Top Features in an Ecommerce Store

An online store can be an incredibly efficient sales outlet for your business.  When you set up shop online you can be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, drawing customers from all over the world.  And you can make it happen virtually overnight for very little cost. 

You might think that you can sell online with a simple website.  Think again. There are a number of features of an online store that a website simply does not have.  Here are the most important features, divided into three key areas:   

Ecommerce (or Selling Online)

  • You can accept a wide variety of payment types, including credit cards, purchase orders and the online standard, PayPal.
  • Your store’s transactions are protected by strict security protocols and rigorous SSL data encryption
  • You can easily set up recurring billing for subscription sales
  • You can sell digital files with ease

Product & Inventory Management

  • Your online store becomes a product catalog, allowing you to merchandise your products on any web page, and enabling your customers to search for specific items
  • Shipping is easy: your online store is easily integrated with major shippers like FedEx, UPS, USPS and Canada Post
  • Automated sales and inventory reports make it simple to manage your business
  • You can have your store reporting integrate seamlessly with business accounting software programs like Intuit’s Quickbooks

Marketing

  • You can set up and maintain email marketing programs for your customers
  • You can efficiently manage advanced promotions like storewide sales, quantity discounts and promotion codes
  • You can run customer loyalty programs
  • You can easily submit your products to shopping search engines and dramatically increase your exposure to customers
  • It’s easy to integrate your online store with eBay 

Here a simple comparison between an ordinary website and one set up with an online store:

Feature Basic Website Online Store
Customizable Designs Yes Yes
Website Hosting Yes Yes
Site Traffic Reports Yes Yes
Personalized Domain Yes Yes
Email Accounts Yes Yes
Accept Payments Paypal Only YES
Secure Transactions Paypal Only YES
Automated Sales Reports No YES
Inventory Management No YES
Integration with Major Shippers No YES
Integration with Accounting Software No YES
Feature Basic Website Online Store

To summarize, if you have just a few things to sell and don’t want to have your customers buy from your site automatically, you may be able to get by with a website that simply advertises your products.  If, however, you want to set up a sales outlet that your customers can use whenever they want, with automated sales and payment activity, then an online store is what you need. 

Ready for more? Learn how to Market Your Products through the Web, or Start Selling Online today.

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