Tips on an E-Commerce site

Your tips on an E-commerce site

[FitnessFreak]

Hi there. Ive recently created a new website and was wondering how I would go about setting it up to sell my widgets along with displaying the content.
All help appreciated! P.S. Im new to sitebuilding which is why im posting.

[edited by: lorax at 2:05 am (utc) on April 25, 2005]
[edit reason] No URLs or specifics please [/edit]

[TheRookie]

No URLs. :-)

But being a bit more specific would help. Do you need more traffic? Better conversion rate? Tips on site design?

[brucet]

The main things you will need are

1) A way of receiving payments. You could get started with just a Paypal account, but if you are serious about selling online you will need either an Internet Merchant Account from your bank - which you should be able to get OK if you are already trading offline - or a Bureau Service from someone like Worldpay.

2) A secure shopping cart that will encrypt your shoppers' card details and deliver them to your desktop (if you plan to process payments offline after you receive the order); or interface with a Payment Service Provider (if you plan to process payments online in real time). There are many options available - search Google for something like 'ecommerce software' to see some of the most popular ones.