We specialise in
ecommerce websites here at Designer Websites, and so we often receive enquiries from business owners who are wondering whether or not ecommerce is the right choice for their company.
More often than not, the answer is a resounding 'yes' - ecommerce is a fantastic way to grow your business, reach new customers, and increase your profits. However, we do occasionally come across clients for whom an ecommerce website simply wouldn't make sense; sometimes, it's better to have a simple brochure website that drives lots of enquiries than to have an awkward ecommerce website that makes life difficult for potential customers.
So which side of that line does your business fall on? Read on to find out whether or not an ecommerce website is the right choice for you...
An ecommerce website is ideal if:
- You sell a wide range of products. Websites are capable of showcasing far more products than a bricks-and-mortar shop, and if you have a lot of different items on offer, an ecommerce site will probably be the single most efficient way for you to sell.
- You wish to market to a wider audience. If you're only selling from a physical location at present, you're only reaching a tiny percentage of the market (i.e. those within travelling distance of your shop). Even if you have multiple locations, that's still nothing compared to the reach of an ecommerce website - imagine what could happen if you made your products available to the entire country, or even the entire world!
- You already have a non-ecommerce website that gets a lot of traffic. If you have a website that doesn't allow people to buy your products, chances are you're missing out on a lot of sales. Many internet users now expect the option to purchase online, and if your website doesn't offer this, you'll lose your customers to a website that does. The solution, of course, is to upgrade your site with ecommerce functionality - you'll be improving user experience, and since your website already has some history with the search engines, it will likely rank much higher than a brand new website would.
An ecommerce website probably isn't right for you if:
- You aren't equipped to deal with a large volume of orders. Opening up your business to the whole country (and possibly beyond) will almost certainly result in a lot more orders. This is great news if you can handle the demand, but if you can't, things will very quickly turn sour, especially if customers aren't receiving the goods they've paid for. In the age of the internet, disgruntled consumers can ruin a company's reputation astonishingly quickly!
- You only want to target a small area. Want to keep your business local? If so, ecommerce may be the wrong choice for you, particularly if you don't have the means to fulfil orders from outside your chosen territory. That said, we have produced ecommerce websites for a few region-specific businesses, and they've done very well indeed - just make sure that visitors know right from the outset that your site only caters to one location!
- Your products are too complicated for ecommerce. Some things simply can't be sold directly over the internet. This is often the case for companies who specialise in bespoke items; it is possible to integrate some customisable features into an ecommerce website (for example, we have built sites that sell things like personalised clothing and customised labels), but after a certain point, it just becomes too complicated for the end user. Alternatively, perhaps you'd rather get people on the telephone instead of selling to them online - giving your customers a phone number instead of an online checkout allows you to speak to them personally, provide a better solution for their requirements, and perhaps even upsell your products and make more money!
An ecommerce website is a great way to boost your business's revenue, but before you start making sales online, you'll need to select an online payment system for your site. Eager ecommerce entrepreneurs have many different payment providers to choose from - here are some important things to consider before making your decision:
- Will this payment system make it easy for my customers to pay me?
- Does this payment provider have a good reputation for security and reliability?
- Is this payment system reasonably cheap to use?
- Is the interface for managing payments and refunds easy to use?
Here at Designer Websites, we are extremely well-versed in the selection and implementation of online payment systems. We have built ecommerce platforms for hundreds of businesses, and in this blog post, we will look at three of the most popular payment providers on the web. Do they meet the above criteria? And how will their services suit your business?
Sage Pay
Sage Pay is a well-known payment gateway provider that caters to more than 50,000 customers across Europe. We at Designer Websites recommend Sage Pay to most of our ecommerce clients. Why? Well, let's go back to those three all-important questions...
- Will this payment system make it easy for my customers to pay me? Yes. Sage Pay's user interface could scarcely be more straightforward - it's simply a case of entering your details and clicking 'Proceed'. The system also has tokenisation capabilities that allow users to save their details and skip all that tedious typing next time around.
- Does this payment provider have a good reputation for security and reliability? Sage Pay have a Trustpilot rating of 9.6 out of 10, which should give you a good idea of how trustworthy they are. Furthermore, the Sage system uses a variety of fraud prevention tools and security measures to ensure that payments are completely protected.
- Is this payment system reasonably cheap to use? Sage Pay's ecommerce system is one of the most cost-effective on the market, offering a range of reasonably-priced payment plans to suit businesses of all sizes. In our opinion, their charges are more than reasonable.
- Is the interface for managing payments and refunds easy to use? We believe that the MySagePay console is one of the best features of their payment gateway. It is incredibly intuitive, comprehensive, and simple to use.
