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| The Products The products in the shop need to be displayed clearly with
the relevant information.
The images used should be crisp, clear and download
quickly. |
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| The Catalogue
The products need to be organised into logical sections so
that customers can easily find the item they are searching for. |
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| Shopping Basket
The shopping basket is used to show the items purchased to
date and allows quantities to be updated. |
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| Stock Control
Stock control is not always required, for example a
manufacturing retailer can make the items purchased and
therefore stock control is redundant.
Where a business is only trading online, the number of stock
items can be maintained by the web site owner and updated
automatically when an item is purchased.
Where the online shop is an additional sales channel, the
stock control becomes more complex and needs to integrate with
the existing shop. |
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| Postage and Packing
The addition of a postage and packing cost can be complex
and a critical element of the shop.
There are different methods that can be used, for example,
flat charge of £4.95 for purchases up to £75 and after that
free, or the postage can be calculated depending on the weight
of the parcel.
Separate pricing structures can be determined for different
regions, for example, £4.95 flat charge for the UK and £9.95
for USA. |
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| VAT
VAT registered companies have an additional requirement to
show VAT.
Consideration needs to be given if this is shown on a per
item basis or as a total at the end of the process. |
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| Payment Method
The most common payment method for online shopping is the
use of credit card, where credit card details are collected
they are captured securely using encryption.
The processing of the credit card payments can determine the
method used. If the shop owner has a merchant agreement with a
bank, they can use their existing mechanisms to process the
transaction. Where this is not in place a third company web
site can be used to accept the credit card transaction.
Castle Web Solutions can discuss the pros and cons of these
methods to allow the shop owner to make an informed decision on
which to use.
Customers can also be given alternate methods. For example,
submit the order without payment details and the shop owner can
telephone for the payment details, or print the order and send
a cheque. While these methods are not as immediate they can
still generate a sale where a customer is uncomfortable with
supplying credit card details over the internet. |
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| Order Processing
When an order is submitted, the customer gets an email
containing their order details and the shop owner gets an email
notifying that a new order has been received.
A separate section of the web site is available for the shop
owner to retrieve the order, process the payment, prepare the
order and send it to the customer.
Once the order is received, communication comes directly from
the shop owner. |
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