We'll now cover how you can accept payments and manage orders as part of your e-commerce activities. We'll also show you how this can help your trading.
Accept payments and manage orders
One of the main advantages of your online store is its ability to accept online payments, especially with a lot of options that can make this happen, ranging from relative ease to a bit difficult.
Let's say you're a furniture artisan offering limited edition crafts such as bookcases, tables, and chairs, and you have a website that showcases your collection of custom-made furniture, but with your site, customers still have to phone or visit your store to make a purchase.
1- E-Payment Solutions
You definitely want to make it easier for your customers by accepting electronic payment.
You can do this using any of the electronic payment solutions or what is known as third-party payments with services such as “PayPal” and “Nochex” This type of payment solution allows you to add a button to your site that your customers can click to make a payment.
This button takes your customers to a separate payment site that completes the transaction for you, and after the order is completed sends the customer back to your site.
While the transaction is in progress, you will receive all the information needed to fulfill actual customer orders; So this method allows you to focus only on your business while someone else is interested in complex electronic transactions.
But at some point, you may need to integrate the deal experience into your site, such as online checkout and shopping carts that allow customers to purchase multiple products during a single visit.
2- Benefits of electronic payment
Despite the additional costs, this combined process offers many real benefits. If you want to get started, you may use an available service such as “Squarespace.”
These services give you more control over the shopping and payment process, and allow you to make changes and improvements.
For example, you might want to customize the thank you page to add specific offers or promote other furniture designs related to what the customer has already purchased.
Are you looking for another benefit? You can fully track the customer experience, including the e-marketing campaign that brought visitors to your site.
You can also get more information about these people and the site content they have interacted with, as well as learn what your potential customers are doing on your site.
3- An integrated e-commerce solution
Now, let's say your furniture design business has grown, and you want to expand and offer complete furniture sets for every room in various possible wood finishes to all your clients across Egypt.
When you have a large amount of products that you want to sell online to a wide range of customers, it may be time to consider an integrated e-commerce solution, of which there are many in the market such as "Amazon.com" and "alibaba.com."
Some of these solutions offer their services for free, while others require you to pay, but all of them offer a wide range of features.
One such common feature is the ability to create and manage a fully functional online store, especially for its great utility; It provides a backend system with an order management feature.
How this can help your business
So, let's take a closer look at how a CMS can help you! Well, first of all, your customers can create their own personal accounts, control their personal information, billing preferences, and add shipping addresses.
You can also show them coupon codes, integrate multiple payment options, and even customize the payment process.
Instead of programming it all yourself, you can use these e-commerce services to place and manage product and warehouse details, create and organize product main and subcategories, and provide advanced product search.
Many solutions can also manage orders, track shipment and fulfillment details, as well as integrate with financial and accounting systems.
Summary
You as a merchant growing your business online will need the right tools to accept payments and manage orders, and there are a range of options depending on your needs.
From third-party payment processing services (such as Google Wallet or Payball) to fully developed e-commerce platforms. Whatever option you adopt, selling online is a great way to grow your business.