Thinking of building your own E commerce Shop? this article will help you understand the key terminologies and building blocks of E commerce Solution

You might want to go through my first article about "Making a right choice to build your E-Commerce shop"

Key terminologies and building blocks of E-commerce Solution

Hosting Server:

A hosting server is a remote infrastructure where you would be actually launching your E-Commerce shop. The infrastructure will usually include Webserver, Application Server, CPU, Hard disk, RAM, Databases, Firewall, etc.

Based on the infrastructure specification and capacity, the Hosting Servers are offered in different ways.

Dedicated Hosting Servers: Dedicated Infrastructures are allocated to the Clients

Shared Hosting Servers: The same infrastructure will be shared between multiple clients. The Server Performance or maximum capacity or resources are not always guaranteed as they are always shared across multiple clients

Virtual Private Servers (VPS): One high-capacity server will be split virtually into multiple small servers and offered to multiple Clients with guaranteed resources, capacity, and performance.

Cloud: High-capacity servers whose capacity and resources shall be easily extended or replicated in more than one location across the world. The online content shall be made to be delivered from more than one location. The contents shall be delivered from the nearest server location to the Customers. The content replica shall be maintained in more than one location

SSL Certificate:

SSL certificate. HTTPS protocol is required to protect the transactions made between the customer and the website by encrypting the contents. 

Third-party Security or Firewall:

The IP Address of the Customer shall be verified and validated before the Customer shall reach the website. This will enable us to prevent any hackers from getting into our server. 

Payment Gateway:

How are you planning to accept the payment? Through the online, card, or net banking? Cash on Delivery? Shop Pick up? Cheque or NEFT transfer? Which bank? Which payment gateway provider? Do you have your Business Registered? Does your payment gateway have a ready-made plugin that can integrate with your e-commerce shop?

Logistics: 

Which shipping method are you planning to integrate with your shop? Does the shipping provider have their own API for calculating shipping cost/tracking...etc? Do you know which all locations you would be servicing through your shop? Do you have the list of Pin-codes serviceable for Orders which are paid through Online Payment? Do you have the list of Pin-codes serviceable for Orders which are opted for Cash on Delivery payment? Have you decided on the shipping cost for various locations based on the Order Total / Product weight? Do you offer a free shipping service?

Data Entry:

What are the products you want to sell or catalog in your shop? Do you have the High Definition photos (or) Web Optimized photos ready? Do you have content for the Products ready? Do you have an idea of the size or quantity of the product (or) variations of the product that you are planning to sell?

Images:

Do you have the creatives or banners that you can showcase on the Home Page of your shop? Have you re-sized your product images based on the Shop Product Page Image requirements? Have you adjusted the quality of the images suitable for web presentation?

Customer Support & Tracking:

Are you planning to have a LIVE Chat? Are you planning to have a dedicated phone number for your business, to display the phone number on the website? Are you planning to have a Whatsapp Business Account access from your shop? Do you have a Shop Address or Branch Address ready to be displayed in your shop under the Contact US or About US section?

Terms and Conditions:

Do you have the Legal Policies, Shipping Policies, Refund policies, Generic Terms, and Conditions contents ready to display in your shop?

Social Media:

Are you planning to link your Social Media account with an E-Commerce shop? Do you have the Social Media account details ready?

Back-ups:

How frequently would you be backing up your Online Shop contents? Where are you planning to store your backups?

Mobile Applications:

Are you planning to build your own Mobile App as well? Android? IOS? 

Hacking:

All E-Commerce or Websites are prone to Hacking attacks. Do you have the basic knowledge of handling your server? Do you know how to take your shop in maintenance mode? Do you know how to restore your shop to the previous working version? Do you have your Hosting Provider / Security Provider / Developer support contact details ready?

Tax Calculation:

Is your business registered? What are the HSN numbers of your products? What are the Tax % applicable for your products? Should you showcase the Tax split-ups in the Invoice or are you simply going to display a single amount and say (all taxes inclusive)?

Location Restriction:

Are you planning to Open-up your shop for the entire world? (or) Are you planning to restrict your shop view to certain countries only? What kind of permissions are you planning to set up in your shop for different countries or locations?

Statistics:

Are you planning to set up Google Analytics to gather some of the basic statistics about your Customers, Sales, Conversions, etc? 

Marketing:

Are you planning to advertise your products and shop pages in Google advertisement tools such as Google Ad-words (or) Google Merchant Center (or) Product Listing Advertisements (or) Text Advertisements (or) YouTube Advertisements? Are you planning to create Videos about your products and showcase them on YouTube / Instagram / Facebook / Twitter and in your shop? Do you maintain all your Shop contents in Excel sheets and are those neatly organized for re-usability?

Google Adwords

Google Merchant Center

Google Business

Google Maps

Google Tag Validator

SEO Optimizing Validator

Google Locations Posts

Social Media Pages and Marketing:

Facebook Page

Instagram

Pinterest

Twitter

Blogging

Adsense

Marketplaces

Shop Management:

Do you have a basic understanding of your shop back-office or Admin panel to set up your shop theme, uploading or editing products, setting up categories, processing orders, etc.?

Software As Service (SAS) - E-Commerce Service:

SAS E-Commerce Solution is a concept of providing ready-made and customizable E-Commerce solutions to Merchants for an agreed monthly fee. The service provider will manage the Infrastructure and Security of the shop. The Merchants are just required to select the required shop layout, features, and other relevant shop specifications. SAS relieves the Merchants from concentrating on irrelevant tasks like maintaining the hosting server or securing the shop and allows them to completely focus on their business. It is very easy and quick to bring the Shop alive.  But, this benefit comes at the cost of an additional fee. This additional fee is worth spending as compared to the time and money that you would otherwise spend to maintain the infrastructure and to protect shops from hackers.