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What Ecommerce Software Does
Depending on your unique needs, ecommerce software solutions can provide the following functionality or components for your website:
- E-commerce hosting plan. This is a web hosting plan that is configured with a secure server certificate, that allows you to sell online.
- Product database. If you are selling many products, a database stores all information pertaining to your products. Ecommerce software also enables you to add, modify, or delete product information online, including uploading product photographs.
- Product search engine. If you are selling many products, ecommerce software allows your visitors to search for what they want and then to display the results.
- Shopping cart. You need a method to securely collect customer order information from your website. Ecommerce software allows you to build a simple order form to a complete shopping cart system.
- Payment processor or gateway. You will need a way to automatically process and verify credit card payments, calculate totals, taxes, shipping, and obtain order information for fulfillment. For this, additional third-party ecommerce software may be needed. This depends on whether you are selling:
- Tangible, shippable products (like books or clothing)
- Digital, downloadable products (like e-books or software)
- Subscriptions or services (one-time and recurring)
- Internet Merchant Account. Lastly, you may also need an Internet merchant account, which is similar to a retail merchant account.
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