So you want to move your business online and allow your customers to make purchases from your website. Where do you begin? It’s not as difficult as you might think.

It all begins with a payment gateway – a company such as PayPal that processes online payments whether they are by credit card or e-check. I use the term ‘payment gateway’ and ‘merchant account’ interchangeably here since most of the larger companies provide both services, although you could have a merchant account with a different company (bank) than your payment gateway. Each gateway provides their own method of interacting with your website, so your web developer (the company building your online store) will have to know how to implement the proper code to tie them together. You start by setting up an account with a payment gateway and then getting the required login information to that account. This information is forwarded to your web developer who will then add the login information to the processing code so that payments made in your eStore will be properly forwarded to your account. Because you will be sharing valuable access information, it is important you work with a reputable web developer.

There is a long list of available gateways such as: PayPal, Authorize.net, Alert Pay, and Verisign Payflow. Each company provides differing features and they set their own fees such as credit card fees. A little research will go a long way in saving money.

Once your site is live and a payment is made, you will have access to that money through your payment gateway/merchant account.

Another thing to consider with an eCommerce website is shipping costs. You’ll want to determine real-time shipping costs so you can add that onto the order and get paid up front for it. To do this, you will need to set up accounts with any shippers you plan to use, such as UPS, FedEx, and the US Post Office. Along with the regular account, you will need to ask for a developer key (access id) to allow your website to interact with their online services. You will then pass this key along to your web developer for inclusion in the website code. Your developer should be skilled enough to implement real-time shipping quotes with this key.

There is another way to calculate shipping costs and that is to build a database of current shipping prices based on shippers’ rate charts. This is not as accurate as their real-time web services, but it also does not require a shipping account or developer key. To compensate for unforseen changes to the shipping charts, you can simply add a small mark-up to each shipping cost. Either method should be fine for most small businesses.

Once the order is placed, shipping charges are calculated, the payment is processed through your payment gateway, and you are notified of the sale, the only thing left for you to do is pack and ship the order to the customer. And just like that you have an fully-functional online store which will be easier and cheaper to operate than any brick and mortar store.

This simple method of offering products online is not restricted to retail sales. Let your imagination run wild. eCommerce can be used for business-to-business (B2B) sales, subscriptions, donations, etc. With a skilled web developer, almost anything is possible online.

The modern age is all about information.  He who has the data, has the power.

New information is being created every second of every day from every one of your business processes.  From sales and purchases, to  inventory adjustments, employee actions, and customer inquiries, data should be organized and stored away for later analysis.  What you do with that information can determine your success for failure.  Information ignored is information lost.

So how do you retain the valuable data that is flowing through your business?  A properly designed database can store, manage, and serve all of your data at your command.  Through a web interface or a standalone software application, you can add data, modify as you see fit, and retrieve it in a myriad of forms to help you make more informed decisions.

The database itself is composed of tables – each table holding specific, related information.  Each table is broken down into fields – like cells in a spreadsheet – that hold the actual bits of data.  All of this data can then be tied together through the use of queries, or questions, posed to the database.

If you ever wanted to know on what day of the week you have the most sales, it becomes a simple matter of asking the database.  If you need to know which employee has used the least number sick days, but only out of the employees that have been with you for over two years, just ask the database.

The value of instant data at your fingertips becomes apparent the first time you need to know something, you press a key, and the information presents itself.  That is the value of a database.

If you are considering taking your company online, consider what your specific needs are before choosing the company to implement your ideas.  Are you looking for web design or web development?  There is a distinction that needs to be made to remove the confusion about Web companies.  Web design is not the same as web development.

Web design firms are like graphic design firms for the internet.  They create visually-pleasing websites that focus on images, color, and layout.  The pages contain mostly static content such as company information and contact forms.  Most sites created by web design companies don’t actually DO anything.  They consist only of pages of information.

Web development firms are more like software companies, focused on writing computer code to give your website functionality.  This would include storing information in a database, creating charts on-the-fly to represent real-time data, and implementing secure login gateways to keep your valuable data protected from prying eyes.

If you simply want to inform the public about your company, a web design firm may be the way to go.  But if you want to give your users the ability to interact with your site, and receive feedback from your site, confine your search to web development firms.  These can be recognized by their experience with scripting languages such as PHP, ASP, or JSP to name a few.

The IT.Blog is an internet technology weblog presented by Sandstorm Media to educate businesses and individuals on how to harness the power of the internet to increase productivity and efficiency.

We will add new articles regularly, so please check back often to learn the power of the internet.