Things You Should Know and Have Before Starting Selling Online

Domain Name
Unique name that identifies an Internet site (where visitor and client alike can find your website). Domain Names always have 2 or more parts, separated by dots. The part on the left is the most specific, and the part on the right is the most general. This is the first thing you should have to get your business online. Normally you can either register for a .com / .net / .org domain or a Top Level based Country Coded Domain such .com.my / .net.my. / .org.my (where .my is stand for Malaysia)
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Web & Email Hosting
Web hosting is an online storage service for information, images, video, or any content accessible through the Web. Just like a warehouse that keeps your stocks, you will need a place that keeps your website files and that (if included) your web applications as well.Web/Email Hosting is a service that provides a physical location in which a website and normally where email address resides. Client's websites is stored on computer servers located in secure and climate-controlled environments and permanently connected to the Internet through high-speed data lines.

There are many type of web and email hosting in the market (if you are not hosting yourself). You just have to evaluate which is hosting company that is most appropriate, based on your needs. If you are starting a Online Business, it is very likely you will have web application (which help you to control and sell) and database(s) that support it. Therefore it is advisable for you to find a little bit more about the hosting plan offered, such as what kind of disk space and bandwidth they offering, what kind of Scripting Language (such as ASP, PHP, JSP, Java) they support, or do they come with Database Facility (such as MySQL). Other things that matter on Hosting Facility is also if whether or not they offer some form of Service Level Guarantee. Some company can offer up to 99% uptime of their network and server
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Properly Designed and Planned Website
Just like a home or office, a properly designed and planned website will make your visitor(s) have a pleasant visit. No one likes to stay in a messy home or office. Here at Daynesoft, we believed in the principle of effective website design, which will help to make your website more attractive and user friendly, thus making your visitor to stay longer.

The following is a summary:
• Originality of Content (s). Credible and Original Content (s) are well sought after.
• Easy Navigation and clear site structure! Should be easy to read and well organized.
• Keep it Simple and Clear. Don’t make your users think. Don’t squander on your users’ patience
• Clear but Attractive Design
• Be Unique. Be well organize. Manage to focus users’ attention
• Strive for feature exposure
• Responsive (even on a 56 Kbps modem)
• Don't rule out "Conventional"
• Make best use of online communication (i.e. email, Internet Messager such as Skype, MSN)
• Optimized it!
• Test early and test more often

Notes: We have a full article on "Characteristics of a Well Design Website" (just click on the link) . This article discuss the fundamental traits that make a site work are more elusive. The article also break into two parts; Features of a Great Website and Principles of Effective Design for Website.

Therefore, we cannot emphasize more on the importance of a well designed and well planned website; it can either make or break your online business. Remember this, People read Web content differently from the way they read magazines or newspapers. Since reading from the computer screen tends to strain the eyes, people tend to skim or scan text rather than read it word for word. Breaking up the content into short sentences and short paragraphs makes it easier to read.

Important Notes: Designing and Implementing an ecommerce website takes more than just artistic skills, you will need a professional web designer which possess in-depth knowledge about usability, shopping cart buying process, web technologies, e-commerce software, and most of all, your business. The good news is, it cost much lesser compared to your burn-a-hole-in-pocket renovation, a good web design service probably will cost you only 20% of your renovation cost or even less
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Content Management System (CMS): It is important to note that an ecommerce website is not your everyday normal website. Depending on your business model, it may comprises several applications and surely one of them is a Content Management System or CMS for short. Some ecommerce application come with a CMS, and some sit on top of a CMS. But in the end, with or not you have a CMS, you will need an application that can help you to manage your website content (s) fast, easy and effective.Therefore, we recommend you choose an ecommerce software that come with a CMS or else an ecommerce that sit on top of a CMS. With content management system (CMS) you can easily update information on your website as you may need the power of CMS to do things such as update article pertaining to your product offering, promotions, sales, discounts, and many others. Without a good CMS, you may have to do some additional work (including organizing contents and menus), thus would be a lot of redundant work to handle.

The Ecommerce (E-Store) Application: Well this could be the one of the important application in your entire website. The core of an ecommerce website is the "Shopping Cart". The term "Shopping cart" itself is self explanatory. You may compared it with the cart you pick up to put the things you are buying in normal physical stores. Shopping cart stacks the items in which your customers are interested and wish to buy those products from your site. Other functions of shopping cart includes totaling the sum of quantities and their cost along with calculating discounts so that your customers can easily checkout from your site.A Good ecommerce application will have following facilities or features such as allow online ordering that is seamlessly integrate with modules like order management, shipping management, tax and payment gateway.Just remember this, a Shopping carts are inseparable part of an ecommerce website, and without it, you can't call your website an ecommerce website. We are sure that there are lots of applications to choose from, some for which are meant for bigger site (catering up to ten of thousand of products) and some are for smaller site that contain perhaps less than 100 product items.

We know the question you will ask next "How do you know which ecommerce application is suitable?". Well for us the rule of thumb is choose the one that is easy to understand/learn (thus easy to use), have all the important features (mentioned above) and important of all easy for you to maintain! It would pointless if you buy a software that cost so much money but in the end, take so much time to learn, to use and to maintain, isn't it?

