eCommerce Software – Online Store Lesson 3

eCommerce Software that will create and run your online store can be as simple or as complex as any other. The simple ones allow you to create a few product pages on your website such as the code offered by Paypal. You create a listing on your Paypal account, they create the code and you just copy and page into a page or post on your website. It creates a shopping cart for the item and automatically sends the payor to your Paypal account to purchase the item, you get an email notice of the sale, mail it out and your money is in your Paypal account ready to be used or moved over to your checking account after a few days. They keep a small percentage of the total purchase price as their fee for the service.

This is similar to listing your items on Handmade Amazon, Etsy or your own SquareUp Market Online Store page. Then there are the more complex software packages available through your web-hosting provider, the Content Management System (CMS) service you may not using on your website such as WordPress or you may be a programmer yourself and can create an online store from scratch. For those of us no longer enamored with Amazon, Esty, etc. and would like a more simple solution to creating a safe but interactive online presence there are only a few alternatives.

Over the years we have tried ZenCart, OSCommerce and a couple of other Free open source software programs. A few of these requires that you install the software directly onto a blank website directory and they will become your website. You will have to learn how to navigate through their software, change the look of the online pages to suit your needs, upload the pictures for each item, type up descriptions, etc. You will have to delete all the sample items, categories, from the program or they will just confuse your customers. You will need to figure out how to link the correct shipping module to each product as well as connect your store to a credit card processing company. Test, Test, and Test again to make sure everything works before you go live to make sure that everything works as it should, you can get paid for the items that you have shipped and your customers have a pleasant experience or they may not come back. Be aware that these types of programs have been created by volunteers and may not be updated as often as others and sometimes the updates even break your website so you will have to start all over again.

You can always pay a company to use their eCommerce software like Shopify or BigCommerce where they host your products on their site and you pay them a monthly fee but then again you are right back on a site like Amazon or Etsy again only with different kinds of costs. There is always some company out there who can help you create an online presence and be able to sell your items but in the end, it will be up to you to figure out what is best for you and your customers. And, you will have to do all the data entry, marketing, selling, packaging, and shipping. Unless, of course, you have big bucks to pay people to do those things for you so that you can spend your time creating more handcrafted items to sell.

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