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If you want to open up an online retail store – how does one go about doing
this? Online trading is really about e-commerce. There are definite things one
needs to know when selling online.
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A website should have a services area and a products area, a shopping cart system
and a checkout system in place.
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Acquire a merchant account from the bank of your choice. Once you have opened
up a new account you will then have two options to make your online selling
work for you:
Offsite Processing:
- The
company will have their shopping cart on their website, but as soon as the
client activates the payment part of the process they will be redirected
to a third party payment access.
- Once
the payment has been completed the client is then re-routed back to the
company website.
- This
process is a little more affordable as you don’t require a SSL certificate
plus other monthly costs and transaction costs.
Onsite Processing:
- When
you follow this route the company will need to obtain a SSL certificate
from a third party and you would also need to create checkout systems,
payment systems and a shopping cart.
- The
payment system is linked into an external payment gateway to process the
payments.
- You
will do everything you require from your website, but take note - it is
very costly.
- Costs
could be in excess of R1 500 per month and also include a percentage of
each and every sale.
Merchants can also use
Paypal to sell online without all of the expenses of normal e-commerce. This
option is perfect for SME’s or for individuals who cannot afford to lay out
thousands on e-commerce costs and fees. The negative part about this method is
that it can only be used in conjunction with an FNB cheque account.
Selling
online
is lucrative, but needs to be done correctly right from the outset.
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