What are some things to know about shopping for an eCommerce website or ecommerce solution? One of the biggest mistakes small business owners and entrepreneurs make when pulling the trigger on an e-commerce website is not doing their basic homework. We at FORIX (www.forixwebdesign.com) have developed countless e-commerce websites, web portals and storefronts in Portland, Seattle and all across the country, and wanted to provide you with a few helpful tips so you ask the right questions as you are shopping around for a web development agency in Portland, or wherever you call home.

Rule number one is know what you want your website to do. The simple way to do this is to click around through other websites you like and make a note of what aspects you feel would be helpful on your website. More specifically, do you want to sell tangible products or digital downloads? Are there any other systems that the website needs to interact with? Are there any specific rules the ordering process will need to follow? Just take a few moments to type up what you would like, and then you can easily email it to anyone you are considering to develop your site. Your quotes will be a lot more accurate when you can cut down on the guesswork.

Use a professional firm to create the website. Before you think of it as a self-serving statement, let me point out why. I say firm because you want to make sure they have the full array of designers and programmers to make your site look and work the way you want it to. Of course your cousin's friend's fiancé can build a website, but that does not make it a good idea. This is particularly dangerous, unless your acquaintance does this professionally or has a formal education in website design and development. Most part-time freelancers tend to specialize in either the design side (a great looking site with plenty of bugs and errors) or on the development site (a site that performs well, but does not look as professional). Keep in mind that a professionally built website will look good and function well, and you will be dealing with people who can provide invaluable advice that will radically affect your bottom line. If the success of your business is important to you, invest a little more and get a tremendous return in sales you would have missed out on with a half-hearted website. You would not shop around for discount surgeons who work out of their basement would you? Your future customers have the same concerns when they do business with you or any other company.

Website Design

Never underestimate the power of web design. Look and feel are very important to all involved. Think about the websites you have purchased through in the past. Some looked professional, and you had no problems providing them with your payment information. Others were borderline frightening. You have also seen websites that do not flow very well. All of these have a tremendous impact on customer purchasing behavior.

Aside from look and feel, let's turn our attention to important components in any online storefront or e-commerce application.

Shopping Cart - In order to ensure your customers will have a smooth ordering experience, the setup of your shopping cart (the process by which orders are initiated by frontend users) will need to be as simple as possible. You have probably been through hundreds, if not thousands, of shopping carts during your web surfing career, and I'm sure you prefer the clean and simple steps with buttons in plain sight rather than sites that look more like scavenger hunts. Your customers will expect nothing less than the same thing. Make sure you have a simple workflow, and reduce your number of steps as much as possible. Ask web designers if you can review their portfolio of work so you can see how some of their other shopping carts work before you buy.

Payment Gateway - What is a payment gateway? If you think of your conventional grocery store, whenever you swipe your card, an automated process needs to occur where payment is collected. The same is true for your website. You need a service to facilitate the actual transaction so your money will be deposited into your merchant account. There are many payment gateway providers to choose from. A couple of the most popular are PayPal and Authorize.net.

SSL Certificate - Your domain has to be secure in order to accept credit cards. This security encryption is delivered via an SSL certificate. Rather than trying to set up your own, it is a good idea to let your professional web development company do it for you, as there are certain aspects of securing a domain that can be a little tricky for a novice.

Sales Tax - Current legislation trends toward collecting tax on intrastate sales, so you will want to make sure your e-commerce website has a way to identify and apply relevant sales tax criteria.

Promotions - Sometimes you might want to run special promotional offers and discounts. It is nice to be able to provide customers with promo codes redeemable for a dollar amount or percentage of sale. Ask about promotion tools.

Product Management - The ability to add, edit and remove products, product pictures, descriptions and inventory levels is very important. You should also see if there is a limit to the number of products you can post on an e-commerce website. Restrictions are rare, but you don't want something to spin around and bite you down the road if it could be avoided up front.

Content Management System (CMS) - A massive trend over the last few years is the emergence of content management systems so you can manage your own text, links and imagery on your website without having to wait for your web developer to make small changes for you at $75 - $125 an hour. You should be able to edit the content of your own web pages as needed, and a CMS is a wonderful way to make that happen. There are many great open source CMS systems out there to choose from, and most web development firms can make a recommendation or implement a system they have developed themselves.

If you have any questions about e-commerce websites, you can always ask your friends at FORIX (www.forixwebdesign.com).