | - | - | |
| Authorize.net | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||
| Cybersource | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||
| Innovative Gateway | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||
| First Data, LinkPoint | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||
| QuickBooks database upload and download | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| Real-time Inventory access to off-line database | Yes | Yes | |||||
- Intuit Homestead Basic Store
- Intuit Homestead Advanced Ecommerce
- Intuit Hosting Packages
- Yahoo Small Business
Independent Site Solutions
For an example of the independent site we’ll use the following:
- Hosting: WestHost
- Shopping Cart: Zen Cart
- Template: ThemesAndsMods
- Payment Processing: PayPal standard
- PayPal Pro
- Merchant account: Authorize.net
| Feature | Independent Site, WestHost |
|---|---|
| Monthly Fee | None |
| Monthly Hosting Fee | $16.95 business |
| Transaction Fee | None |
| Maximum Products | Unlimited |
| PayPal | Yes |
| PayPal Standard | yes |
| PayPal Pro | yes |
| Merchant Account Gateway | Yes |
| Authorize.net | Yes |
| QuickBooks database upload and download | Yes (with third-party solution) |
| Real-time Inventory access to off-line database | ? |
The Independent Site Solution monthly cost is somewhat less than the “All-In-One” solution, but initial costs may be higher and it is more complicated to set up.
An option for smaller online stores is to use a content management system such as WordPress.
The WordPress e-Commerce Plugin works as the shopping cart, and there are a considerable number of themes available for WordPress E-commerce such as WPA Storefront.
However, these solutions currently only work with PayPal Standard and cannot download a QuickBooks database.
Shopping Carts
The heart of the online store is its Shopping Cart Software. For the “All-In-One” solution, the shopping cart is provided by the host. For the Independent Site Solution you get to choose. There are a number of popular options such as:
Here is a comparison of some of the various Shopping Carts available.
Zen Carts and MagentoCommerce are currently the two most popular. MagentoCommerce has more features but needs a more powerful dedicated (expensive) server to run on.
Zen Cart to QuickBooks
If you need to convert your Zen Cart database to QuickBooks, here are a couple options:
Some General Zen Cart Info.
Payment Processing
For both the “All-In-One” solution and the Independent Site Solution the most critical function of the e-commerce website is processing payments.
There are many different ways to accept payment, the most important being the ability to accept credit cards.
PayPal
PayPal offers three major Payment Options (PayPal Comparison Chart):
- Website Payments Standard
- Website Payments Pro
- Payflow (Pro) Payment Gateway
The simplest (for the website owner) option is PayPal Website Payments Standard.
With this method, during checkout, the customer is taken from your site to the PayPal website, where the customer then enters in their credit card number and the payment is processed. Once the transaction is complete, the customer is taken back to your website.
The disadvantage of this method is that it can be confusing to the customer and contributes to what is known as “shopping cart abandonment”.
A better (but more expensive) solution is PayPal Website Payments Pro.
With Website Payments Pro the customer stays on your site. You control the customer experience from start to finish. Customers check out fast, paying in as little as three clicks.
The disadvantages are:
- Website Payments Pro is more expensive than Website Payments Standard.
- You will need a valid Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate.
- You must be PCI Compliant
Merchant Gateways
The third PayPal option is to set up a Payflow (Pro) Payment Gateway.
Payflow (Pro) Payment Gateway is the cheapest solution (long term), but the most complicated to set up.
- It requires an internet merchant account with an acquiring financial institution
- You will need a valid Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate.
- You must be PCI Compliant
Along with the PayPal Payflow (Pro) Payment Gateway here are a few more popular Merchant Gateways:
Below is a comparison of several Payment Processing options:
| Product | Setup Fee | Monthly Fee | Transaction Fees | Merchant Account / Gateway | Requires SSL/PCI | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PayPal Website Payments Standard | None | None | 1.9% – 2.9% + $0.30 | no | no | Buyers enter credit card information on secure PayPal pages and immediately return to your site |
| PayPal Website Payments Pro | None | $30 | 2.2% – 2.9% + $0.30 | no | yes | Buyers enter credit card information and payments are processed directly on your site |
| Payflow Payment Gateway | $179.00 – $249.00 | $19.95 – $59.95 | $0.10 | yes | yes | |
| Authorize.net | None | $20 – $50 | $0.10 | yes | yes | |
| InnovativeGateway | None | $17.95 | $0.23 | yes | yes |
PCI and SSL
If you are using anything other than “PayPal Website Payments Standard”, then you must be PCI Compliant.
Online Store Tutorials
- Starting an Online Store
- Find a Web Host
- Products to Sell
- The Shopping Cart
- Select A Credit Card Payment Processor
- The Web Template
- More Online Store Tutorials
- Yahoo Small Business Comparison
What We Offer
If you need an e-commerce website, we can produce a high-quality attractive design at affordable prices.
We can tailor a Website Design to fit your desired goals and budget.
See Also
- SEO Portland Oregon – The Home Page.
- SEO, Web Design, Video SEO… – Our Services page.
- Search Engine Optimization Services – More on our SEO services.
- Website Design Services – More on our Web Design services.
