Ecommerce Career Guide and Counseling

Question: eCommerce???? What is eCommerce?

Answer: eCommerce is the conducting of commerce with goods and services over the Internet. It includes: consumers using the Internet to purchase goods and services online; as well as businesses selling and communicating with other businesses through the Internet. Electronic Commerce (also referred to as EC, e-commerce eCommerce or ecommerce) consists primarily of the distributing, buying, selling, marketing and servicing of products or services over electronic system such as the Internet and other computer networks.

Question: What Ecommerce sales-tax rate do I charge buyers if I have a retail store in Maui, but drop-ship from Oregon? I am starting an ecommerce store, and I own a physical retail store associated with it in Maui, but the ecommerce goods will be warehoused & drop-shipped from Oregon. What sales tax rate do I charge to buyers, and does it differ based on what state the buyer is located in? Hawaii sales tax is 4.166% and Oregon does not have sales tax.

Answer: You're in a bit of a squeeze here. Oregon doesn't have a sales tax so there's no issue with goods shipped to OR. Hawaii doesn't have one but DOES have a Gross Receipts Tax that you will pay on your TOTAL RECEIPTS regardless of where the goods are shipped to or from. Your best bet would be to simply pad your prices by the amount of the GRT since you'll pay it regardless of where the buyer is located. Although it's common to state the GRT separately on receipts in HI, it's not a requirement and you don't collect it and render it in the manner that you would a traditional sales tax.

Question: Web design ecommerce question. How do I set up individual accounts for each customer? I am a web design student and I have to set up an ecommerce site. I have the shopping cart thing down, but I would like to set it up so each person can create there own login/account. I really have no idea how to do this. Can someone help me out please?

Answer: wow, that's incredibly vague. You should include things like what language you're programming in, ideally post some code along with the question. I'm not trying to chew you out or anything, just trying to help you ask future questions a little more clearly. That being said... Basically you're going to need to make an HTML form with some inputs so the user can input whatever data you need for a user. Also, you need to set the action attribute on the form to the name of the file that will process the information (php, python, jsp, etc file). ... <form action="file.php"> <input type='text' name='name'/> <input type='password' name='password'/> <input type='text' name='email'/> <input type='submit'/> </form> ... clicking the submit button will push the input's data to file.php. Depending on what language you're using, you will use different syntax to get those parameters and enter them into the database. I'd at least need to know what language you're programming in to help you out anymore. good luck, hope that was some help ;)

Question: I am developing an ecommerce Website, how should I make a start? I have started learning PHP and along with that I have started to develop an ecommerce Website but the I am having difficulty in starting to work on this project. Because it is not clear that how many areas the Website will have. I can't fully understand the project. What should I do to have a clear understanding of my project?

Answer: This will give you a step-by-step tutorial how to build an e-commerce website using Linux, Apache,Mysql, PHP (aka L.A.M.P) http://www.devshed.com/c/a/PHP/Building-…

Question: How to do SEO for my ecommerce website? Is there are any SEO or SEM techniques? I have a client He is having an eCommerce website actually there are many product are in his Website. I want to optimize that website. Those products I can not put on the home page. Product pages are dynamically created which will not cached by Google. How can I introduce to those products in Search Engine or how can user come to know? Help me any idea suggestion are welcome.

Answer: Not a Big Deal.. Let me explain.. Create some web 2.0 Property Pages for all his targeted keywords as the url with some description included about the product and image of it and finally bookmarking them using tools like Bookmark Demon)shareware) or Social Marker. Try to participate in Forums. Forums would really help you. Don't promote your business in the start. Post some constructive messages for all the crap in that forum and finally yours. It should be like 1:10 ratio. 10 shouldn't be related to your niche and 1 should be yours. Try to post the ads in all Major Ad Portals like Craigs List. This would really helps. You can go by regional with Craigs List. If your client wants some regional traffic then do some research and search for local ad sites () you would find many ad sites for free. You can even bookmark the ad url which would drive people to it. Finally make use of Google Base. Create an Ad with some description and bookmark the same.. Hope this help.. Regards Bharath Reddy

Question: How is ecommerce site taxed in California? I'm starting an ecommerce site that will sell things from China and will be delivered in the provinces of China. My business registration is in California. So basically, no items or goods will come to CA, just the payment. For security reason and convenience, my merchant account and bank depository is in California. My market primarily are Chinese people in the US who will want to buy things for their family who are in China. With this situation, what are the taxes applicable to me in the state of California?

Answer: California has many special taxing jurisdictions (districts), which are funded by a transactions (sales) and use tax rate that is added to the standard statewide rate of 7.25%, effective January 1, 2002. The tax rates for these districts range from 0.10% to 1.00% per district. In some areas, there is more than one district tax in effect. In others, there is no district tax in effect. I've attached a link to this to help you out.

Question: What is the best epayment solution for an international ecommerce website? What would be the best epayment solution for an international ecommerce website? An international Visa, Mastercard, AmEx card would be great, but most US or European customers they only have credit/debit cards issued by local banks only. Also, I have heard about "draconian" monopolist practices taken by PayPal towards international sellers, including freezing of funds for several months, very bad customer services, etc. Please tell us about your genuine experience. Many Thanks

Answer: I looked into lots of solutions but opted for Paypal in the end. Their fees are most reasonable and there is no upfront payment required. I did technically have my account frozen as I had reached their designated limit for receiving money but I was still able to send & receive money and then received an e-mail saying that the limit had been lifted so it didn't cause me any inconvenience. I would recommend them. Their customer service also works well as you get a personal contact who keeps in touch with you throught the setup process.

Question: What is the best ecommerce program or template? Please tell me which ecommerce programs or templates you liked and did not like and the reason why. My partner and I are starting a small business and until we start making profit we need a cheep, preferrably free, program or template to use on our website so customers can order. Thank you

Answer: Its preety sleek to get your own website, but you will require some basic computer knowledge in other to understand some of these programs. One of the best open source (free of charge) web design programs is the JOOMLA! it is so nice, and makes use of different technologies such as html, css, dom script and others, infact it makes it easier to use all these technologies without having a fundametal knowledge about them. Their website offers tutorials for newbies. Check out their website below: www.joomla.org Hope it helps you.

Question: What is the best ecommerce shopping cart and hosting to use that has everything?? Hi, can you please tell me the best ecommerce cart that has everything to build a databse driven store? Or can you tell me if its better to BUY a cart and customize it or to use a free one? Thanks

Answer: I personally wouldn't recommend using a free eCommerce shopping cart script unless you are well and truly prepared to dig into the code and customise everything yourself. Also, don't expect any help if you encounter a problem. There are a lot of options on the market and I've used a few of them, including X-cart and Sunshop. Both of these are OK but lack flexibility. I recently set up a shop using Interspire Shopping Cart www.interspire.com and it was fantastic. This script has only been on the market for about 8 months but it's already loaded with heaps of fantastic features...and there's more to come!! While it is expensive you do get what you pay for and their customer support is second to none. In terms of hosting, the company above will soon be offering hosting solutions as well. If you're going to host the website yourself all I can suggest is you don't be stingy with your money and make sure the server is located in the same country where you conduct most of your business.

Question: How much is a good price for a Fully Functional ECommerce website to be built? I have a guy that wants to charge $1000 to build my ecommerce website. He says that is just for the programming of the website no labor costs. Is this true? Can I get this any cheaper?

Answer: It's expensive.. You might want to try finding a magneto and find a magneto expert to make you a template. This should cost a fortune less.