Ecommerce is just another way of doing business. That’s putting it simply. But it is a completely different way of doing business than has ever been done before. With ecommerce you will never meet your clients, speak to them on the phone very rarely if at all, never accept cash or checks form them or do any of the things that were a part of commerce until a few years ago.

Your business will not have a store, a factory or an office – it will exist only online. That’s where you will buy, sell, make and accept credit card payments, deal with sales tax laws and all the other things that go into making money. In other words you are running your business in a way that has only recently become possible. And the platform you operate from is your website. The website is your store, office and factory all rolled into one and is the only thing a customer will ever see about you and your business. Your website design and layout are critical to how your business does. Just as a generation ago shop keepers took great efforts to make sure their stores were attractive and lured in customers to see what was in stock, your website must be such that people want to spend time looking at what you have to offer. No matter how good your product, no one will spend time at a badly designed and unappealing website and it will not get any business.

But that does not mean that web design and ecommerce is the same thing. Great web design and a quality web site are the foundation of your business but ecommerce goes far beyond that. Ecommerce involves, among other things:

Providing a standard of service, in every way, that creates trust in the minds of clients. The internet is full of crooks and people are becoming increasingly aware of them and will turn tail and run at the slightest suspicion –however unjustified - of fraud. Your business must always be open, direct and clean and leave no room for doubts.

For your business to succeed, your product descriptions must be clear and accurate. Remember that your customers can only read what you say and see any pictures you put up on your site – they can never touch the object they are buying.

Your website must be easy to navigate and use. No one wants to spend lime finding their way around. And unless everything is clearly located, visitors may miss what they would have bought.

Customers need to feel secure about their payments- they are trusting you with confidential credit card information. You must have a strong privacy policy as well as an SSL Certificate to give them the confidence to give you this sensitive information.

Your checkout has to be quick and easy. Checkout delays online are as bad as long queues in a supermarket, except that online if a customer gets fed up he can just close your site and move on.

Your need to ensure that your deliveries are fast and reliable. A customer who has had to wait a long time for things he bought from you will not come back, no matter how good your products are.

Top quality web design is vital to your business. But remember that it is only the foundation. Ecommerce is all about building on that foundation.