Editor Notes: Daynesoft do offer a powerful CMS solution and also full ecommerce application (eStore) that sit on top of our powerful CMS
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Payment Gateway
What is a Payment Gateway? Actually to answer this is to ask this question, "how do you want to get paid for selling your products?". Payment Gateway is the payment processing gateway for your ecommerce website. You see, the role of shopping cart comes to an end when they calculate the costs. Now how should your customers pay you to get possession of what they have ordered? For this, a payment gateway is required in ecommerce website. Payment gateway in ecommerce website can be considered as a virtual cashier who collects cash from people before delivering the products which they have bought.So in other words, Payment Gateway is the service that acts as a "Secure Escrow Agent" between the your ecommerce website and the credit card processing network. It is used in real-time authentication and charging of your customers' credit cards. You can think of it as a digital equivalent of a credit card processing terminal. Before you decide on which payment gateway to use, please ponder through your targeted market, convenience and popularity of payment gateway, how and when money is deposited to your account etc.

Typical types of charges by payment gateway are Setup Fees, Deposits, Monthly Rental Charges & Transaction charges (also known as discount rate) & Chargeback fees. There is no one-size fits all solution, decision should be made based on which (or combinations) payment gateways best suited your business needs
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Merchant Accounts (Optional)
What is a Merchant Accounts? Do we need this? Well to answer that questions, first you must understand what is a Merchant Accounts. Merchant Accounts are commercial bank accounts which were set up between a retail business and a financial institution that allow a business(es) to accept credit card transactions. In short, it's just an account to receive funds from credit card sales.So do we need this? Well, for starter it is not a compulsory but for some it is more for conveniences. Most foreign payment gateways providers like Worldpay or Paypal will have a merchant account setup for you when you applied through them. But if you opt for local payment gateway providers for better conveniences, then you will need a local merchant account
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Secure your site! (Optional)
Best option for this job? We recommend Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Certification (see below). Take note that this is optional and not compulsory. But in order to build Trust and Credibility for your customers, we do recommend you to consider spending some money to obtain a SSL Certificate. Why? Because almost everyone knows that on the Internet there is a high proportion of fraud. People get access of secret information of credit cards and then anyone can misuse them. Then how you will entice your customers to buy things from your site? The answer for this lies in making your ecommerce website secure. By securing your ecommerce website your customer can trust your gateway and purchase your product, easily and without fear of identity or credit information getting pilfered. For the success of any ecommerce website, security is important requisite

Notes about SSL: SSL enables a secure connection between your website and your customers' browsers and it also help you to boost your customers' confidence levels towards your side. Besides that, most of the SSL Providers also provide Trusted Site Seal which validate the originality of your website. It helps lower down the risk of exposure to a malicious attack like Phising and Identity Theft! However please take note that inorder for your website to use SSL, it will need a Fixed IP Address (a dedicated IP to your domain) to work properly.

Some of the popular digital certificate authority worldwide are Geotrust and Thawte (which is owned by Verisign)
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Delivery
Delivery of goods is important, especially when your orders could be coming in from all over the world. Nothing is more frustrating to a customer than not being able to receive the goods they pay for in good condition and timely manner. An online order doesn't end until the parcel is delivered to the customer's doorstep. To do it right, you can start by picking the right courier services company for your business. Remember, Delivery are the basic fundamentals that form your e-commerce website. This is only the first step towards ecommerce venture. Remember, ecommerce is no magic, just like running the Brick and Mortar stores, you need a sound business plan and good execution.

Notes: If you are delivering the goods locally, check out some local courier service like POS Laju (EMS), GDEX, CITY-LINK EXPRESS, NATIONWIDE EXPRESS, Secure Xpress, and ABX Express. If you are delivering the goods worldwide and won't mind paying extra for reliable and fast services, you might want to consider the BIG 3 - FedEX, UPS, and DHL
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Marketing and public awareness
For any website to be successful, people should be aware of it. What are the means to make people visit your website? Well one of the method is Search Engine Optimization or SEO for short. It is used for increased traffic and making your website rank higher in search engine result such as in Google or Yahoo. The majority of web traffic is driven by the major commercial search engines - Yahoo!, MSN, Google & AskJeeves (although AOL gets nearly 10% of searches, their engine is powered by Google's results). If your site cannot be found by search engines or your content cannot be put into their databases, you miss out on the incredible opportunities available to websites provided via search - people who want what you have visiting your site. Whether your site provides content, services, products, or information, search engines are a primary method of navigation for almost all Internet users.

Of course there are other method available, which some cost money, some are free but required you to put time and effort.
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Good and Fast Internet Access
Last but not least, you need a good and fast Internet access. Reason? Well, it is simple really, ask yourself this question, can you bear with the speed of a 56Kbps download? We think not. When dealing with online business, you are more likely to receive enquires from online users. Most of them would prefer to deal and communicate with you via the internet as they may come from different part of the world, and come from a different time zone than you. Therefore communication would be likely using Internet-based communication such as emails, Internet Messager (such as Skype, MSN and/or Yahoo). This is especially true when you are a start up or a small business owner. Therefore it is a good idea to place these information inside your website so that user can contact you in various internet communication method. So if these are some of the method you wish deploy so that people can contact you, should it be time for you to consider a good and fast Internet Access as well? We like to think so.