DigitalWork Newsletter: Issue 6
Adding E-Commerce To Your Site - How To Select The Right Option For Your Needs

Your web site not only is a useful way to deliver information about your business, it also gives you another channel to selling your product(s) or service(s). There are many different options available when it comes to adding e-commerce to your site:

• List your Product or Service on your Web Site -- Simply by listing your product and/or service on your site, if you instruct your customers to contact you for more information or to place an order, you are selling online. This is not the most effective method since your customers can't directly place an order through your site, but it's a great way to get started down the e-commerce path.

• Add a Printable Order Form -- Adding an order form in printable format (i.e. word, excel, pdf) allows customers to get information about your products and/or services through your web site and 'purchase online' by printing and filling out an order form, then mail or fax it to you.

• Include an Emailed Order Form -- Including a page on your site that allows customers to place an order by filling out an online order form is another option to selling online. Your customers will be able to purchase straight from your site and you will receive a secure encrypted email containing the order. You will need PGP encryption software installed on your computer to receive and decrypt these emails. There is a good chance you may already have PGP capabilities on your computer (to see if PGP is already installed, do a search for 'PGP'). If you do not already have PGP, you will need to purchase the software. For more information about PGP, or to purchased and download this software, visit the PGP site www.pgp.com (PGP Personal is all you will need, approximately $50).

• Set Up a Shopping Cart -- A shopping cart allows customers to select multiple items while browsing the product page(s) of your web site. The order is then sent in the form of a secure encrypted email to you. Unfortunately, DigitalWork does not offer shopping cart capabilities at this time. You can however sign up with another service (such as PayPal, eBay, goEmerchant, or Yahoo! Store) and link your TotalWebSolution web site to the shopping cart site.

Review the list above to find a solution that works best for your business. If you need additional assistance with these efforts, please contact the DigitalWork Customer Care Department (for DigitalWork contact information, please visit www.digitalwork.com/contact.html).

Featured Web Site
Happenstance Personalized Products
www.happenstancemementos.com

Happenstance offers a variety of personalized keepsakes. The goal of the web site was to list the different products they offer in addition to provide a way for their customers to purchase their products through the site. Happenstance chose to offer a printable order form (pdf form), which allows customers to print the form, fill it out and then fax or mail it in.

In addition, according to Karen Boyce, owner of Happenstance, to help increase sales they have promoted the web site by adding the site address to their business cards, telephone voice mail, flyers, brochures, the books that they make for children, word-of-mouth, events and email signature.