1. E-Commerce Strategy
By Callum Kirkman

2. The Structure of the Website
When I am creating my website I want the structure to be easily understandable for the user so that they know where they are on the website at all times.
The structure of the website includes:
The interface
Ease of Use
Personal Details Entry
Sitemap
Product Display

3. Structure of the Website Interface
The interface for the website should be plain and simple for the user. On my website I would like the top bar to have the logo for the shop, a log in option and a basket (a place for all of the items I want to go before you go to the checkout) I would like there to be a banner with drop down menu’s for buy, sell and swap, on the menu’s there should be each console and maybe what you are buying selling or swapping (accessories/games). Below the banner I want a list of the most popular things or the best deals on the website. At the bottom of the website I want all of the other miscellaneous things to go at the bottom such as the social media links, contact links, help links etc.

4. Structure of the Website Ease of Use
I would like my website to be easy to use because:
The website becomes easy to navigate
The website loads quicker
In my opinion a simple design looks better than a complex design with a lot of information
Simpler websites are also easier to build so this makes the actual building of the website a lot easier
If you have a website that is easy to use then people can navigate around the website quicker and find what they want easier. Users don’t want to spend forever looking around a website they would much prefer to find what they are looking for straight away.
If you have a website that is simple then the website will actually load faster and this is always considered as a good thing because you obviously don’t want to be waiting forever to load a webpage with too much information on it.
Also, in my opinion, a simpler website looks much better than a website with loads of unnecessary information on it because when you have too much information it just looks messy.

5. Structure of the Website Personal Details Entry
The details that will be needed on the website are :
Name
Address
Account Details
PayPal, Credit/Debit Card or any other method of payment
When you are at the checkout you will have the option to login to your account and then you will have the option to pay by card (this will automatically be there but you will have the option to pay with anything else as well)
When you are paying for an item you can log into your account and then when you are actually paying for the item you must provide the information that is required.
The pieces of information that is required when you are paying are your name, address and payment method with the details
You obviously need to provide your name and address so that you know who you are sending the item to and where you are sending it. You also need to provide your payment method because you obviously need to pay for the item.

6. Structure of the Website Sitemap

7. Structure of the Website Product Display
When I am displaying a product I want to the customers to know exactly what they are looking for. When I am displaying the products I want there to be a picture of the product so that the customer knows what the product looks like. I would also like for there to be a logo for the console that the product is for. This will help the customer because they will always know what they are buying the product for. The price should also be displayed with the product. This is for obvious reasons, the customer obviously wants to know how much the product is going to cost

8. How the site is hosted Choice of ISP In house or subcontracted
Shared hosting
Virtual Server
Dedicated Server
Managed Server

9. How the site is hosted Choice of ISP
An Internet Service Provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet.
Why do you need a good web hosting company?
Which ISP should you choose?
What affects your choice of ISP?
Why? - By paying a monthly fee, ISPs and web hosting companies will connect your website to the Internet through one of their web servers, which lets the website to be viewed by anybody with an Internet connection and a web browser. The host provides your site with space on a server, and also offers Web server software, access to its high-speed Internet connection, tools for managing and maintaining your site, customer support, e-commerce features, and more.
Which? – When you are looking for an ISP to choose then you should just choose one that fits all of your needs as a user. When you are choosing an ISP you should be looking at the download speed because that is an important attribute of an ISP.
What affects your choice?
Cost - When you are choosing an ISP you need to consider the cost of it. Some ISP’s make you buy your own router and don’t install it for you etc. whereas some other ISP’s give you a router and install it for you etc.
Reliability – When you are choosing your ISP you also need to consider the reliability of it, there is no point in having an ISP and paying for one if you cannot use the internet when you need to so reliability is a massive thing when it comes to choosing your ISP
Download and Upload Speed – You obviously want the best internet speeds when you have the internet, for the price your willing to pay, so this is something that you need to look into before making your final decision on your ISP.
Terms and Conditions - You also need to make sure that there are no hidden terms in the contract like the data being capped(limiting the data that is allowed to be used each month)

10. How the site is hosted In house or subcontracted
What is an in house server?(internal server)
Advantages of an in house server (internal server)
Disadvantages of an in house server (internal server)
Summary of internal server
What is a subcontracted server? (external server)
Advantages of an in subcontracted server (external server)
Disadvantages of a subcontracted server (external server)
Summary of external server
In house server – An in house server is also know as an internal server, this is a server that you host yourself from your own computer etc.
Advantages of an internal server – You have complete control over the website, this means that the choice of all of the hardware and all of the options to upgrade are yours. You also have control over the operating environment which is the software and systems that run on the web server. You also don’t have any of the contract or legal issues that can come from using an ISP.
Disadvantages of an internal server – The cost of the server is one of the disadvantages of having an internal server, they can cost quite a lot if you don’t have any of the equipment. Another disadvantage is that you must have technical knowledge to run your own server if you don’t then it is completely pointless to have an internal server, the server also needs specialist security tools and techniques to maintain the security of the website
Summary of internal servers – In summary an internal server is a better option for a bigger organisation with in house IT specialists and it isn’t really a good option for a new organisation that is just starting out.
Subcontracted server – A subcontracted server is also known as an external server. This is where an organisation hosts your website for you and you don’t need to worry about the website at all.
Advantages of an external server – External servers are very reliable. They also allow you to not worry about having to maintain your server because it is done for you, you actually can forget that the server is even there because everything to do with it is done for you! External servers are also relatively cheap compared to the initial cost of setting up your own server. Because the website is ran for you, you don’t actually need any technical knowledge to have it.
Disadvantages of an external server – The main disadvantage of an external server is that your don’t have any control over it which makes it harder for you to make changes if they are necessary. For example if you wanted to add security tools and settings to the server then it is a lot more hassle than it would be to just log into your own personal server and make the changes yourself
Summary of external servers – In summary an external server is better for people without any technical knowledge and any size/type of organisation can use it, this is why I think that external servers are better than internal servers.

