It is always better to have some knowledge about the basic building blocks of a website. However, it is not necessary to have the technical knowledge of the website. People who have the knowledge of web development can develop their e-commerce website without taking help from anyone. However, it is not advisable; especially if the developer is not an expert. Developing a website right from scratch is a time consuming task and is far more difficult then simply implementing and managing an e-commerce website.

Developing an e-commerce website demands more time as compared to time required to develop an ordinary website. This is because of various reasons; the major reason is that an e-commerce website is far more complex as compared to an ordinary website because an e-commerce website offers more features and functionalities as compared to ordinary websites. An example of an additional feature of an e-commerce website is shopping cart or the basket which is one of the most important features of any e-commerce website. Apart from that, an e-commerce website has to provide a secure payment system which is considered to be the most complex, time consuming and critical task in the development of an e-commerce website. Moreover, every e-commerce website calculate taxes and various other charges depending upon your location and after the customer checks out, the website has to manage the payment by connecting with a clearing house using a secure connection. If the payment is made successfully, the website then sends a confirmation message to the buyer’s e-mail address as well using the website’s e-mail system.

Because of these complexities, many entrepreneurs prefer to outsource their e-commerce websites despite of the fact that they themselves are capable of developing an e-commerce websites. One of the better options would be hire a freelancer, especially from London that can do the task for you as there are quite a lot capable freelancers available over there. If you have a decent capital and can afford investment over the e-commerce then you can also think about hiring various web development companies. Hiring these companies means that you will have timely deliveries of e-commerce tools and they also offer customer support as well.

Hiring web development companies is a slight expensive option as compared to hiring a freelance web developer; especially from London. Freelancers usually do the task at a better price. However, before selecting any freelancer, make sure that you check his/her relevant experience and sample of the work done in the past. Once you have selected the freelancer, deliver your user’s requirement with time frames and always make sure that you demand status reports through the development process.

Before you read this article you should have clear idea of the following things:

• What is the nature of your business (I assume its selling stuff)
• Who are your target customers
• Are they returning customers
• At what scale you are going to start
• What will be your future expansions

Those were some common questions you should know the answer or at least have some idea, Because i will be using these points in my tutorials to explain how each solution can help you meet your requirements.

1. Using Third party shopping cart by gateway service provider
2. Shopping cart hosted on third party website
3. Self hosted Shopping cart

Shopping Cart using third party website

These are the simple and less expensive solution of all of the shopping cart solution we going to talk here.

Introduction

In this solution you host the website with listening all the products using content management system or simple html pages and add to cart button next to each product or item.

When user clicks on the add to cart button it takes to the third party website and save in its shopping cart. There is no shopping cart script require to be installed.

Now you must be thinking how to add an add to cart button? well you don’t need to worry, because cart hosting website provide you complete simple steps to generate different buttons. you just copy & paste into your static html pages.

Examples:

• 1shoppingcart.com
• Paypal.com

Advantages:

1. Simple to setup
2. Cost effective in short term goals
3. Secure and Trusted service provider to gain customer satisfaction
4. Easy to manage from provider control panel

Disadvantages

1. Less control over the shopping cart and user interaction
2. Not a reliable solution for long term goals.
3. only suitable for small businesses
4. Gateway commission may be higher

these were few pros and crones of the solution i tried to explain above. will move to next solution and see how those work out.

to be continued….