In addition to the design of a website, the success of your business may rely on (or at least benefit from) having the facility to trade on the web and accept payments online. This may take the form of an online shop where you can display your products and provide your customers with a facility to purchase online. More and more businesses (especially in the retail sector) are switching to e-commerce and online shopping solutions as a rapidly growing number of consumers are swapping the high street for the web.
By building an updatable shop into your website and setting up an SSL (secure sockets layer) server with a payment solution such as PayPal, SagePay orWorldpay it will enable you to trade securely online.
The intuitive nature of an e-commerce system means that customers can purchase products from your website 24 hours a day 7 days a week and the transaction is automatically generated. You will then receive an e-mail confirming that a customer has placed an order and provide details of the transaction etc.
Products within an online shop can be managed through the use of a content management system. A content management system will allow you to add / remove products. Display products as “out of stock” or “coming soon” edit product prices etc.
A content management system and online shop complement each other perfectly as the shop provides the interface for customers to purchase products and the content management system provides the interface for you to manage your online shop.