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E-commerce - What is it and how do I get started?

Part of the Additional Pages Index

E-commerce literally translates to "electronic commerce" and is commonly regarded as the use of the internet to sell goods or services. This has many advantages to traders and shop owners, but can also be daunting to those who have little or no experience on the subject. Which is why we created COG and along with it, enough information that you can make an informed choice!

Read through the rest of this introductory article and you should have a clearer understanding of what you need to look out for!

Cost advantages

Compared to running a real-world shop, e-commerce can be incredibly cheap. There's no rent to pay, no unexpected energy bills and you need fewer staff to run an online shop! A lot of e-commerce companies offer services that have hidden costs, and we have created the following short articles to help you identify what costs you might incur:

Technical skill needn't be an issue

Whether you are creating a shop for the first time, or you are a veteran web-guru, you shouldn't have to deal with unexpected complications. If you're paying for a service, all the hard work should be done for you, and everything should just work.

Who will design my shop?

In general there are three ways to design your shop:

  • Templates - pre-made designs that you can select
  • Hire a designer - costs and results can vary wildly
  • DIY - the learning curve depends on how complex a system you use

While each solution has its merits, for you the end user the results can be a massive gamble. After paying a designer to realise your idea you might not like it. Sometimes template systems cannot be modified and you're stuck with what you get. And DIY can be a whole can of worms depending on how the e-commerce solution works.

Which is why we designed COG to be the best of all three! We have a team of in-house designers you can select from and hire, we accredit freelance designers so that you know that they can supply what you need. Our design suite can use templates that you are free to modify, and the DIY aspect is a matter of learning basic HTML and CSS (the 2 standard "languages" of the web). You've never had it so good!

Will there be anyone to help me?

By and large the rule here is "you get what you pay for"; a free (or Open-Source) solution often has no direct support, non-hosted solutions have reasonable support and hosted solutions have the best support.

COG uses forum based support, in order to keep costs down (a cost that is passed on directly to you) but we always ensure that there is a team member actively helping out and answering questions! A great reference for you and also awesome support!

So how should I get started?

Assuming that you have read through this article you should have a rough idea of the type of solution that you want. COG offers a hassle free, cheap, easy to use, hosted solution that basically does everything you need to sell things ASAP! Nothing complicated, no extra costs, it just works!

If you're still unsure if COG is for you, then get in touch and we'll be happy to have a chat with you! If you do want to get a new COG shop, then head on over to E-Commerce Solutions and select the GEARS you need!