Creating Web Sites Bible, Third Edition

Chapter 19. Setting Up Your Store

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Choosing your eCommerce

• setup

• Setting up shopping carts

• Taking payment

• Utilizing Internet buying

• patterns

• Updating your site

• Keeping your site fresh

• Adding extra value

ECommerce is not some big, mysterious new thing. The goals for e-businesses are the same as the goals of traditional business — the customer is simply reached through a new and different channel. You're selling either a product or a service to the same people you'd be selling to if there were no such thing as the Internet. Of course, with the worldwide reach of the Internet, you have access to many more potential customers or clients than ever before. And your customers can shop at your eCommerce store 24/7.

Choosing Your eCommerce Setup

Depending on what you're selling and how you want to market it, your storefront needs will fall into one of five categories:

• Single-product sites and specialty stores

• General stores

• Service sites

• Shopping malls

• Affiliate stores

Single-product sites and specialty stores

Single-product sales tend to be the province of the smallest kind of business — a single individual or small group of people. The product being sold is often a craft item or a book.

A specialty store is, at first glance, not very different from a single-product site. Both feature a very limited stock focused on one thing. A specialty store, however, carries more than one item, although those stores themselves fall into certain easy classifications:

• Bookstores

• Shoe stores

• Jewelers

• Automotive ...