Ecommerce or electronic commerce is easily defined as, operating a business and obtaining new customers, using the internet.

There are four essential components you need to build a successful ecommerce web site.

Ecommerce Web Site Design

Did you know potential customers decide in a matter of milliseconds on whether to explore your site or hit the back button?

A practical, welcoming web site design is essential. Customers need to hit your site and instinctively know how to explore it.

You do this of course with an easy to follow style of presentation and a clear, obvious navigation system. You must ensure that all hyperlinks work on all pages of your site.

Professional Ecommerce Web Site Hosting

You must have professional web site hosting to ensure your ecommerce web site is available 99% of the time. I'm afraid budget or free hosting just won't be good enough here.

You do not want to pay good money on advertising encouraging potential customers to view your site only for them to find it is unavailable due to unplanned maintenance. They will not return.

You also need to have your own domain name and not one that is part of another web site. You can buy a new domain name for under $10 so why skimp on this aspect?

Ecommerce Shopping Cart Software

Shopping cart software is the part of your web site that actually processes your customers' payment.

Naturally you want reliable, easy to use software here but a word of warning, the better ecommerce packages allow you customise the interface your customer sees and also the data you collect from your customer at the time of purchase.

However, be aware that many people are still wary of buying online and if you ask for too many details they may think twice and back out of your site. Better to stick to the usual name, email and postal address fields.

Ecommerce Merchant Account

To get the customer's money into your own bank account you will need the services of an ecommerce merchant account provider.

This service may be provided by your bank or independent financial institutions, failing that you can make use of the most popular online account provider, Paypal.

The ecommerce merchant account is an essential interface between your shopping cart and your bank account that takes care of the credit and debit card processing. You cannot do this part yourself, you need to use an authorized financial institution.

You need to carefully research the various providers of the four ecommerce web site components discussed.

Most of all research not only one off fees, but the ongoing costs too, such as transaction charges and look for hidden components. Also be aware that some merchant account providers can charge high transaction fees, it pays to shop around.

The above gives you a quick guide to ecommerce web sites, for a more in depth analysis visit our web site detailed below.