Client Support Center

B2B Web Hosting Experts

If you have a great product to sell online and need a few pointers as to where to start, you've come to the right place. On Target Web Solutions provides web design and integrated e-commerce web solutions and is dedicated to educating our clients. If we haven't answered your question below, please fill out our tech support form for a quick, dare we say insanely rapid response? Click here for a printable e-commerce checklist:

What is E-Commerce?
What Do I need to do to start selling products?
How Do the Products Get Shipped?
Maintaining Inventory& Your E-Commerce Store
Growing Pains : Is my store modular?

What is E-Commerce?
E-commerce is selling 'stuff' online. Your products and / or services can be stored electronically and your prospects / customers can purchase your products online and have them shipped or delivered via email based on the product.

What Do I Need To Do To Start Selling Products?
First and foremost, you need to have a product that will sell and that people 'look' for online. Secondly, avoid selling .22 cent products as the return on investment may not actually do it for you... Here's what you'll need.

• A beautiful custom web design from On Target Web Solutions.
  
  
• An online e-commerce solution that can be integrated into your web design, we use Miva Merchant for it's robust features and ease of use.
  
  
• A security certificate: A Security cert is the padlock that you see lock up when you are on e-commerce stores. This certificate encrypts data transmission and keeps your credit card transacation and client's information as safe as possible.
  
  
• A Payment gateway: This is perhaps the most confusing area and will require some work on your end: The payment gateway is essentially the middle man when it comes to your online purchases and accepting credit cards. This middle man makes certain that the credit presented was valid and will process the payment of the credit cards for you. We do recommend a few payment gateways based on our experiences, but you'll need to work with them directly and fill out some paperwork.
  
  
• A Marketing plan: One KEY element people dont' get: just because you have a web site, doesn't mean people are going to come in droves and buy. You need an online marketing plan to sell your products and services to your target market. On Target can help with this as well.

How Do My Products Get Shipped?
Whichever way you chose: Our MIVA store can actually calculate real time shipping costs if you have a UPS or FED EX account. You can add shipping and handling fees if you are so inclined, or you can ship old school via the USPS, or carrier pigeon or stagecoach. You will be responsible for physically getting your products boxed and picked up by the carrier, your store will simply tally up the shipping fees and add it to the top.

Maintaining Inventory & Your E-Commerce Store
Inventory can be a challenge, but relax, your On Target Web Solutions E-commerce store can keep track of your product inventory. If your store starts running low, it will alert your customers that the product is on backorder, or whatever other custom message you deem necessary.

Growing Pains : Is My On Target Web Solutions Store Modular?
Yup. You can add as many products as you need, there are no limitations. Also, our MIVA store has several developers who create neato mosquite plugins and applications, so as your business grows, your online store can grow as well and keep up with the times!