How To Choose An Ecommerce Solution For Printers

What exactly is ecommerce?

eCommerce is the buzz word to describe the act of selling goods via an online storefront. In the context of the print business it is a complete web to print storefront which offers printers the facility to have their customers place orders online and pay online also. This storefront should offer secure checkout, staged shopping cart for maximum ease of use and more importantly simple functionality that makes administering and fulfilling orders a breeze.
Whenever somebody says eCommerce, we immediately think of businesses like Amazon or something like Kiddicare.com perhaps as these are major eCommerce businesses who have opted to make the web their shop front rather than a bricks and mortar style business model. eCommerce isn’t just about big business though and in fact the eCommerce for printers solution offered by OPS brings big business functionality and capabilities to the small business with a more affordable price tag and a personal level of service and support.
How can eCommerce help printers?
An eCommerce solution offers a variety of benefits to any business in the print market.
The ability to service customers via your website means that you can open up new sources of customers outside of your immediate geographical area. This helps to increase the revenue and profits of your business in a really significant way.
The fact that you are servicing customers through an online order portal also means that your website is doing the legwork, rather than it being a cost to your business, your web presence is acting like your 24/7 salesperson that doesn’t need sleep or even a 5 minute break. It works round the clock for your business processing payments, taking orders, organising and storing them for when you are ready to deal with them. That is a very powerful benefit in itself but the fact that it works on auto-pilot also means that your other members of staff are free to concentrate on other areas of the business like order processing or perhaps generating even more sales offline through the usual channels.
If you opt for a complete solution, it also enables you to become more efficient, fulfill orders faster and generate more revenue through making better use of your manpower and time.
What to look for in an eCommerce solution?
There are key elements you should look for before committing to any kind of eCommerce solution and these factors are:
* A smart web to print storefront
* A secure payment gateway
* Staged shopping cart and other positive user experience elements
* Print management software to allow you easier order fulfillment
* Backend account management capabilities – to make communicating with your customers even smoother
* Rock-solid support from the provider
* A reasonable fee than ensures you a healthy return on investment.

Source: Google.com