World Pay
Many of our clients ask us to integrate Worldpay into their ecommerce websites, so we have a lot of experience with this system as well.
- Will this payment system make it easy for my customers to pay me? Again, yes; Worldpay is relatively good and makes taking payments online easy. However, the Worldpay interface is not as user-friendly as that of Sage Pay.
- Does this payment provider have a good reputation for security and reliability? Worldpay's ecommerce system is very secure, but their Trustpilot rating of just 4.1 out of 10 reveals some serious problems with their service levels, reliability, and customer management.
- Is this payment system reasonably cheap to use? Worldpay isn't the cheapest payment provider, but they are far from the most expensive. It does depend on your payment plan, but this can be quite a cost-effective choice for some online sellers. In some cases, they are cheaper than Sage Pay.
- Is the interface for managing payments and refunds easy to use? Um...no! We think that the interface is very poor (at the time of writing this article), and sadly this lets Worldpay down significantly. They do have some nice features, but the interface is generally very clunky and awkward to use.
PayPal
PayPal needs no introduction - it is probably the best-known payment system on the web. If you've ever bought anything on eBay, there's a good chance you used PayPal to pay for it. But is it the right choice for your business?
- Will this payment system make it easy for my customers to pay me? Yes - if the customer already has a PayPal account, transactions can be completed in a couple of clicks. Even if they haven't registered an account already, it's very simple to sign up, and once they've registered, they'll never have to enter their card details again (unless those details change).
- Does this payment provider have a good reputation for security and reliability? They wouldn't be so popular if they didn't! That being said, PayPal have an extremely poor rating on Trustpilot (just 2.1 out of 10), with many people complaining that the company's customer service is very bad indeed.
- Is this payment system reasonably cheap to use? This is the biggest problem with PayPal: they know how popular they are, and they know that many online shoppers now expect all ecommerce websites to include a PayPal option. For this reason, they are perfectly happy to make you pay through the nose for their services, taking a sizeable percentage of every sale they process (more than 3% in some cases - this can really add up if you're taking a lot of orders via PayPal). In particular, Paypal is very expensive to use if you take a lot of transactions; if you don't, they may be a good choice.
- Is the interface for managing payments and refunds easy to use? Yes - they have clearly spent time designing this for ease of use and it shows. The interface is both very functional and very easy to use.
Further Reading:
If you live in Cardiff or the wider South Wales area, our latest project may well interest you. Kitchen Economy is a domestic appliance shop in the Roath district of Cardiff, and we're pleased to announce that their brand new ecommerce website is now live for all to see!
The Kitchen Economy shop itself has been open for more than 30 years, and while the business did already have its own website, this site had begun to look very dated indeed. When Kitchen Economy first contacted us, they were interested in upgrading to a user-friendly ecommerce website that would allow them to serve customers from all over Cardiff and beyond; now that the project has reached completion, we are proud to say that this is exactly what we have provided.
Kitchen Economy's new and improved website looks very modern indeed, with each type of appliance represented by a hi-res image in a simple, easy-to-navigate site menu. Whether you're looking for a cooker, a dishwasher, or something else again, the new design makes it easy to find and purchase.
So, as we said before, Cardiffians in need of new white goods should visit www.kitchen-economy.co.uk as a matter of urgency - you can buy your new appliance(s) online, and the KE team will deliver to your door. They even offer a full installation service!
We've just finished working on our latest e-commerce site, Stagstuff! Stagstuff specialises in bachelor party supplies, and everything you'd need to throw a seriously good stag party. The site has a range of appropriate products that is bound to satisfy your appetite for accessories, as well as give you some great stag party ideas.
Stagstuff knows how hard it can be planning a stag party - there is an untold expectancy for it to meet a certain level of greatness. The internet is full of sites dedicated to helping hen parties, but Stagstuff is the first dedicated solely to men. They sell all manner of accessories from fancy dress costumes to drinking games; if it going to be a contributing factor to you having an amazing stag party, they stock it!
Our latest website is labelsource.co.uk, an ecommerce site where one can purchase all manner of labels and signs. Label Source have been going since 1994, supplying affordable, high-quality identification products (labels, tags, nameplates, etc.) to a wide variety of customers and clients. We're thrilled to have worked for such a long-standing business, and we hope that the new Label Source website will attract a wealth of new custom for the company.
We've created a lot of ecommerce websites in our time, but the Label Source site stands out as one of the larger ecommerce projects we've ever completed. The site stocks a dizzying array of products, including safety signs, asset labels, warning notices...we could go on. To see the full range, go to labelsource.co.uk and have a browse of our latest website!
