Have you considered becoming an e-commerce entrepreneur but not yet have a web site? Maybe you already have a brick and mortar business and have expanded into e-commerce as a way to develop your customer base. Maybe you are an e-commerce entrepreneur and already have a web presence. Whether you are in business or not, anyone who has a serious desire about entering into e-commerce must have a web page (unless you sell on e-Bay). Sure, there are hundreds of ISP’s that offer on-the-fly template models that make it easy for business entrepreneurs to put up an e-commerce page within minutes. This model is great for those who might not be able to afford a dynamic, custom design web page but it comes with major drawbacks that must be taken into consideration before before choosing to go this route:
- Limited design templates and customization: depending on how large the template base is, your current or intended ISP might not offer a large enough template selection to ensure, somewhat, that your web site will be unique. Sure you can customize certain aspects of the templates with a banner or icon and most don’t require HTML knowledge, but for all intents and purposes, templates tend not to be designed to be changed (this is why they are templates). Imagine being one among dozens of other like-minded e-commerce entreprenuers who chose the same template. While the Internet might be big enough to obscure your template from your competitors’ own copy, this rationale might undermine the whole basis for having a web site in the first place: greater exposure and uniqueness. If you are selling similar products then what’s to distinguish your site from theirs?
- Limited e-commerce capacity: Most e-commerce ISP packages try to “wow” potential customers with offers such as complementary Paypal integration. However, not everyone is a Paypal fan or customer (although your customers no longer need to be Paypal members to process payments) and if this is the only option for payment, you might turn away potential customers who are wary about Paypal. Almost since its creation, Paypal has also been plagued by a reputation of being unfriendly with its own Paypal account holders. Without getting into details which might prejudice your consideration of Paypal, consider doing your homework before deciding. Not to be too harsh on Paypal, this service does offer attractive incentives for entrepreneurs who have a tight budget by offering low-cost transaction fees and a free payment gateway that does not require a merchant account. A safer and cost-effective route is to seek out “pay-for-play” merchant account companies that will charge slightly higher transaction fees and nominal payment gateways in return for processing limited transactions. As your e-commerce business grows and begin to process a higher volume of orders, you can upgrade to higher tiers that charge less expensive fees per transaction. Your money will be deposited into your bank account within 48 hours.
- More comprehensive ISP’s will offer shopping cart software such as OsCommerce (OsC) that have the potential for being designed uniquely, but unless you are a programmer or you contract a programmer, you might not be able to move away from the typical one-dimensional “OsCommerce look.†OsCommerce is robust, dynamic, and most importantly FREE. However, it lacks dedicated customer support (there is no 800 number to call for help) and most users must rely on blog sites to get technical support from peer OsCommerce users. Most ISP’s that I have seen will offer OsCommerce “as is†but will not provide technical support if you get into a snag. OsCommerce is compatible with major payment gateways which allow site owners increased flexibility in changing payment gateways whenever they want.
- Bottom line, consider all viable options and do your research before deciding to go with any payment or shopping cart options offered by your ISP.
For those of you who can afford to invest in an e-commerce venture, you might still consider the above observations as a matter of cost-feasibility (affordability) but it might not be cost-effective (worth your money for a slightly higher investment for a longer term benefit). If you can afford to hire a web site designer, then this is the most cost-effective route compared to settling on cookie cutter templates. If you want to stand out and not be afraid of being typical, then going custom is the way to go. Consider web searching for sites that sell similar products. Look at their sites, do they look like professional designs or do they look sophomoric? How many of your potential competitors use cartoonish .gif designs, flashy banners, and visually painful advertisement banners or pop-ups? Would you buy from places like these? I wouldn’t.
Being in control over whom you hire to design a web site to your specifications will definitely boost your chances of standing out among your competitors. If you go with OsCommerce then don’t settle on the standard OsC template either, inject creativity into it and demand this from your web designer. A web designer worth a dime might ask some general questions, be hard to track down, be unresponsive, and maybe do an OK job. A professional web designer worth a dollar will ask pointed questions about what you have in mind, what kind of products or services you intend to sell, what kind of “feeling†you want to convey through your web site (really, I’m not kidding), and what kind of transactions, if any, need to be processed. S/he will be efficient, responsive, trustworthy, and creative. If you build rapport with your professional web designer then this might be the beginning of a long-term professional relationship, thus becoming the technical support you’re your web site needs.
Your web site is a reflection of his/her work, thus s/he has an invested interest in keeping you happy and your site running. Remember that “word of mouth†marketing is the best advertisement for your professional designer. If your designer is proud of his/her work, he/she will want to display it prominently on his/her web site, thus exposing your site to a larger audience as an added bonus. If s/he deserves recognition, reward him/her with positive referrals and reviews whenever you get emails from potential customers who contact you about the web designer.
Not to template is a matter of survival. Stand out, be unique, go with what’s right in your mind and heart, and be proud of what is ultimately created. Make your web site YOUR web site and not your ISP’s.