Recipe for setting up shop online

Setting up your first online store can be confusing. There is a ton of information about all the topics covered below, that can be found online, but I never have been able to locate a single set of must haves to set up shop on the internet. I wanted a reference that I could point my customers to, and hopefully help others , to give them some background on the ingredients. This is by no means an in depth look at these topics. Use it as a starting point and do more investigation in the topics you are interested in.

Shopping Cart

The shopping cart is basically the piece of software you will use as a platform to build your store. Shopping carts come in all shapes and sizes..and prices, but they all basically do the same thing. Provide you with a way to manage things like inventory, pricing, sales, order fulfillment etc.

Some might ask, why not just build your own from scratch. The truth is is that unless you have a huge IT budget and a team of developers that work round the clock to build, setup and support a custom solution, you are better off starting with something that has been tested again and again by all the developers that came before you. Why re-invent the wheel? That said, there are a number of large companies that employ the use of shopping carts to hawk their wares online.

Choosing the right shopping cart can be a daunting task indeed when you first set out. Because of all the available options it can be difficult to be sure you are choosing the right one. For me, the most important properties of a successful cart for any given project are these: Flexibility, built in features, price, support and release frequency.

Flexibility in design that allows a developer to make changes to the shopping cart to suit the clients needs is extremely important. This includes modifications to the cart that allow more freedom to the designer who is often also the developer. There are a number of carts that I have experienced that seem to be a lot simpler going in to the process, give you a few different looks to choose from, but never offer the ability for a shop owner to have a truly custom looking store. It's kind of like going in to the restaurant business but only being allowed to make your restaurant look like a Denny's, Perkin's or Ihop. If you have a specialized product or would like to be able to offer your product to your customers in a certain way that is not available with the standard features, you will certainly need flexibility to allow the developer to rework the code to offer your product as you see fit.

Built in features is a strong factor when considering different shopping cart software. The more features that you need that are already built in to the shopping cart, the less time and money it will take to get your store up and running. This consideration should be factored when looking at the price of a cart, as lack of built-in features that you need to implement custom solutions for, will inevitably add to the cost of setting up your store due to the additional development and testing that will be required. Think of it this way, you are buying a car and really want a sunroof. Do you buy the model that already has one built in but is $1500 more expensive than the one without a sunroof? Or do you buy the cheaper model and end up spending $2000 to put one in and having to wait an extra week while the work is being done?

Price of a shopping cart can range from free software to something costing thousands of dollars right off the shelf. Although sometimes it is human nature to regard sticker price as the first and main consideration, I prefer to leave it for last as lack of attention to the other factors could end up costing much more in the end or worse, failure of the store to perform as expected. That said, price should not be considered an indication of quality. I have often found that products like Zen Cart, an Open Source project that is FREE, to be superior in design and flexibility to other products costing much more offered by software firms.

Support can mean you have a crack team of top notch professionals(or so some might have you believe) on standby 24/7. It could mean a community of developers who support each other with solutions to common problems. It could mean, you are on your own buddy! Obviously, the more intense support you will require, the more it will probably cost. But remember, what you are being asked to pay is not always a good indicator of quality. Your level of experience and willingness to be hands on should also be considered when determining what type of support you will require.

Release frequency is an important thing to look at because as with any software there can be vulnerabilities. No one is bulletproof just ask Microsoft. Active release schedules that address known issues are important to maintaining the integrity and security of your store.

Here is a comparison of shopping cart software.

SSL Certificate

SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer which is a means of using cryptography to encode sensitive information that is transferred over the internet. A secure transaction is represented by the little lock that appears in the bottom of your browser's window. For more information about how SSL works check out this article. An issuer of an SSL certificate, called a certificate authority, is basically signing off on a transaction done over a specific domain, that the transaction is encrypted correctly and therefore secure.

It is very important that the issuer be a trusted authority or the lock will appear to be broken and the web surfer will very likely receive a warning about the page they are accessing. This of course does not do anything for your potential customers shopping experience as they will likely run as fast as they can in the opposite direction. Warnings and error messages can also be cause by an incorrectly configured certificate.

Shared certificates are often offered by my hosting companies as an added feature to their customers purchasing hosting on a shared server. This means that you and potentially hundreds of other stores are all using the same certificate to process secure transactions. This also means that your customers will see a url that looks something like https://www20.secureserver.host.com/yoursite-com instead of https://www.yoursite.com.

SSL certificates are typically inexpensive when compared to other costs incurred while doing business or setting up one, usually between $50 and $100 per year. Anyone serious about doing business online should seriously consider purchasing a certificate rather than using a shared one.

Payment Gateway

The payment gateway is a means of communication of credit card transactions for online merchants. They also perform the service of verifying the information that is provided by the customer such as the credit card information and comparing it to the name and address, verification of funds etc. with the issuing company. Ease of integration with your shopping cart should be a consideration in addition to per transaction and monthly fees assessed by the gateway(see Merchant Accounts).

Another thing to consider when choosing a payment gateway is their ability or willingness to provide you with assistance in complying with PCI DSS, the industry standard to help prevent fraudulent transactions and promoting data security.

Use this Wikipedia article as a starting point to learn more about PCI DSS and credit card processing compliance.

Merchant Account

Merchant accounts are the facilitators of accepting credit cards either online or at a brick and mortar store. Because of the risk of fraud when processing credit cards, your credit will be evaluated prior to being approved for an account. Merchant accounts and payment gateways are often bundled together. More information about how merchant accounts work including the rates and fees associated with processing credit cards can be found in this article.