e-Commerce - Online Shop - Take Payments by Phone or email
You know you need an e-Commerce website (online Shop) or to take card payments, but where do you start? 
Our strength is in helping low-tech clients through all the jargon and technology.
We have a wealth of professional experience, working with clients to help get their processes and systems set up and in training those involved.
We work with our Merchant Bank partners - Cardsave and Barclaycard to ensure smooth integration of your online store with your Merchant Bank. PayPal too.
e-Commerce is just a simplified and lower cost version of the real world. Around £20 out of every £100 is now spent online (Office of National Statistics).Contact us now and tell us what you have in mind and we'll help you from there.
For those who like more technical explanation about e-Commerce, please read on...
How does e-Commerce work?
Simplistically, your website has a virtual shopping basket and your customers will put items in it. When they want to go through the checkout, they will be asked their name and contact details so that you can ship the goods, contact them if necessary and pass these details into the start of the payment process.
The payment process is carried out by a Merchant Bank and your customers will pay wholly within the bank's website. This ensures that data protection, identity theft and customer security is dealt with in a highly secure environment which you don't need to worry about.
All credit card transactions go through a Payment Gateway to a Merchant Bank such as Cardsave, Barclaycard or Paypal and you will need an account setting up with them. We will help you with this process.
The Merchant Bank and Payment Gateway will charge you for this service. If you are only selling a handful of products or services, PayPal is your cheapest option as there isn't a monthly fee, however for most e-Commerce stores it won't be the cheapest option and you might need some of the more useful features available from other banks.
Cardsave are probably the most cost-effective merchant bank available in the UK - they were created by UK retailers in 1995, looking for a more cost-effective bank than the one's on the high street. If you use or intend to use physical card payments with a machine, you will be pleased to know that Cardsave is a strategic partner with RBS and WorldPay providing Streamline.
Barclaycard ePDQ is very well known of course and although more expensive, without a doubt it conveys trust.
Once the payment has been made, the customer will be taken back to your store. Normally, an order email will be sent to the customer with a copy to yourself and their order details will be recorded in your website.
Shipping can be done based on the details in your order email or ideally from the website, where you can record that you have shipped the item and should there be a need to refund at some point, you can record that too. Refunds are done within the Merchant Bank site as you won't have the customers payment details of course.
Merchant bank + Payment Gateway Comparison
Assuming a website takes £1500 pcm in 30 transactions, with a 50/50 split in debit cards and credit cards the approximate costs are below:-
(prices correct as at May 2010).
| PayPoint (SecPay) | £81.00 |
| PayPal / Google | £64.50 |
| SagePay | £60.50 |
| Cardsave | £38.50 |
Website Freedom e-Commerce service
- Our web designer has a wealth of business systems experience as well as having a qualified computer programming background. He is a Chartered IT Professional and also a Prince2 Practitioner; these help ensures the project stays on course and is delivered in accordance with codes of conduct.
- We discuss your needs and recommend an appropriate cost-effective solution
- At order time, we take a deposit - typically 25% but depending on the project
- We will gather your styling and configuration needs to start design and integration work with your Merchant Bank
- You will receive information to help you draft your basic site pages with a view to search engine optimisation
- You will receive training and/or data capture spreadsheets to help with loading product and category information on your site
- Your site will be built in a way that is search engine friendly and when appropriate submitted to 10 search engines
- Your site will have Google Analytics built in
- When you need to understand how to manage your products, categories and more, you will be given access to the Squirrelhouse Training Zone, a library of video (flash and MP4) and PDF documents to help you.
- Once complete, you will pay the amount outstanding and your e-Commerce site will be live!
How much does an e-Commerce website cost?
There are fixed and variable factors which change the costs and timescales.
The fixed parts are basic styling, organising the basic pages eg. about us, contact, terms and conditions, adding fading banners etc. These are all similar to a standard CMS website. e-Commerce adds to that the costs of configuration - how the store will operate, how the integration works with your Payment Gateway and Merchant Bank etc.
The variable factors are largely around the size of the shop and how involved you want to be in the bricks and mortar of building it. We can do it all for you or we can give you training. Our professional photographer and our illustrator from Squirrelhouse Consulting can help you to promote your products and ensure your images convey the best impression to your customers.
Website design costs start at around £500 for a basic content managed website with a few PayPal buttons with minimal styling. A fully fledged, all singing all dancing, highly styled e-commerce site, with training, graphic design etc can easily cost £3,000 or more.
In between these options, there is a great opportunity to be had basing the website on a tried and tested template solution which we would style to your needs. We would configure the shop to work with your preferences and integrate it with your Payment Gateway and Merchant Bank and provide you with training to run your shop. These solutions will typically cost between £1,600 and £2,400.
Your e-Commerce shop will have some website running costs in the region of £35 - £70/month to include:-
- Hosting and domain fees
- Administering backups of your website (including order details), typically quarterly database servicing and other technical activities.
- Support time to help you run the shop and deal with any Merchant Bank integration issues that arise.
Squirrelhouse and the Training Zone
As well as Squirrelhouse's additional professional services, we give our clients access to the Training Zone where you will find video guides and help sheets to ease your way into managing your website and being able to change the content yourself. Please note that we are always glad to change your website content for you which can be highly cost-effective if you find it rather technical.
Joomla - Virtuemart Administration Basics
Virtuemart - simple and extended layouts and the admin options.
Creating a new category - this creates a new level in the product hierarchy.
Creating a new product through cloning an existing one and loading an image of the product.
Joomla Virtuemart Order Processing
Virtuemart Order processing and reporting options.
Joomla Virtuemart Coupons
Coupons can be for either a specific amount or a percentage and can be one-off or permanent.
Virtuemart Quick Reference
Virtuemart User Guide
Virtuemart Order Processing
Payment Gateways
Cardsave - How to refund a transaction
Please also refer to your Merchant Bank's information for further details.
