Creating an e-commerce website

Creating an e-commerce website

Creating an e-commerce website has become easy due to the many technological advancements. E-commerce websites are websites where businesses and people perform electronic transactions. Electronic transactions are central to the e-commerce sector. Therefore they are only three areas to focus on when creating an e-commerce site:

• Hosting/ platform
• Themes
• Payment gateway

Choosing a platform when creating an e-commerce website

The first thing you will need to consider when creating an e-commerce website is choosing a platform. This will depend vastly on your budget size. If you have a large budget and have a great skills set, you can choose to host your website on your own server. The only disadvantage of using your own server or using web services such as Amazon is the fact that they need a lot of time and funds. If you are a small scale e-commerce store the best decision to make is to create an e-commerce website on platforms such as Shopify and WordPress where the themes are already made and are just waiting to be activated. These platforms are more cost-effective. For instance, it only cost 29 US dollars to create an e-commerce site on Shopify. This makes the site specifically fitted for small businesses.

Choosing a payment gateway when creating an e-commerce website

Although most e-commerce platforms have specific gateways, it is important to choose the gateway you are most comfortable with. Some gateways are suitable for certain electronic transactions. In definition, a payment gateway is simply an e-commerce service that processes electronic payments. This is usually done for both credit and debit cards. The most popular payment gateways are Stripe, PayPal, and square. Payment gateways work by encrypting transactions. This prevents customer’s financial data from falling into the wrong hands.