Enterprise Nation

If you’re about to launch a website and e-commerce business, PayPal recommends three main factors to take into account in the planning stage; Operational, Customer (User) Experience and Payment. In this feature, we look at all three and offer advice on how to address them.

Operational

The operational side of the business includes thinking about managing stock, orders and deliveries, through to price changes, promotions and marketing. Your website can easily accommodate these functions either through developing the system yourself or using a template site that has inventory tracking, price-changing and search engine optimization inbuilt. PayPal recommends starting with a template system so you can benefit from basic functionalities and add or enhance features along the way.

Customer (User) Experience

Although a website is a virtual shop, the customer remains key. Customers should be able to clearly navigate their way through the site and find what they’re looking for quickly. Once the customer has decided to make a purchase, take them through a quick and easy checkout where they can pay for their items with their chosen payment and receive confirmation of the order.

Give thought to how you are going to interact with your customers and how they will contact you. Clear email and telephone contact details are helpful and you might also like to include a Frequently Asked Questions page to address typical customer enquiries. What you’re aiming for is a user-friendly shopping experience for customers – so not only will they make a purchase, they’ll also want to come back and recommend the site to others.

This is something PayPal customer and business owner, Elizabeth Geldart, has achieved. She is the boss of Chiggs Ltd and sells her self-invented baby feed wheels through the site www.chiggs.co.uk

“I gave a lot of thought to the customer experience before launching the site. When someone lands on the home page, it’s clear from the start as to what is available to buy, and how to buy. The site attempts to answer questions customers may have through an ‘About us’ section and information on delivery and payment. If the customer would still like to make contact they can do through ‘contact us’ or the trade enquiry form. The whole site was designed to make the customer experience an easy and enjoyable one.”

Payment Solutions

This is the essential part of any e-commerce site! PayPal is a good option as it allows you to accept payments funded by major credit or debit cards, by bank transfer or by PayPal balance and the good thing is there’s no set up or cancellation fees, leaving you to start accepting payments quickly and easily. PayPal offers a range of solutions to suit your business needs, from email payments through to Website Payments Pro. There is also a product called Virtual Terminal that allows you to take payment over the phone.

Email learnmore@paypal.com for more information

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