eShops

An eShop is a multi-page web site, professionally designed, including rich text, graphics and pictures, that can display a small or large range of goods that can be ordered and paid for instantly on line. Animations and 'Flash' banners can also be included where appropriate.

This type of site is recommended for businesses selling a range of products which can be traded on line. For example, books, electrical goods, clothing and the like.

Such a site would also need a good eye-catching home page to attract peoples interest and encourage them to investigate your site further. Products offered for sale are usually placed into categories so that they can be easily located. Your site can also include a search facility to find such things as specific manufacturers items and particular models. Items can be added to an electronic shopping basket and later processed by electronic checkout where customers supply their credit card details and name and address details for delivery.

A facility not available to customers allows you to totally control the list of products available. You can add products, delete products, update product details and prices, add product pictures and completely manage your own product catalogue. You also have total control over your orders, requesting lists of new unprocessed orders, processing payments and printing despatch notes ready for shipping.

Payments can be collected on line using an on line credit card merchant account (TCS can set this up for you) or manually using an existing credit card merchant account (provided payment with customer not present is allowed for your account). You can have an eShop that does not accept credit cards, where the customer can mail you a cheque for his order but statistics show that if you accept credit cards on line your chance of a sale increases 300%.

Your eShop can have optional extra features such as allowing customers to track their orders and capturing statistics about your products so that you can see which are best selling and which you should consider dropping.

Again we urge you not to skimp on your site to save money. If your business really needs an on line eShop with instant buy and pay features then go for it! We repeat our warning, internet shoppers will buy their goods from your competitors eShop rather than send an order to you.