E-Commerce Websites

E-commerce website development need a well-planned approach due to the dependencies involved. All our e-commerce websites are custom designed and integrated with robust shopping carts, payment processing systems, necessary add-on tools and required security extensions.

Arnima - ECommerce - Shopping Cart Icon

Basics of E-commerce

E-Commerce websites are integrated with shopping carts (or product catalogs) and highly secure payment collection systems and make it easy to sell all types of items on the Internet.

You can actually sell literally anything: products, services, subscriptions, memberships, books or downloadable items such as music, art, pictures, electronic books and so much more! You can sell anywhere from a single product to millions of products (e.g. amazon.com).

The most important aspect of e-commerce website development is to provide a great user experience and to make sure that your e-commerce website is responsive and works on all types of devices – from smartphones to tablets to laptops to desktop computers, so if  you’re interested in developing this type a business and need financing for this, you can use resources as the payday loan to get help with this.

  • SELL MEMBERSHIPS

    Directories…groups…organizations…gyms and more

  • SELL DIGITAL PRODUCTS

    E-Books…music..downloadable software and more

  • SELL PRODUCTS

    Electronics…books…appliances…hardware and more

  • SELL SUBSCRIPTIONS

    News…online courses…magazines…blogs and more

E-Commerce: Extending Commerce to the Web!

Products. Services. Memberships & More

How E-Commerce Websites Work

E-commerce website development is highly specialized. Here is a brief look at some of the essential elements of e-commerce websites.

Website Pages

Where users interact with the e-commerce website and typically consists of specialized pages of your website such as “My Account”, “Cart” or “Bag”, “CheckOut” etc.

Shopping Cart

A shopping cart or a product or service catalog is used to manage products (or services) and serves as the engine of an e-commerce website by providing the functionality that allows you to manage products, users, orders and order tracking.

Payment Processing

A payment gateway is a third party service provider that facilitates the collection of payment and the subsequent deposit of that payment into a merchant account. Examples of payment gateways are: Autorize.net, BraintreePaypal & Google Wallet. Many other options are available.

Security

The HTTPS security protocol uses SSL (Secure Sockets Layer)  technology to securely encrypt communication between a user’s browser and the server that hosts the e-commerce website. SSL security is an essential requirement by all major payment services providers.

Website Hosting

It is best to host your website on your website design & development company’s servers due to the familiarity of the company with its hosting services with cloud based hosting being the preferred choice for scalability.

Additional Features

Secure Seals such as McAfee Secure or Control Scan offers a guarantee against hackers, or exploiters and will monitor your e-commerce website on a daily to make sure that it is not exploitable.

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Shopping Cart Software (Product Catalogs)

Shopping carts or product catalogs are designed for e-commerce websites. In most cases, these specialized applications are used as “engines” that power e-commerce websites. Shopping carts have evolved to the point that they are now at the core of most, if not all, e-commerce websites. A shopping cart allows you to manage users, products, categories, inventories, shipping, coupons, and much, much more…in fact, the list of features is extensive. The actual implementation will depend on your requirements and number as well as type of products or services you want to sell.There are 100s of shopping carts (product catalogs) available. Here is a look at some of the most popular e-commerce shopping  cart software.

Arnima - ECommerce - Shopping Cart Collage
  • ASP.NET STOREFRONT

    AspDotNetStorefront is a shopping cart platform that uses Microsoft’s .net technology.

  • MAGENTO

    Magento is an enterprise level shopping cart platform with an extensive feature list. Also available as a “free” download with reduced functionality.

  • OPENCART

    openCart is a robust, open-source based shopping cart that is available at no cost!

  • WOOCOMMERCE

    WooCommerce is a robust, feature-rich e-commerce plugin for WordPress websites.

  • OTHER SHOPPING CARTS & CATALOGS

    There are many options available for e-commerce, from free open-source systems to licensed, enterprise systems.

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An Important Note on Security

Arnima - ECommerce - HTTPS & SSL Security

Security cannot be overlooked when it comes to the Internet and more so with e-commerce websites as these gather and store personal information, sensitive financial data such as credit card numbers, addresses, phone numbers and more.

This data must be protected and safeguarded. Shopping carts have strong encryption mechanisms in place so any data stored within the system is secure as long as the database server is properly locked down. One of the main areas of weakness is the connection between a user’s browser and the server and this can be protected by securely encrypting the connection using the HTTPS secure protocol combined with an SSL certificate.

SSL certificates come in various flavors and sizes and encryption strengths and are essential for e-commerce websites.

Some popular SSL certificate providers are Symantec (formerly Verisign), GeoTrust, Thawte & Comodo.

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Mobile E-Commerce

Mobile Commerce, or m-commerce, as it is now called is the extension of e-commerce to mobile devices. With m-commerce, you can sell products, services and more on mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets.

The key difference being that m-commerce websites are  designed to cater specifically to mobile (smaller screen) devices. According to Forrester, mobile commerce is expect to increase to US$ 31 billion http://mashable.com/2013/01/16/mcommerce-31-billion-2017-forrester/. Therefore, an m-commerce strategy is essential to your survival on the Internet. 

Your e-commerce website must be mobile-friendly. If it is not designed to cater to mobile users, you can lose potentially 30-35% of your overall website traffic. Current trends require that all websites be responsive – and this could not be more important for e-commerce websites. All our e-commerce websites are fully responsive and are designed to provide mobile users with a seamless experience.

Learn more about our mobile web solutions.

Arnima - ECommerce - Mobile ECommerce

Do You Have Questions about E-Commerce?

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