Building an online store and making money from it

The best online store is one that makes its owner money. An online shop can be a fully database driven catalogue of products which processes payments in real time as customers snap them up; or it can simply have one or two products or services for sale with no heavy weight payment requirements - sometimes an email is enough.

Spending money to make money

It's a pretty simple end-result we're after and there are many free software packages for creating online stores available - if you have the time, know-how and inclination to learn. But although free, they can end up quite costly to your online business. Lost revenue from to failure to capitalise on modern ecommerce or marketing techniques and costly maintenance bills if you end up having to seek expert assistance later can soon outweigh the initial setup costs of doing it properly from the get-go.

We offer you a blank canvas

We'll work with you using all our past experience to design an ecommerce solution that complements your business's online selling plan. We'll build the system that enables you to best manage your selling goals, as well as the day-to-day management of fulfilling orders, updating products and pricing and ensuring your customers get the best service by allowing you and your staff the tools and extra time they need to ultimately make your online store a success.

We'll stay with you in the background, and continue to offer our know-how and advice to further your online endeavour and keep you competitive.

Managing products online or offline

There are three ways to manage your products and services for sale online.

1. Online

   All changes are made directly to your online product catalogue through a web interface. You'll add products, write descriptions, change pricing upload pictures and images ready for your customers to see and then buy.

   This method is the most flexible for features you might like in your store, but can also be the most time consuming when it comes to managing large amounts of products.

2. Offline

   All pricing changes, addition of new products and managing inventory are done offline and off site, usually by software in your office or warehouse. While we can build custom software for managing products offline, that job is mostly handled by an existing account software package. Data from this application is managed day-today, then exported and loaded into your online store, ready to display the most competitive rates to your customers.

   While this method isn't usually as flexible as the online option, it is the least labour intensive for high volume products websites. This means that it is generally easier to keep the online product information up to date. It is also worth noting that even in the offline approach to managing a store, some online management is usually required.

3. Combination

   A hybrid of the on and off line methods, this can afford the best of both worlds. You can use the online tools to add, alter and delete products, and can perform bulk updates from your accounting package to remain competitive.

   The caveat of this approach comes from being able to manage your product catalogue in two different locations; one set of offline data and another set of potentially different data in the online version. Rules are typically put in place to help ensure the data stays valid. This method is also usually more expensive because the more options you have, the more functionality that has to be built.

There are advantages to each approach, and it's normal to weigh up the different methods against each other. The ultimate goal is to increase the revenue of your website, lower your costs and give you more time so you can keep a hold on your free time.

Real-time payment gateway integration

Online shopping is one aspect of e-commerce where payments are extremely useful to be taken in real time. However, payment integration isn't limited to just this medium.

• Direct Payment Solutions
  (Our preferred payment provider also known as DPS)
• WorldPay
• 3-tier Payment Services
• PayPal
• PayMate

MYOB, Aurora or your accounting package

We have some experience with clients running stores with MYOB (Mind Your Own Business). It's a great idea to harness the tools you already have in your business, especially if you intend to sell a lot of products online. A traditional online store usually manages each product one at a time, clicking - altering - saving. It's repetitive, slow and for high volume websites, it's not time well spent.

We've worked with companies to automate the import of products and pricing from their accounting software to their e-commerce web sites to help keep their weekends free.