Online shop: systems and options
If you want to run an online shop , you have to make a few decisions. First, you need to be clear about the approximate size of your online business. Depending on that, you can then decide whether you want to have an independent system developed yourself, which is tailor-made for your company, or whether you want to use existing modular systems.
Basically there are open source shops that you can start with for free. However, these systems are usually quite limited or have other disadvantages, such as annoying advertisements from shop providers. So if you as a retailer want to build a sustainable online business, you should resort to a more professional solution. Here you can either buy one-time shop systems as a kit or rent them.
With the rental variants, you pay a monthly or annual fee. Individual shop system providers also want to earn money from sales. You have to take these details into account when choosing the right shop system for you.
Simple shop systems that are very popular are, for example, Shopify and Woocommerce . If you want to make it easy for yourself, you can, for example, build your website with WordPress as a CMS system and work with additional shop plugins. For example, you can easily update products directly in the WordPress backend.
The most important shop systems for online trading at a glance
Rental shop | Purchase shops | Open souce shops |
1 & 1 e-shops | Zeta Producer | Magento |
apt webshop system | aconon® shop | osCommerce |
Catmedia e-business | A Eins IT GmbH | WooCommerce |
Cyberline GmbH | artnology GmbH | |
ePages Software GmbH | Caupo.net | |
Expeedo | e-yendo AG | |
MicroShop | Gambio GmbH | |
plentySystems GmbH | Intershop Communications AG | |
WEBSALE AG | Xanario |
Advantages and disadvantages of the shop variants
Choosing the right system depends a lot on your business and online experience. It is clear that you should set up your shop in such a way that it is easy to maintain in the long term and you do not need external support all the time.
According to homethodology, ashop based on a WordPress website is a practical option here, as you need no or only minimal programming knowledge and can also start very cheaply.
If you have particularly large or special projects in e-commerce, individual programming is a good idea. However, always make sure that the costs do not explode and remember that you can often not easily make changes yourself.
Regardless of which system you choose, the entire shop architecture must be very well thought out right from the start. The focus is on the user experience , so think carefully about which virtual paths your potential customers will take through the shop. Where do you click? Where would you suspect the next button? Make sure that your shop works as intuitively as possible.
Payment systems in e-commerce
You face a major challenge in online business when you turn to payment and related bookkeeping. Users are now used to finding various payment options, be it by credit card, PayPal or on account.
This is very convenient for your customers, but for you there are some difficult accounting challenges in detail . These are for example:
- Taking into account the fees of credit card providers and PayPal
- Correct booking of returns and credits
- Individual invoices stating whether the amount has already been paid and, if so, how
- Refunds for complaints
The first point is obvious: Credit card providers and PayPal also earn a small amount of your sales. You have to book these fees as costs. At the same time, many packages are returned – be it the entire order or just a single product. Corresponding credits are to be created here and included in the bookkeeping.
Depending on whether you have established double bookkeeping in your company or are obliged to implement it, the effort can really be considerable. The obvious solution to this challenge is to automate the accounting as much as possible.
E-commerce and accounting
Accounting requirements in e-commerce
Accounting software for e-commerce should be tailored to your shop and your type of company . It is ideal if you can organize your accounting online and you can also activate data for your tax advisor. The software should prevent you from having to send documents by post and create more efficiency for you for other activities in your everyday work.
EÜR or double entry bookkeeping
Are you wondering what type of bookkeeping should you do in e-commerce? Either the EÜR or double-entry bookkeeping ? Double bookkeeping is recommended here. More and more people are ordering online and that means your shop can grow quickly. The double-entry bookkeeping gives you a much better overview and you can better judge what’s going on in your online store like this. You are better able to identify risks and weak points and where there is still room for improvement.
Legal situation in e-commerce
If you run an online shop, you have to comply with a number of laws and information obligations. From a legal point of view, your focus should be on the following points.
- Competition law, trademark law, naming law
- Content
- Imprint , also called provider identification
- Declaration on data protection
- Terms of Service
- Instructions on revocation
- Shipping information
- Description of products or services
- Information on prices
E-commerce – the best online stores
The success of an online shop can depend on many factors for you. The customer service has to fit, the design of your shop has to be well received by the customer, your ideas have to be unique and much more. So here are 5 shops for you that have implemented this very well.
- JOCO cups
- Harry’s
- Star 360
- Smashmallow
- Ella’s kitchen
Famous examples are of course Amazon, Zalando and eBay.
Conclusion
Thanks to the steadily increasing digitization and the digital economy, the area of e-commerce is experiencing a huge growth spurt. Of course, brick-and-mortar retail will not disappear entirely in the next few years, but it is also a fact that online retail continues to grow. Time and again, new technologies are added that also make it possible for you to break new ground in e-commerce. Therefore, it is also important that you think outside the box from the start, recognize further potential and position yourself accordingly for the future.