What is e-commerce?

Buying and selling on the internet, or e-commerce as it is generally known, has rocketed over the last decade. Success stories such as Amazon, eBay and WalMart are just a few of the businesses making big sales on-line. Hundreds of thousands of small businesses are using e-commerce as a sales tool.

Today the notion of e-commerce covers everything from one-man-bands selling novelty t-shirts out of a spare room, to interntational airlines allowing passengers to buy their tickets and check-in from the comfort of their own livingrooms.

According to online retail group IMRG , the first secure online shopping transaction was in 1994 in the US when a CD by Sting was purchased. IMRG figures reveal that monthly online spending is now in the billions. That is MONTHLY, and billions with a B!

Since that first recorded web sale took place in 1994, trade between businesses via the net has also grown. More than half of all firms now buy goods and services online. It is estimated that by 2011, 70% of the shopping population will regularly buy goods online, and web buying will represent 10% of the total retail market.

It’s little wonder then that many budding entrepreneurs find the prospect of setting up an e-commerce business an appealing one. AmeriWeb Hosting can provide you with a full e-commerce solution ready to accept sales, or the individual components you'll need to build your own e-commerce site. Our "virtual storefront" gives you an on-line shopping cart/catalog to list your products on, accept orders and provide payment and shipping options. Your visitors simply place their order on-line, select their payment type and shipping preferences, and the order is placed. You receive an email alerting you to a new order, and login to print out the invoice and a packing list to fufill the order from.

While there are many types of software that you can use, customizable, turnkey solutions are proven to be a cost effective method to build, edit and maintain an online store. How do online shopping carts differ from those found in a grocery store? The image is one of an invisible shopping cart. You enter an online store, see a product that fulfills your demand and you place it into your virtual shopping basket. When you are through browsing, you click checkout and complete the transaction by providing payment information. To start an online business it is best to find a niche product that consumers have difficulty finding in malls or department stores. Also take shipping into consideration. Pets.com found out the hard way: dog food is expensive to ship FedEx! Then you need an ecommerce enabled website. This can either be a new site developed from scratch, or an existing site to which you can add ecommerce shopping cart capabilities. The next step, you need a means of accepting online payments. This usually entails obtaining a merchant account and accepting credit cards through an online payment gateway (some smaller sites stick with simpler methods of accepting payments such as PayPal). Lastly, you need a marketing strategy for driving targeted traffic to your site and a means of enticing repeat customers. If you are new to ecommerce keep things simple- know your limitations.
	Our preferred shopping cart because of the many features that are included. Everything from payment methods, shipping options, and sale pricing are automated. Payments for orders are automatically sent to your merchant processor and ultimately deposited into your checking account. Sales tax is collected based upon location. Customers accounts are maintained, and a newsletter mailing list is provided for new product announcements!
	1 Page catalog pages can accept orders for a few items. Perfect for small vendors with a limited number of products. Orders are emailed to you for fufullment.
AmeriWeb Hosting has partnered with CDGCommerce to provide Merchant Account Services to new and existing businesses. You can easily accept credit cards at your business. New businesses, internet, mail order and home based businesses our specialty! To learn more click HERE