E-shop Workshop Building an electronic storefront for your business

Content 1.Context and Your Business Objectives What is your business idea? 2.Benefits and Risks of E-business Test Drive + Undercover customer 3.E-Shop Types, Start to Build an Shopcreator E-shop Hands on Exercises 1 to 4 4.Payment Systems, Build a checkout Hands on Exercise 5 5.New Risks and Challenges of Trading Online Hands on Exercises 6 & 7 (branding, add terms and conditions) Recognising risks and barriers 6.Next Steps Checklist

Where am I now? The wish list where do I want to be? Your Business Idea Articulate your e-commerce idea

Devil in the detail Business issues in the detail Limited range of products Prices not competitive Difficult to navigate classification system difficult to understand Not enough information to buy No receipt or confirmation report Files too large – download problems Products out of stock No customer service details

Shopcreator E-shop Held on a secure ASP (Application Service Provider) (Minimum requirements Appendix A) Connection to the Internet Internet browser Web address

Building a Shopcreator E-Shop Steps: Planning Back Office and Store Front Start up Configuration Build the Catalogue Build the Checkout Brand the site

Planning Have your business details ready Draft the content of your business about us page Have 3 – 4 products to enter into your catalogue Collect a few notional product images Design a simple classification system (index) Plan: product information, payment methods, delivery charges and methods, acceptable locations to take sales from and delivery

Develop/publish cycle Back Office (Administration view)Store Front publish 1Edit, Change, Add 2Publish Choose Publish Online 3. Switch to store view in second browser 4. Use refresh button on your browser 5. Inspect Review6Switch to administration window and continue….

Screen Elements Footer details Page header Button selection and renamed Company Banner

HTML Precautions HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) tells your web browser what the webpage should look like HTML tags look like this they have special meaning Dont use <> in any form or text when building your store Avoid quotation marks, ampesends~, hyphens and brackets

Clear Browser Cache Browsers store pages in a local cache When building in Shopcreator you want to see your latest updates Clear Cache: MIE5:tools/Internet/options/general/temporary Internet Files press delete files Netscape 4.6/4.7 edit/preferences/advanced/cache/clear disk cache memory cache Server Refresh: settings/every visit to page Use the refresh or reload button on browser to force load

Build the Catalogue Start up configuration E.g. Stock control, site currency, product options Simple index so add departments (name can be changed) Add product and product image

Follow the instructions in the E-shop guide Log on to Administration Log on to Store Front Think about classification and product information Work through Start up Configuration Build the Catalogue Hands on Exercise 1 -4

Build the checkout Summary Checkout Options (disabled unless you pay for the site), configure to learn… Shipping options Think hard about the business logistics of this Exclude destinations if appropriate Order Processing this is configurable

Follow the instructions in the E-shop guide Build Checkout Shipping Options Order Processing Hands on Exercise 5

Terms and conditions Your site must have Completer description of goods/services. Details of guarantees. Membership of subscription period. Special offer period Returns and refunds policy Customer service contact: , phone number, address Transaction currency Export restriction Delivery policy Country of domicile Other terms and conditions

Follow the instructions in the E-shop guide Now move to branding your site and take a look at policies and conditions Small group exercise: recognising risks and taking risk management action Hands on Exercise 6

Next steps - Marketing 80% of hits are form search engines so key words and registration with search engine E-shop URL on stationery, car everywhere Test with target customers Monitor usage – keep it live Negotiate links with other sites/web rings Select associate programmes with commissions

Finally There is no total solution E-commerce is evolving, organic, in the process of becoming There is a real frontier for explorers Analysis is the key Pay attention to the details