11. How the site is hosted Virtual, Dedicated and Managed Servers
What is a Virtual Server?
What is a Dedicated Server?
What is a Managed Server?
Summary
Virtual Server – A virtual server is a server that is hosted elsewhere and is shared by multiple different clients. Each owner can change the servers settings as though they have complete control over the server so you can still make any changes that you want but if you share a server with other people then your IP Address isn’t unique and this is something that you might want if you are a business
Dedicated Server – A dedicated server is a server that is for a single organisation to use, dedicated servers offer a great deal of control to the client because they actually own the server, unlike a managed server, which means that the client can make any changes that they want, whenever they want. If you want to make any security changes then you can make them quite easily because you have full control over the server and you don’t have to go through your provider
Managed Server – A managed server is a server that is managed by the people who you get the server from. The provider does the day-to-day running of the server rather than the client themselves. The cost of managing a server is quite a lot so if you don’t have the equipment to host it yourself then it could be a better option to let someone else host and manage the server. Managed hosting is also very flexible and the providers can make any changes that the user wants relatively quickly
Summary – In my opinion, the managed server is the best option even though you don’t have full control over the server it is ran by people who actually know what they are doing and will run your server extremely well, the other option that I would consider would be the dedicated server but I don’t believe that it is as good as the option of a managed server and the virtual server is no where near as good as the other options so this is never an option for me.

12. Promotion of the website
You can promote your business in many different ways, these include:
SEO
Social Media
Forums
Summary
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – SEO is one of the best ways to promote your website in my opinion. Your SEO is how high your Google rank which is how high you appear on Google, obviously you want to be on page 1 of Google but there are a lot of things that contribute into this. Some things that you need to do to get a high Google rank are to get linked from other reputable websites, make sure that your website responds quickly etc. So if you are a business with an e-Commerce website it is your main priority to get onto the first/second page of Google because that is where most people will see your website. If I am buying things online I very rarely go past page 1 so this is something to keep in mind.
Social Media – One of the main methods of promotion in this day and age is through social media. If you have a lot of followers on Twitter and/or a lot of people like your Facebook page and you promote your website a lot of those people will see it and either visit the website, share it with their friends or do both. Social media is a huge part of promoting an e-Commerce system because it allows the organisation to promote the e-Commerce system by just typing it in and posting it.
Promoting through social media is quick and simple, this is why so many businesses have social media accounts. For example an organisation like Amazon will have somebody who promotes the website every time a new deal is launched on the website etc.
Social media is effective because it allows the organisations to connect to their customers etc.
Forums – If you are a buy sell swap gaming website, like the one that we are creating, then an effective way to promote the business would be to post the link to the website to gaming forums and let people look at the website etc. there is no harm in posting a link into a forum, people might see the link and what the website is about and like the idea of it and they could even share the website with their friends etc. this will obviously increase the promotion of the website even further.
Summary – All of the things above are effective ways of promoting an e-commerce website but in my opinion the most effective ways of promoting an e-commerce website are the SEO and Social Media methods. There are other effective ways of promoting e-commerce such as forums, Google AdWords etc. but in my opinion SEO and Social media provide the best results in terms of promotion.

13. Costs
There Are A Lot Of Costs To Setting Up Your Own E-commerce Website, These Include:
Setup Costs
On-going Maintenance Costs
Security
Advertising
Delivery Strategy
Setup Costs
Domain - £1
On-Going Maintenance Costs
Sage Gateway - £25 per month, 1000 free transactions, 10p per transactions after the 1000 free ones.
SSL Certificate - £50 per year
Hosting - £10 per month
ISP - £50 per month
Rent - £600 per month
Security Costs
Norton - £30 per year for 1 PC
Burglar alarm - £190 average cost. Including installation
Advertising
TV Advert (ITV) – between £2,000 and £1,000,000 depending on length etc.
Social Media (Twitter) – between £0.50 and £4 per engagement
Social Media (Facebook) – average cost $0.66
Google AdWords - auction, average price is £1
Delivery Cost
65p per package
Apart from the costs that you have to pay per annum and per month etc. the setup of the business is relatively cheap

14. Potential Issues
There are also some issues that you might come across if you are making an e-commerce website, these include:
Costs – When you are setting up an e-commerce website one of the hardest things is actually getting started, this is because of the costs of getting a business running, when the website is actually up and running it can pretty much pay for itself if you are selling items at a decent rate, the SSL certificate that you need is only £50 per year and a payment gateway is only £25 per month on average so this should be okay to pay for when you are up and running.
Security – An obvious thing that you need to look out for when you are making an online business is the security of the website, you need to make sure that you have a good enough antivirus software and firewall to stop people actually hacking your website. you also need to make sure that you are keeping your customers personal details secure, if you use a payment gateway it will send the transaction to that gateway for it to deal with their information
There are many potential issues when you are setting up an online business, above I have talked about a couple of them there are also the things like viruses and hackers that you need to watch out for. ]
When you are sorting out your security for your website this should protect you against these things.
You also need to make sure that your organisation meets all of the rules and regulations that are to do with online businesses, these are things like the Data Protection Act, Freedom of Information Act etc.
When you have a brick organisation you need to make sure that your shop covers all of the health and safety regulations that you have to meet.