If you are planning to sell items online, you will need an e-commerce web site. Your e-commerce web site will act as your shop front, showroom, salesman and cash operator. Essentially, the success of your new e-commerce website will depend on three factors - design, usability and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). First, let's look at design. Design is important as it influences the impression your visitor gets of you and your business. Your website should be attractive and professional. In addition, your website should reflect your brand and mission statement. Next there's the matter of usability. This means how easy it is for your visitor to navigate your site. You have to decide what you want your visitor to do and then give the visitor the means to do it. You should also try to include the option for larger text for visually impaired visitors. One factor that promotes clear navigation is making sure all links are well labelled. Visitors should always know their current location and how to return to your home page. Remember if your visitor gets lost on your website, they will just hit close and go to your competitor’s site instead. The next factor in usability is the checkout process of your web site. If you're selling online, you'll need a payment processor and an online shopping cart. There are many solutions available. One recommended option is osCommerce, a free solution which offers enterprise level functionality. After you have the shopping cart in place, you will require a means to accept payments via credit and debit card, for this there are two options available. The first option involves obtaining a merchant account with your bank. Although this option is slightly more complex and costly, it does result in far lower transaction fees and a higher level of support and usability which results in considerable savings over the space of a year. The alternative option is using a 3rd party processor such as PayPal, I would highly recommend against this option, providing your business model is not high risk, you will be far better off contacting your bank and applying for a merchant account. Ultimately, you’re well designed and user friendly web site will do you no good unless you have visitors. This is achieved with SEO, Search Engine Optimisation. I will not go into depth about how search engines work, I am sure if you are planning to start an e-commerce business then you already know how they work to a degree. However, I will say, you only need to concentrate on two factors if your objective is to achieve top rankings on Google and Yahoo. Firstly you need to ensure your web site contains relevant text involving your products. Secondly you need to get as many other web sites as possible to link to your web site, this is called link popularity, the more links to your site that are online, the higher your web site will be ranked in the results by the search engines. If you manage to get the three factors discussed in this article right, then you are on the road to success and a highly profitable internet business. I hope this article has offered you some insight into how e-commerce works and I wish you the best of luck in your venture. About the Author Ben Christian is a UK based entrepreneur whose main business activities involve the online sale of laser pointers and laser display systems. Brands include OpenO, Demon Lasers, WickedCore and DMXLasers. Relevant Web Sites: http://www.openo.co.uk http://www.demonlasers.com http://www.wickedcore.com