Ecommerce Web Design Blog

If you are opening an online store, one of the big questions you will need to answer is how are you going to get paid.  Should you use a third party payment provider like Paymate, Paypal or Paymex, or instead should you use a payment gateway like eWay?

What's the difference between them and what are the benefits? Here's how they work.

Third party payment providers like Paypal, Paymate etc

• When customers go to make a payment they are redirected from your store to the Paypal site to accept payment.
  
• Your customers either need an account with the  or can enter their details manually as they go through checkout. 
  
• Once customers pay they redirect back to your store to finish the order.
• The benefit to you is that you don't need to be as concerned about credit card security: the collection of credit card details and processing of them is handled by the Paypal website.
• The downside is that customers need to click 'return to your store' after they make a payment for your order information to be updated. If they just close Paypal you will receive the money but not know what has been ordered. You will then have to try and contact the customer or wait for them to contact you.

Payment gateways like eWay

•  When customers go to make a payment they stay within your site. Your site collects their credit card details and passes them securely to your payment gateway provider, like eWay. The payment gateway provider processes the payment and contacts your merchant provider (your bank) to deposit the money in your account.
• The benefit to you is that your customers don't need to be redirected - they stay within your site.
• You will need an SSL Certificate on your website in order to encrypt credit card information when it is sent to the payment gateway provider and you will also need to ensure that your web hosting provider has a PCI DSS Compliant server environment if you are to meet the requirements of Visa and MasterCard. For example, Osc Works ecommerce package are hosted on high performance ecommerce-optimised servers that are maintained in a PCI DSS compliant environment and tested for compliance on a daily basis by McAfee Secure.

It depends on your budget and objectives as to which option is best for you. In our experience we prefer to use secure sites rather than be redirected to Paypal. Think about what you prefer as a customer? What would your customers prefer? 

A support ticket recently came into the team from a customer wanting to know how they could block Google. With no other information, the tech support staff member thought this was an unusual request as it would be an exceptionally bold and baffling move to block the world's biggest search engine from visiting your site. When looking into the request, it turned out that the customer wanted to prevent Google from indexing their site before they had finished loading all of their products and getting things set up the way they want.

ozCart from Osc Works has a built-in maitenance mode to do this for you, but what if your website doesn't? How do you stop the search engines from finding and indexing every last crevice of your new website before you are ready to receive them?

Fortunately, the answer is simple. You can use the 'robots' tag in your HTML to prevent a search engine from indexing a page and searching for any other links in that page (and following them).

To add a robots tag into your site, go into the HTML and look for a section that starts . Somewhere between this and the end of the header section (where the HTML tag appears, insert the following line:

You need to insert this into every page that you don't want indexed just in case Google finds a page deep in your site and starts indexing from there.

When you are ready to launch, you remove this line from the code in your site and submit your site to the search engines. You're then live and can start building traffic and links.

Wherever you do business, you can never escape the law.  If you're an Australian or New Zealand business selling online where can you go to find out what your legal rights and obligations are?

Naturally there is your business solicitor, but if you are looking to do some reading yourself, here are some useful resources you can consider:

•  The ACCC website. The ACCC administer Australia's main fair trading law, The Trade Practices Act 1974, which applies no matter whether you are an online or offline business. Their website contains useful PDF downloads of fact-sheets and does have content on online store owners as well.
  
• The NZ equivalent of the ACCC is the Commerce Commission.
• WebLaw online. WebLaw is a website containing a range of legal resources for offline and online businesses. It has been developed by the legal department at Monash University. They have a whole section of their site devoted to Australian ecommerce law at the federal and state level too. Includes information on court rulings as well as information on the laws themselves.
  
• ozNetLaw website. ozNetLaw is a site designed specifically to help businesses understand their legal obligations when trading online. It has been sponsored by the Australian Attorney General's office and two leading private law firms.  It has a huge range of fact sheets covering legal issues encountered with respect to email privacy, advertising, marketing and more.
• Other resources. NZ customers will be subject to different ecommerce laws so should consider resources such as WashLaw NZ Legal Rsources Site. Unfortunately, NZs Ministry of Economic Development decided to discontinue their site about ecommerce news so the information on their site will grow out of date with time.

