Starting to offer online commerce can be a challenge for companies, large or small. For large companies that already have a website and have a marketing and logistics team, the process can be a bit easier than for startups.
However, having a payment platform and a team that provides confidence and peace of mind, both to users and to the work team, is essential. Herein, we gather the most important steps that a large company must consider to start its path down the e-commerce road.
1. Hire a hosting service:
Communicating to the website maintenance team about your plan to develop a virtual store on the site is the first step. This requires the team to make certain modifications and include new requirements on the existing site. Effective communication with this group will be essential in the proper functioning of the virtual store.
2. Choose the technological platform:
This will be the brain of the online store, where you can manage orders, view their status, and maintain communication with each client. Setting up an online store with these platforms can be very easy, however, being a large company, it is best to have an expert team that is in charge of monitoring everything that happens.
3. Define the payment platform:
This step is extremely important, since handling the money and the completing the payments made in your store depend on it. To do it in the best, it is important to take into account several aspects:
- Security certifications that guarantee you are using a totally reliable and legal/compliant system.
- Attractive commissions to help build a truly profitable business.
- Flexibility so that your users can make their payments through various methods and channels.
- Attention and support: many times it can be complex to understand all the processes that are carried out for online sale to occur, that is why it is important to have a team that will accompany you and solve any issues that arise in a timely manner.
- Stability: it will be useless to integrate your online store to a platform that constantly crashes or has constant points of failure. Make sure you choose one that is stable and gives you peace of mind knowing that your customers will not have any setbacks when making their payments.
- Transparency: having a payment gateway that presents reports and complete statements that allow you to solve doubts or problems with clients in a clear and serious way, is one of the most important aspects to foment client loyalty.
4. Legal Aspects of the online store:
Investigate the restrictions that the payment gateway that will process your transactions has defined. This is very important to note, as many payment gateways do not integrate foundations, adoption organizations, bookmakers or other organizations considered high risk into all models.
5. Logistics:
This aspect will be very important since it is the first step before the end customer receives the product in their hands (in the case of a physical product). Having a serious logistics and transportation or delivery company is vital. Take into account the commissions and forms of payment, as well as the time it takes to deliver, hours and cities where they work. This can limit your options.
6. Promotion:
Maintaining an online store and generating constant profits from it requires hard work. If the company does not have a marketing team, it is important to find one, either with external consultantsl or developing one internally. Having experts in content, advertising on social networks, graphic design and creative campaigns is one of the aspects that many companies neglect and later realize its importance. Marketing and advertising experts can help you enhance and communicate the great qualities of your product and / or service increasing awareness and reach of your offer which, in turn, will help achieve higher sales and profits.
7. Security:
Keep in mind the security aspects you must consider to protect your customers. Having a transparent payment gateway that shares updated reports with you when you need them can be the best way to give your users the peace of mind they require when transacting and making purchases online.
As you know, it is not so easy to have an online store and start selling. If you want to do it the right way and give your company real benefits, it is important to have experts and analyze all the variables. Choosing the payment gateway that best suits your needs and those of your target audience will be crucial. At Evertec (R) we have the right team to guarantee your security, foment trust and offer personalized attention. Everything to give your organization the best option to manage the handling of your online payments.
If you want to integrate your online store with our payment gateway, contact one of our advisors today.