Taking payments and manage orders - YouTube

Hello there.

We're now going to talk about how you can accept payments

and managing orders as part of your e-commerce activities

and we'll show you how this can help your business.

One of the primary features of your e-commerce shop

is being able to accept payments online.

There are many options that can do this for you

and they range from relatively simple to fairly complex.

Let's say you're a furniture craftsman

who offers limited edition artisan pieces such as bookcases, tables and chairs.

You have a website that showcases a gallery of bespoke furniture.

But as it stands, customers have to ring or visit your shop

to make an actual purchase.

Let's say you want to make thing easy for your customers

by accepting payments online.

You can do this using any number of online payment solutions

or what's known as "Third Party Payment Processing"

with services such as PayPal and Nochex.

These types of payment solutions let you add as button to your website

which customers can click to make a payment.

This takes them to a separate payment website

which takes care of the transaction for you.

Then after the order has been completed

the customer is sent back to your site.

As transactions occur

you will receive all the information you need

to fulfill actual customer orders.

So, this approach means that you can just focus on your business

while someone else takes care of the complex electronic transactions.

At some point

you might want to integrate the transaction experience

into your website

such as offering online payments and a shopping cart

that lets customers buy multiple items in one session.

Despite the additional costs

this integrated process provides a very real benefit.

One way to start is by using an off-the-shelf service like Squarespace.

These services can give you more control over the shopping and checkout processes

and let you make changes and improvements.

For example, you might want to customize your thank you page with special offers

or promote other furniture designs

relevant to what the customer has already purchased.

Another benefit; you can track the entire customer experience

including the digital marketing campaign that brought visitors to your site.

You can get more information about these people

and see what website content they interacted with.

And, you can learn what most likely prospects tend to do

on your site.

Now, let's say your furniture design business has grown

and now you want to expand and offer furniture sets for every room

in every possible wood finish to customers throughout the U.K.

When you have lots of products to sell online to a broad audience

it's probably time to consider a full e-commerce solution.

There are many on the market such as Shopify, Volusion, or Magento.

Some are free. Others, you'll need to pay for

and they all offer a wide range of features.

But one common thing many of them offer

is the ability to create and manage a fully-functional online store.

A fully-functional online store has a big benefit:

a back-end system with order management.

Let's take a closer look at how a back-end system can help you.

First, your customers can create accounts and manage their personal information

their billing preferences and their shipping address.

You can offer them coupon codes

integrate multiple payment options

and even customize their check-out process.

And rather than program all of this yourself

you can use these e-commerce services to do a number of things

such as upload and manage product and inventory details

create an organized category, sub-category and product pages

and offer advanced product search.

Many solutions manage orders

track shipping and fulfillment details

and integrate with your financial and accounting systems.

Let's sum up.

As a merchant growing your business online

you'll need the right tools to accept payments and manage orders.

Depending on your needs

a variety or options are available.

>From simple third-party payment processing services

to fully-developed e-commerce platforms.

Whatever option you choose, selling online is a great way to grow your business.