Successful e-commerce site requires considerable research and planning. In this tutorial, we will help you get organized and take into consideration all the issues involved in setting up a successful storefront.

• Getting Started
• Site Planning & Designing
• Choosing a Hosting Service Provider (HSP)
• Behind the Transactions Scene
• Applying for an Internet Merchant Account
• Advertise Your Site and Start Selling

Before embarking on your E-commerce site, you need to determine your purpose, objective and what you need to be competitive online. When brainstorming, decide on the kind of experience you want to deliver and at the same time try to forecast where your company will be in one to five years time. Advanced planning not only can save you time and effort in redevelopment, it can also help you decide which solution will best suit your company when it grows.

Gather all your departments involved and get everyone to sit down for discussion to prevent unnecessary comments or changes at the later stage. At the end of the day, all the information contributed can be consolidated and compiled into your Sales and Marketing plan.

Questions your team should be brainstorming:-

• Target Audience: Who are your target customers and what do they need or want?
• Awareness and Advertising: Getting customers to come to the store and how to ensure their return?
• Product and Merchandising: What products are you selling and how to position and present it to your
  customers?
• Selling Technique: How to answer customers' questions and provide them with a solution?
• Sales Promotion: How to promote merchandise and services to give customers incentives
  to make purchase?
• Process Transaction: How to handle orders, tax, shipping and payment processing?
• Fulfillment Centre: How to pass orders to the fulfillment centre and delivery time?
• Order Status: How to handle order-status enquiry?
• Customer Support: What and how to provide after-sales customer support?
• Branding: How to communicate with customers during each interaction to
  reinforce your unique company image?
• Marketing Data and Analysis: What information about sales, customers and advertising trend will you
  gather and how will you use it on your web site?

"The better you can cater to your customers, the more business they're likely to do with you."

Identify clear marketing goals. Lay out your customers' wants and needs. Plan and develop your e-commerce site with these two elements in mind.

Many businesses turn to professional web design house for solution. But if your company's budget is tight, there are many site building tools around (our E-mall is one of them) to help you create your site in an instant.

For more info on site designing, you can refer to my previous article on "Building a Winning Web Site".

Always remember to include your privacy and security statement that describes how your business secures your customers' information and uses it on your web site. This is very important. Without this statement your customers will not have any confidence in leaving any of their personal particulars on your site especially their credit card number.

Speak to your HSP about your needs and requirements for your e-commerce web site. They should be able to provide you with a solution and at the same time advise you on your site's future expansion.

For more info, you can refer to my other article on "What to Look for in a Hosting Company".

This is the most complex part of the whole tutorial. But I will try to briefly summarize the whole scenario.

Credit card transactions involve a number of independent entities. They are:

• The Customer : Your customer.
• The Issuer : A financial institution (usually a bank) that issues the card and is responsible for
  the cardholder's debt payment.
• The Merchant : Any web site that sells goods and services. To accept payment online, you must
  have an Internet Merchant Account with an Acquirer.
• The Acquirer : A financial institution that establishes an account with the Merchant and liases
  payment authorizations and payments between the Merchant and the Customer.
• Payment Gateway: The gateway that provides an interface to process payment between the
  Merchant and the Acquirer's financial processing system via a processor that
  processes transaction and settles fund to merchants.

Let's look at the technical overview of the whole process. Basically, credit card transaction runs along these three steps:-

1. Authentication: The Acquirer will check the validity of the credit card after the Customer submits
   his/her info.
2. Authorization: If funds are sufficient for the purchase, you can make reservations on those
   funds but you still cannot collect the money yet.
3. Settlement: Once the product has been shipped or delivered, you can inform the bank and
   then they will release the money into your account.

Now let's look at the general overview of the whole process.

1. The Customer places an order and sends the payment information to you.
2. Your site requests a payment authorization from the Payment Gateway which sends the requests to banks and payment processors. Payment must be approved by the Issuer in order for the cardholder's account to be charged.
3. Order confirmed. Goods or services have been shipped or delivered to the Customer.
4. Now you request payment thru the Payment Gateway for your settlement. The Customer's Acquirer will then route the payment to your Acquirer for deposit.

After building your site, all you need to do now is to apply for a Merchant Account with either a financial institution or thru a payment service provider like WorldPay Inc.. Engaging the service of a payment service provider not only saves you time and effort, they can also provide valuable assistance and information on the payment system.

OK. All the planning, research and hard work has finally paid off. Your e-commerce site is finally up. The key to staying in business is to find the most cost-effective marketing strategy for your site.

Experiment with all the different types advertising methods like banner ads, billboards, bus ads, direct mail, radio spots, television commercials or even newspaper ads. Monitor your sales. Keep track of the various advertising methods and look for the one that is most suitable for your product.

Remember what we have discussed here today when building your web site. With proper planning, careful research, sharp observation and relentless diligence, you will be able to build a site that's flexible enough to keep up with the dynamic Internet and yet still able to cater to the individual needs of your customer.