In the gone, brick and mortar stores expanded their customer replica buttoned up the end of catalogues and dispatch orders. Immediately, with millions of crowd owning at ease computers and having Internet connections, a full cutting edge fling has opened for businesses to arrive an incredible character of customers via websites. A website is approximative the salesman in a store, concourse and greeting lurking customers, and showing them the products you sell. Websites cede the bent for an "online store" to be unlatched Day and night a interval, seven days a week, buttoned up excellent weather and damaging. All the more, the fee To erect and guard a website is relatively inexpensive when compared to the costs of operating physical store fronts.
Initial Costs
Creating the actual website requires machine rule written in a Tongue called "HTML." The most expensive idea To possess a website built is to catch the services of a "webmaster," who Testament conception a mark for you, based on what you demand it to glad eye love and what you demand it to engage in.
A noncommercial website Testament not keep the lenghty needs that an online store requires, and so Testament expenditure even less to replica and ride. Some community poll to memorize record HTML code and build a website themselves.
A third preference is to operate a commercial software program, such as Adobe Dreamweaver ($399), which assists the user in designing a website without having any technical experience. A free program for developing a site can be found at www.kampozer.net. There are also websites that have templates that allow you to create customized professional-looking sites with no technical skills. Yahoo.com offers different website development packages from $39.95 to $299.95, depending on various features. If your needs are basic, check out Microsoft (www.microsoft.com), which offers a free website, with simple tools for development. Another popular site to purchase domain names, create websites and provide monthly hosting is www.godaddy.com, with prices that range from about $27 a month to $140.
Selling Products
Websites that are online stores and sell products are more involved, and will be more expensive if you hire a webmaster. At the very least it will take more time to establish. Each product you sell will have to be photographed, placed in the right size and format and uploaded to the server that will be hosting the site. Also, a product database will be needed to keep information on each product, such as its description, the wholesale and retail costs and weight for determining shipping costs. If you have hundreds of products for sale, this will be quite an undertaking, and very expensive if you hire a webmaster. Obviously, these requirements will make commercial website development more expensive.
Shopping Cart Technology
Selling products will require your site To possess "shopping cart" technology. This enables customers to place items in a "virtual shopping cart" for tallying up when through making their purchase selections. The additional cost of this technology is often bundled with other features that website design services offer, such as a database that automatically stores customer information and the products they've ordered.
Merchant Services
Retailers will need to accept credit cards, so there will be a cost involved with the initial setting up and maintaining "merchant services" to process credit cards. Setup can be anywhere from $50 to $200. Expect to pay a monthly fee of around $30, plus a small percentage of the gross sales.
Ongoing Expenses
Keep in mind that the initial cost to develop a website, purchase a domain name (which is inexpensive, $4.95 at godaddy.com) and set up a merchant service account are not the only expenses. But if you require serious business features, make sure that the service or program you use will be able to handle all your needs. There will be ongoing expenses for Web hosting, merchant services, and any changes to the site (such as adding new products), if you require paying a webmaster to do it. So, shop around. A free site may be all you need.
