How Important Is E-Commerce?
The internet is the UK' s fastest growing sales channel, with the majority of UK consumers now used to buying online. Online spending in September 2009 was £3.9 billion, while the average yearly e-retail growth Jan-Sept 2009 was 15%. UK consumers spent an estimated £31 billion online between January and August 2009 according to the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index, and the trend is constantly upwards even during recession.
What is E-Commerce?
E-commerce can mean anything from a single PayPal ‘Buy It Now’ button on a single product to a full e-commerce system with shopping cart and integrated payment system. We can supply a solution at the level and price you need. An e-commerce enabled site is more expensive than a simple brochure site, but compared to a bricks and mortar retail operation the costs are trivial.
We recommend osCommerce as the most robust and affordable solution for a complete online retail operation. Able to sell physical or downloadable products, this complete solution is highly configurable by a web developer that knows their way around the system. For an example of a recently completed Webcraft osCommerce enabled website with a few bells and whistles see here.
Payment Gateways
It is easy to sign up for a PayPal business account and start taking payments on the web. If you have a limited range of products we can e-commerce enable your website in hours, not days, and customise the experience to make it seamless for your clients.
PayPal can also be integrated with the osCommerce shopping cart (see above). Alternatively, if you already have a merchant account we can help you set up an online payment gateway to use with it.
(Please note that most banks will not let you use an existing merchant account intended for ‘customer present’ transactions to take payments over the internet - you may require a separate merchant account and the bank will have to approve a payment gateway)
