What specifically does an Ecommerce website do that other websites don't?

[Jen]

Is an Ecommerce website the only kind of website customers can purchase off of? What is Ebay and Etsy compared to a purchased website specifically for selling my own product?

[Chris]

Customers can purchase off any website that has a product or products to sell and has added a method of payment.

For example, I could easily start a website at say wordpress.com - add details of a product I am selling to the site and get a payment button from Paypal.com This would let people pay me for the product.

An Ecommerce website though, is one that is specially designed to sell a number of items. For example, I could create an online craft shop on an ecommerce site and sell thousands of products on it. The ecommerce site would make it easy for me to add and list large numbers of products and would make it easy for the buyer to view them (as though in an online catalogue), add products to their basket and then finally checkout and pay for all the items they need.

If you have your own product to sell, the big decision between using a site like Ebay compared to your own site is ---- where will the visitors come from?

Ebay has millions of users that are looking for all kinds of products. If you add an item, title and describe it well, add good photos and sell it at a good price - then there is a good chance you will make sales on Ebay.

With your own site it is entirely up to you to do some marketing and promotion to get people to your site who will buy your product. I've seen too many people just build a website and expect the world will queue up to come and buy from you! Unfortunately it won't happen unless you do some promo (this could be online on Facebook or Twitter, by learning Search Engine Optimization - or getting someone to do it for you), or using offline methods such as flyers or business cards with details of your website and product.

Whichever way you decide though - it can be done and you certainly can make sales of your product online.

Good luck! :-)

[Neil]

Sell products & information.