The Price of E Commerce

A friend of mine is starting a photography school. Here is an outline (roughly) of the fees and costs associated with owning an eCommerce website.

Hosting

This is physical space on a server where your files for the website reside.  You can get a cheaper rate if you pay for multiple years up front; then they bill you for the whole amount to have the account for the next couple of years. In other words, to get a cheap(er) rate, you have to have more cash on hand to spend for hosting.

Domain Management

This is the shopping cart’s www address charged at a yearly rate, sometimes a multi-year rate. I find it best to work with a hosting company that also does domain management for less administrative hassle.

Shopping Cart Comparison

Not all shopping cart software is free.   Free, or “Open source” software is software code that’s widely distributed, which makes it easier for hackers to find loop holes to attack in the code.  It is important to have a knowledgeable developer to know how and when to close these loop holes and when to install security updates.

I am familiar with PHP coding, so I wouldn’t commit myself to a shopping cart not in PHP.  To the end user, it doesn’t matter what code the shopping cart was written in, it only matters to the host and the developer.

There are so many other factors to consider, mainly being the functionality.  A careful evaluation of what you expect the cart to do and how it behaves is mandatory before choosing a cart.  Example points to consider are:

• Is the shopper forced to create a “login” account before or during shopping?
• Do you want to use discount codes? Promo codes?
• Do you want shipping estimates?
• Do you want the option for newsletters ?
• What type of reporting does the cart offer?
• Do you want your product images to zoom in?
• What is the workflow / user interaction experience like?

There are so many other features, it’s best to demo all carts before choosing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_shopping_cart_software

Need to look for calendar-based shopping cart

This may be difficult, as the first search shows upward of a $7K pricetag: http://secure.sixrm.com/p/109/calendar-based-ecommerce-shopping-cart

Another popular photography school uses foxycart:   http://www.foxycart.com/pricing-signup

Security Certificate & Dedicated IP

This is provided by your hosting company, and is what allows the “s” on https. It provides a level of encryption when data is in transit.  Think of it as the shopper’s credit card number is scrambled while it’s being transmitted, so that if any unscrupulous listeners were able to intercept the transmission, it would be nearly impossible to extract the credit card number.

 Authorize.net

Authorize.net is who processes your online transactions for you. They ensure the security of your customer’s data. You can find lower rates at your local bank by setting up what is called a merchant fee; the bank is a re-seller of authorize.net.  Still expect monthly fees, as well as transaction fees.