If your business has a website, direct sales are not necessarily the sole, nor even the primary reason for maintaining it.
By having the site, you can post important information about your Business, your services and the products you sell. But if you are a services entity, you may not even need a system that can collect payment on-line.
However if you sell physical goods, or pre-sell software, or educational services, a web-site makes sense as a way to expand your offerings and create opportunities for more sales. As your customers become aware of the convenience and security of paying on-line, your business can make life easier for them, by offering a secure payments system.
This does not necessarily translate to a simplified business system, or a pain-free transactional heaven. What I intend here is to give you a beginners guide to planning your secure on-line payments.
Establishing your payment system at even the most basic level will require planning; who processes amd then packages your goods? Will you need to provide invoices, or receipts? If you already perform some of these functions in your business you will have some procedures in place that you should be able to translate across to your web-site. There are specialised software packages that can help in managing the process, by automating labels and such. But you should be aware that there will be additional work that needs to be done.
To accept payments and orders on your website there will several related technologies that will be needed.
1. Your Offering. You will need a list of your products and their prices. If you only have a few products, your content management system (CMS) will allow you to add the details to your web site. If you have a lot of product, you may need a commercial software package. If you want there are a number of open source offerings available. Contact me if you need help deciding...
2. Payment Processing. If you have a small business, PayPal offer a facility where you can put a "Buy Now" button on your website with your CMS. You copy and paste PayPal's HTML code for the button into the appropriate pages on your site. If you are already with PayPal, upgrade to at least a "Premier" account as the fees get lower, the more transactions you process.
For the bigger businesses you may find it better to have your payments processed in-house. This will mean a merchant account, and a gateway service to handle processing. You need the merchant account to process credit cards - some merchant accounts include a gateway services - and vice versa...
If you have any problems with any of these elements, you can contact me via my blog for help...
By having the site, you can post important information about your Business, your services and the products you sell. But if you are a services entity, you may not even need a system that can collect payment on-line.
However if you sell physical goods, or pre-sell software, or educational services, a web-site makes sense as a way to expand your offerings and create opportunities for more sales. As your customers become aware of the convenience and security of paying on-line, your business can make life easier for them, by offering a secure payments system.
This does not necessarily translate to a simplified business system, or a pain-free transactional heaven. What I intend here is to give you a beginners guide to planning your secure on-line payments.
Establishing your payment system at even the most basic level will require planning; who processes amd then packages your goods? Will you need to provide invoices, or receipts? If you already perform some of these functions in your business you will have some procedures in place that you should be able to translate across to your web-site. There are specialised software packages that can help in managing the process, by automating labels and such. But you should be aware that there will be additional work that needs to be done.
To accept payments and orders on your website there will several related technologies that will be needed.
1. Your Offering. You will need a list of your products and their prices. If you only have a few products, your content management system (CMS) will allow you to add the details to your web site. If you have a lot of product, you may need a commercial software package. If you want there are a number of open source offerings available. Contact me if you need help deciding...
2. Payment Processing. If you have a small business, PayPal offer a facility where you can put a "Buy Now" button on your website with your CMS. You copy and paste PayPal's HTML code for the button into the appropriate pages on your site. If you are already with PayPal, upgrade to at least a "Premier" account as the fees get lower, the more transactions you process.
For the bigger businesses you may find it better to have your payments processed in-house. This will mean a merchant account, and a gateway service to handle processing. You need the merchant account to process credit cards - some merchant accounts include a gateway services - and vice versa...
If you have any problems with any of these elements, you can contact me via my blog for help...
About the Author:
If you are building an Internet enterprise, ensure you have the correct knowledge so you are not re-inventing the wheel, nor making errors you don't have to. You can go to Don Paul's Blog here.
