Selling products or services online requires some kind of technology to process transactions, mainly by credit card. Service-oriented products are usually paid from seller to buyer via an invoice or other arrangement. Shopping types of websites do well when they have a shopping cart system to handle all the complexities that need to be addressed to have a satisfactory shopping experience for the customer. Some of the features an e-commerce will simplify:
- Multiple Products per transaction
- Storing of transactions
- Shipping Calculations
- Maintain Inventory
- Manage transaction states - new/paid/shipped/received/returned
- Merchant Account Integration
- Coupons and Gift Certificates
- Sales and Promotions
- Record Keeping (for Taxes Purposes)
- . . . many many more
8TEM supports
Magento Shopping Carts, an open-source solution. Since it's free, this will save thousands of dollars on development. It's ready and operational right after installation. The only thing left to do is customize it with your design and modify the payment processor (paypal or merchant account).
