E-Commerce

Online Retail is a blossoming currently in the UK. UK shoppers spent £3.8bn online in August 2009, 16% higher than the same month in 2008. Online retail sales in the UK were worth £43.8bn in 2008. Since 2004 the number of sales on the internet as steadily increased, but is your business getting in on the action?

So what exactly is online retail? Well having your own online store, selling a product and taking payment for it is an online store. But exactly where do you start, what do you need to get started and how much will it cost?

To start a store is comprised of two sections. The store front where your customers can browse, search products and place their orders and the store administration section. From the administration area you can deal with all orders, new customers, maintain your products, send email newsletters, and get sales reports.

To keep costs down we utilise open source software called Magento to build the site. Magento is world wide recognised e-commerce application that is fully supported and maintained by a team of dedicated professional programmers.

So what do you need to do? Well plan your shop out; what products are you going to sell? What categories would they be grouped in? Will you have promotions, monthly newsletters and mailing to new and existing customers? A big aspect of it is driving sales to your shop, where do they come from. Well you need to advertise, put up posters, send out flyers (check our graphic design page for more information), tell friends, talk about it all time, and get your store listed on directories and relevant websites. The list of possibilities is endless.

But we are here to help right from the start and will provide all the support, advice and assistance you need. And even better you won’t need to re-mortgage your home to afford it. We can provide various payment options, such as monthly payments for your store, or a one off payment and then yearly occurring hosting fee’s.

You can rest assure in the knowledge that you are in safe hands and that the shop will be tailored to your exact needs.

Each store is supplied with a handy user guide that takes you through each of the various tasks you would need to carry out, step-by-step with screenshots. We also have training videos available to show you how to carry out the main tasks for maintaining your online store.

And of course we are always on hand to help you out should you get stuck, so contact us today to have a chat about what we can do for you.