eCommerce websites 101: A basic buy this button

One of the most common requirements for today's website is the ability to sell something. Most people don't realize that you don't even need an ecommerce site, as such, to add sales capability to any webpage. It is quite possible to add a simple PayPal "Buy this" button that will charge a visitor a pre-specified amount (accepting debit cards, credit cards, bank transfers and PayPal) using a secure checkout procedure and notify you once the transaction is complete. Just as easily, one could create subscriptions (recurring payments), donations or gift vouchers.

The beauty about this simplified way of handling transactions is that it doesn't even require programming, just the ability to copy and paste a snippet of code into a webpage. You, as the merchant, don't have to worry about security and safe handling of credit card information. Let's take a brief look at the process for setting up a payment button using PayPal:

That's all there is to it. PayPal will now handle every aspect of the transaction as per your selections and settings. Naturally, you can expect to pay for this service, and Paypal will most likely charge a fixed amount, plus a percentage of the value of the transaction.

While this is pretty useful for anyone who only has one or two products to sell, it's not really flexible and powerful enough for an individual or organization looking to sell several products, or looking for flexibility and control over the way products are managed. For example, implementing a downloadable product is not particularly easy because it requires communication with the payment provider's API, and this in turn requires no small amount of coding.

I'll discuss the steps required to set up a full blown eCommerce site in part two this blog. I think you'll be surprised at how easily it can be accomplished - certainly, it won't require any knowledge of programming. It also shouldn't take more than a day or so to set everything up and have it ready to go live.