Hi , it probably goes without saying that to run your business online you are going to have to take orders via the Internet.

That said, you would be amazed at the amount of choices you have.

You basically have 2 kinds of systems that can deliver what you are looking for.
A Shopping Cart system.
A Merchant Account system plus the associated tools.

So, the first question is: What to Look For?

This might sound a bit trite but you must ask yourself if your audience are likely to use the technology you are using. Consider that the younger generation will have an acceptance of purchasing online and therefore they are more likely to take advantage of the credit card payment method.

An older audience might be more reserved about divulging their credit card details. So.

Who is your Market?

What is the general age range?

What kind of support does your proposed 'system' intend to offer you? Is there going to be an additional cost for this service? Are you actually going to talk to a person?

Be aware that a lot of the companies offering you their services as Shopping Carts or Merchant accounts tend to be a bit obscure about what you are going to get and then suddenly tell you that for an extra cost xxxxx will be made available to you. Know what you are going to sign up for..

Do your comparisons. Don't take the first deal offered to you. Research.
Offer your customers a choice of
payment methods.

Don't go overboard and offer them a ton of alternatives. Don't forget there is a cost involved. Be selective. Look at what the top people in your market are offering as choices. Follow their success.

Most product sales can be handled by PayPal. Naturally, this is a payment processor, pure and simple - no affiliate program or autoresponders attached. For simple, digital products, there's always ClickBank, which will handle the affiliate side of things for you.

It does have its limitations though, so if you are looking for something more sophisticated, whichever system you choose you must always be aware that your ultimate aim is to capture your customers name and email plus any additional information that you deem worthy for your particular service.
Your First Sale is the Start of
Your New Relationship with
YOUR CUSTOMER

You need to have a system that is going to automatically capture your customers email address etc etc. Your initial sale is only PART 1 of your sales funnel.

You will have up-sells to offer your customers.

You will have back-end sales to offer your customers.

You will need to have web pages set aside to guide your customer through the sales funnel.

You will need Thank You pages. Obviously to thank them for purchasing.

So... The big one...

Who do we recommend?

Actually we are going to make a recommendation, and it is for a derivative of a system called 1ShoppingCart, which is now called... TotalBusinessSystem.com

If you go to any of the software applications available you will find that most of them have extremely good video tutorials.

There isn't much point in our trying to explain one particular system over another because at the end of the day it is everyone's given choice to choose, so therefore we couldn't cover every system.

That might sound like a cop out. It's not. There are hundreds of systems and payment processors as you will see when you do your research.
GET YOUR BUSINESS AUTOMATED.

Well , that should be a wrap for this step.

It's been a long journey so far. I hope you haven't been skimming through, but, have taken the time to put everything in place.
IT'S YOUR BUSINESS.

After you've had a nice rest and a cup of coffee or tea we'll make a move towards the next step which will show you what you are going to do with the information that you are going to gather from your website.

To start on the next step - (List Building principles)... Click Here