How do I determine what is the best website for me?

Unlike for instance advertising in the Yellow pages or handing out Flyers, a website allows you to actually display your products and services.

Whatever your advertising budget, we will sit down with you to determine your needs.

Whether it is a more simple static website, or a dynamic website, we can do it for you.

Static Websites

The static site is the most commonly used. It is generally cheaper and easier to set up. Basically it is used purely to deliver information. This does not mean that it is an inferior website in any way! It merely means that it has no user feedback facility which in most cases is perfectly sufficient to get your message across.

Dynamic Websites

A dynamic website provides some sort of feedback facility to the website viewer. In its simplest form it could be in the form of a guest book. A more complex website may have an online booking form or go right up to a full blown E-Commerce facility with secure credit card handling, online ordering of products etc.

E-Commerce Websites

E-Commerce…or as it is also known, Electronic Commerce, is a way of doing business online via the Internet. The customer and merchant are in different locations and yet the customer may browse, select merchandise and pay for everything online. The bought product is then usually shipped to the customer via various means e.g. Post or Courier service. It is a method of trading that is becoming increasingly popular around the world as the customer can do their shopping from the comfort of their computer.

Advantages of having a web based store

• Your store is open 24/7 all year round.
• You access a far greater customer base then merely having a physical store with all its associated constraints
• Great cost savings on overheads such as store space etc.

If you are looking at ways of increasing the sales of your products, E-Commerce is the way to go!

What do I need to set up an E-Commerce site?

You need to ask yourself a number of questions before deciding on the structure of an E-Commerce site:

• What volume of sales do you expect to have every month? This will usually influence the payment methods that you may accept.
• What payment methods do you want to accept? E.g. Direct Bank Transfer, Pay by Cheque, Credit Card payments.
• If your volume of sales is low, you may want to go for either the Direct Bank Transfer payment method, or Pay by Cheque method of accepting payments.
• For higher volumes, the Credit Card payments method is very convenient but more expensive to set up.

  Two methods exist here:

  1. Credit Card payments processed immediately in real time while the customer/merchant is online, or
  2. Manual Credit Card payments (Back Office). The Back Office facility can be used by registered merchants to manage their transactions. This is essentially a method in which the customer gives the merchant his Credit Card details who then manually enters them into the Payment Gateway for Authorization and Settlement. Features such as Bank Reconciliation and search facilities also exist.
• How am I going to package and deliver the products my customers have bought? E.g. Post, Courier service etc
• E-Commerce Websites need to comply with certain legal requirements. A list of the more important requirements are shown under Legal Requirements. If you are considering setting up an E-Commerce business please have a look at this section.
• If you are going to accept Credit Card payments, you will need a Payment Gateway, SSL Certificate and possibly a Merchant Account.

We offer three options.

• Payment Gateway and Merchant Account
• Payment Gateway and Merchant Account with Back Office processing
• Payment Gateway and Valid South African Bank Account (easiest to setup)

Payment Gateway

This is software provided by a company, that allows merchants to use secure Credit Card processing on their website, either on a real time basis or by manually entering the customers Credit Card details into the Payment Gateways Back Office facility. The Payment Gateway handles all authorizations and settlements for the online transaction and integrates a merchants E-Commerce Website into the merchant’s bank account. The customer is thus able to purchase products and services from the merchants E-Commerce Website using a Credit Card.

SSL certificate (Secure Socket Layer)

This is a certificate which is installed on a secure server. It is used to identify the merchant using it and to encrypt the credit card and other sensitive data. Unlike most websites where the IP address is assigned dynamically from a pool, a secure website requires a fixed IP address in order to link that website to a specific owner. This is done for security reasons. The SSL certificate is linked to this particular IP address.

Merchant Account

A merchant account is a special bank account that enables your business to accept payments by credit card either manually or in real time. In order to make use of a merchant facility the bank requires a certain set of Minimum Bank Requirements to be met.