Do you currently trade face to face or take telephone orders using credit / debit cards?  Are you considering broadening your marketing / selling potential through an online store but don't know where to start?

In a nutshell, what is needed to set up Ecommerce on your website is a Shopping Cart Program, a Payment Gateway Account, a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Certificate and an Internet Merchant Account (IMA).   If you already have a Merchant Account it will be a very simple process to acquire an IMA.

You will need to use a payment gateway, such as SagePay, to process credit and debit cards.  If your business is very small or has not been trading sufficiently long enough to be able to set up a Merchant Account with one of the 9 banks providing such services in the UK, you may consider using a payment processing company such as WorldPay or PayPal.  A full list of payment solution providers is available here.

SiteE@se is an approved SagePay Partner.  We can progress your application and setup quickly.

There is a huge variety of shopping cart software now available.  We have wide experience with OSCommerce, OpenCart, VirtueMart, Actinic and others. We offer a template only design service to integrate with OpenCart for those who wish to keep costs to a minimum.

Currently, OpenCart is our shopping cart of choice.  For some years, SiteE@se operated an online store selling our template designs for OpenCart.  SiteE@se creativity is therefore behind scores of e-commerce websites around the world!

We will ensure that your preferred shopping cart is fully integrated into a secure site and that you are able to easily manage day to day operations such as adding/updating stock items, descriptions, photographs yourself.

If you are new to online retailing we strongly recommend reading the wealth of excellent guidance for UK-based selling available on Business Link.