E-commerce Store Setup Services

Every ecommerce solution that you review will have similarities and differences. If you are paying your provider in a foreign currency such as US$ then factor in the exchange rate and the fees for a foreign currency that will be charged for each monthly payment by your credit card provider.

What you should look for:

• Location of hosting and support
• Inclusion of additional transaction fees
• Limits for annual revenue or sales
• Availability to use a private SSL certificate
• Limitations in storage or data transfer
• Total cost of ownership

When you're starting out; that's mainly because the 3rd party processor is so widely known as a secure system for accepting online payments.

• While there aren't any sign-up or fixed monthly charges for PayPal's basic service. PayPal's seller fees "can really add up quick." PayPal sellers pay a 2.9 percent transaction fee on the total sale amount, plus a 30 percent fee per transaction.
• Still, many shoppers prefer to pay for online purchases with their own credit cards rather than use PayPal or other third-party payment processors.
• You can obtain a merchant account with each individual credit card company.
• Many charge fees per transaction ranging from 20 to 50 percents, plus a percentage of the total purchase amount. Some also charge monthly, quarterly and annual fees.

It's often easier and more accurate to leave exact shipping-cost calculations -- both to you and your customer -- to the carrier you use.

• The major carriers will calculate shipping costs for you for free, and most major ecommerce vendors allow you to integrate those costs into your store's checkout section.
• On the other hand, you may want to consider offering free shipping, at least for orders over a certain amount.
• If your direct competitors provide free shipping, Peterson suggests that you consider it, too, if you can afford it.

• Try to select an ecommerce vendor that offers free self-service analytics, often driven by Google Analytics, and other reporting tools to help you track your store's performance over time.
• These can tell you how many people are visiting your store and how often, where they live and how they found you.
• They can also show you which websites drive the most traffic to your store and which products customers look at and purchase most and least often.

Your online store is a sales channel and acts like a sales person for your business.

There are costs which will not be covered in detail such as:

• Warehousing
• Logistics
• Traditional marketing
• Business taxes
• Accountant and financial institution fees
• Rent and utilities

You costs will generally be based on the size of your inventory, what your business does and your overall requirements like features, design, multi-channels, social and mobile.