How do you start a web-based business?
Posted on | February 18, 2009 | No Comments
Creating an online store can be a difficult and confusing. There are no tricks and like any business it requires planning to be successful. If you want to enter this market smoothly you must find out what you need to do before you have to do it.
Lets start with the basic requirements. You will need a domain name and website hosting account. Using a product like OSCommerce, CubeCart or ZenCart means you don’t necessarily need a website designed for you as these offer a complete website in of themselves. BUT customization of their interface is required and most of them have a templating system to allow you to your eCommerce business unique and attractive to your customers. So once you have a domain name and website you will need some form of payment processing. PayPal is the most common and it has its advantages and competitors but for more details on payment gateways please check out this article. It also has information about dealing with payments and the various options.
There are some technical requirements as well such as a dedicated IP address for your website and an SSL certificate. Right now is not the time to bore you with what these items are but they allow your website to securely transmit and encrypt payment information over the Internet. Simply put a dedicate IP is a fixed address on the Internet and an SSL certificate makes the secure transaction possible. The added bonus is that these are provided by a third party so you customers have some assurances you are a legitimate company. There is more about this in SSL Certificates Explained.
So a domain name, hosting plan, eCommerce application, payment processing system, dedicated IP and SSL certificate. You will also need a name for your business and some idea of what it is you will sell.
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Tags: CubeCart > Electronic Commerce > IP address > Online shopping > OsCommerce > PayPal > Transport Layer Security > Zen Cart
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