Setting up a small online store

[andso]

Hi,

I'm developing a small website for a friend's business and we'd like to use the site to sell downloads of articles she has written. What would be a good way to do this? I could "outsource" the sales bit to another company, like World Pay (expensive?), or we could use Paypal (unprofessional?)...?

There are only 20 or so articles she would be selling, so this isn't going to be generating lots of money.

Any suggestions would be gratefully recieved!

 

[Foamcow]

There is nothing wrong with using Paypal since your customers can pay via credit card etc without having to have a Paypal account. You simply use Paypal as a payment processor.

I would go with one of the major payment gateways, ideally one with a well known brand name because this will help to give your customers some piece of mind.

As for the ecommerce site itself, you may want to look at some off the shelf products - both open source and pay-to-use.
Take a look at ZenCart, OsCommerce, SelectaCart and possibly a hosted service such as Karova Store.

By far the single most important thing(s) with any ecommerce site are:

1. Marketing! Marketing! Marketing! The adage, "build it and they will come" is absolutely NOT true. You need a comprehensive marketing plan with both online and offline campaigns.

2. Order fulfilment and customer service. The majority of ecommerce sites fail because the 'backoffice' can't keep up with the demand and things start to ship. You need to get that order in, processed and out same day or at the latest next day. Obviously this isn't always possible but you should make sure your customer knows what is going on.
This is triply important if your marketing is good enough and you recieve alot of orders!

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