For up-to-date news including ecommerce law topics, one website also worth looking at is the Internet Business Law Services Website which includes news on Internet Law with respect to online stores and eBay sellers.

Without a memorable design, your ecommerce ideas run the risk of being missed by your target customers. You need something striking and relevant to the people you want to buy from you. Starting up a business usually means you are on a strict budget too, so you will not want to spend a fortune on a website that is fully built from scratch. But how do you trade off an off-the-shelf design versus a fully custom one?

To make your decision, think about the pros and cons of a template design versus a  fully blank canvas. Some of these include:

Custom design

•  Everything and anything can be changed. The designers and developers must reflect every aspect of your brand and change anything you are not completely happy with
• Sideboxes and images can be moved around to suit you
• The downside is the price. Most designers work on an hourly rate, and so do developers. Shopping Cart Software is not like HTML - code is required behind each element of the page to tell the cart what that component does.  Making changes to the design layout often means rewriting code - which can be expensive. Expect to pay thousands of dollars for a fully custom design.

Template Design

• Benefit from bug fixes and the learnings of the designers from others who have used those designs before
• Benefit from customisations to those designs. For example, Osc Works ecommerce carts start with a collection of base template designs, but we employ graphic designers to customise the headers and colours of those templates to suit the business of the customer who chooses them.
• They are an easy way for even a beginner to build a professional looking ecommerce website quickly and painlessly.
• They are fast. Because you are building from a base design, you can get your website up and running very quickly compared to building something from scratch.
  

Starting an online business can seem frustrating as it gets itself started, but with effort and focus the results can be very rewarding.

What's it like to run a small business? When will you start seeing successes? How quickly you see returns is largely dependent on one factor: you. Your determination, your motivation in the face of competition, your focus, your innovations. Every new business is different but we thought we would share our own new business startup experiences from the early days of Osc Works.

There are days when you probably think 'what is the point of running this business?' Starting a new business can be a real challenge. It can drag you down, beat you up and leave you wondering about what it is you really want and what you are meant to be doing. When you don't get customers, when you haven't had orders in weeks or even months you start to wonder what is wrong and if those customers will ever come in. The answer is 'yes' they will... but only YOU can do the work to get those customers coming in.

Starting a new business like anything takes time to establish. You need to expect days when everything will go wrong and every customer will complain or want a refund. Sometimes it doesn't matter what you do it's simply just not good enough. Every customer is unique and you can't win them all or make everyone happy at the same time. Try to focus on the important aspects of your business and keep your cool with your customers. Remember every new customer is another step ahead for your new business.

Just because a customer is angry or frustrated doesn't mean it is something you have personally done wrong. They could be simply venting and taking their frustration out on you. This can be unfair but it happens. This is something you need to quickly learn to deal with. Tell your customers you understand their frustration and would love to help them and you may be surprised at the response you get back.

Amongst the very bad days there will be high points that will make you feel great achievement within yourself and allow you to keep believing in what you're doing.

Sometimes family and friends can be negative towards a new business idea and this can be very discouraging. Being surrounded by negativity can be hurtful and cause you to rethink your ideas and leave you feeling down and depressed. Your family and friends are most likely just trying to look out for your best interests and point you in what they believe is the best direction. Try to take a break from this negativity and decide for yourself what it is you want with your business and trust in your dreams.

There are many things you need to run a successful business and we believe three of the most important things are determination, innovation and passion.

• Determination: Without this you won't get very far... When everything goes wrong try to remember why it is you started your new business. Why are you where you are? Why are you doing what you're doing? What is it you really want from your business? What is it YOU want?
• Innovation: Start searching for some creative flair and include it in your business. You need to be innovative and have new ideas compared to your competitors. Don't copy what they are doing. Set new trends and be a LEADER not a follower.
• Passion: Why did you start your business, is it to do with something you are passionate about? Don't ever lose sight of those dreams; believe in yourself even when no one else does! Some people love working a 9-5 job and others set out to find what they love, what fulfils them and makes them feel alive. Running a business is much more than just trying to make 'money'. It's about passion, if you're not passionate about what it is you're doing then what is point?

Find what it is you love and fight for your dream. The results can be extremely rewarding.

If you are setting up a new online business or thinking about setting one up, talk to us at Osc Works. If you would like to make a comment on this item or contribute your own experience, please also contact us. We would be delighted to hear from you.