Well, by it's nature eCommerce is complex. The pages of your store have a lot going on and it is important that your store is in a recognisable format to help your visitors navigate and easily make purchases.

We will work through all the configuration of your store to ensure it is set up and running correctly.

Good news though... once you store is up and running, the day to day tasks are all straight forward and after a few weeks you will find that managing your store becomes second nature.

It is important to remember that you are never alone, we are available to help you as and when.

There is no single correct answer here, sometimes a slightly different approach might be needed to sell specialised or one off products. Generally products that have a continuity of supply make good sense.

If you are in any doubt about this, please feel free to contact us, we are happy to help where we can.

eCommerce is not right for every business and we are happy to help you find a solution that will work for you.

Well, as a starting point you will need a domain name or you can used a sub domain of an existing domain - if that does not make sense please contact us and we can walk you through this.

A logo for your store, if you do not have one we can certainly help with this, please mention it when you contact us.

Product info

This might sound obvious but actually good product descriptions and images can make such a difference to an online store. Sometime images can be found online (oh and make sure they are not copyright - generally if they are from the manufacturer they should be OK).

Some manufacturers and wholesalers can provide full media packs of high quality images.

Categories

This will need a bit of thought and planning - generally speaking all products need to belong to least one category but can belong to multiple. Categories are a great way of grouping your products for your visitors to view them. We can help you to get this right!

Yes absolutely, glad you asked... Unless you are just selling digital products, shipping is going to be a very important factor and will need planning and consideration.

This is probably better discussed once we know the nature of your products and your target markets but to get you started here are some examples of how shipping can be calculated: by weight, destination, per item and by order value.

A payment gateway is a secure method for your clients to pay you once they have made a purchase. Generally your customer will be transferred to a 3rd party's website to make their payment before being redirected back to your store to complete their order.

PayPal

Is the simplest method to get started with and ideal for new businesses. Free to setup an account and needs minimum details from you to get verified, and no monthly charges.

If you already have a personal PayPal account and plan to use that, convert it to a business account before you start using it. Personal accounts have limits on the amount of money that can pass through them and business accounts do not. You really don't want to get on the wrong side with PayPal.

Supported gateways

With the exception of our small store, our eCommerce stores support many payment gateways and can be configured to offer multiple options to your clients at checkout.

Many payment gateways charge you an ongoing monthly subscription, which is perfectly fine and only adds a small cost to a store that is trading well, however in some cases we would advise new businesses to get their shop running first before signing up to additional monthly charges.

Bank transfers and direct payments

This can be a good option for a new business as it gives an alternative payment method without associated extra costs, oh and it also saves on transactional charges.

Sorry no. Wordpress is a great platform but we have decided not to offer WooCommerce stores. Shopify is a platform and once signed up you are tied into their system.

There are a number of reasons why we have decided not to offer these applications and are happy to share with you, just contact us and ask.

We do, at a push, support WooCommerce stores on our Care hosting.

We are very glad you have both made it this far and are looking at this section - it is BIG!

Having a web store is a wonderful opportunity but customers are not just going to come flocking in, unless you have found that one in a million opening.

Joined the club

You are now part of the estimated 9 million eCommerce shop owners world wide. Fortunately they are not all targeting New Zealand - right!

You are starting on a good foot

Starting with a well designed and professional looking store, that works and functions correctly, will give you the very best chance of converting visitors to customers!

You are really going to have to work hard and try lots of ways to get those visitors there in the first place. There is no one answer here, otherwise everyone would be doing it - your approach does depend on your products, marketplace and competition etc etc.

We can help

We will work with you covering all the points raised above and help you to formulate a plan to get your store selling.

We are in many ways as committed as you are to your stores success, we might not always be up front helping you but we do always have your back...

When you ready, please click the getting started button - next section down!