Website Types
It is important to consider what purpose your website will satisfy, and in what form it will be deployed. It is generally accepted there are three basic models for websites:
Online Store
An online store allows businesses to participate in the e-commerce market, and capitalise on the many advantages online purchasing brings.
Infomercial Store
An Infomercial & the Online Store combined. The most effective way to sell products as it’s informative and convenient.
Infomercial
An infomercial is basically a combination of information and advertisement, merged in such a manner that a customer is researching a product, rather than having one advertised.
Information sites don’t sell anything, and are generally static websites, with plenty of helpful, informative descriptions. Websites of this variety are the cheapest solution for a business, and particularly suit businesses which need provide extensive information on products, or have products that cost so much that it is unreasonable to sell them over the internet.
An example of this would be Seafury; which needed to provide information about their product range instead of delivering it in lengthy quotes. Any real estate agency would also be satisfied with an infomercial solution for their web design needs.
Online Store
Everyone is screaming how e-commerce is the way of the future... an online store allows businesses to participate in the e-commerce market, and capitalise on the many advantages online purchasing brings.
Normally an extensive product list would be found in an online store, along with some kind of shopping cart and followed with online payments. A good example can be seen at Cairns Online Organics.
Online stores generally contain sales and product information only. A traditional mail order catalogue would best suit this type of website.
Infomercial Store
This is a combination of both the Infomercial and the Online Store. It is generally considered that this is the most effective way to sell products, as not only can customers find out extensive information about products, but also purchase them from the same site.
A retail outlet with a specialist market would particularly benefit from this type of website. A good example can be seen at Fiona Lake Outback Photographer.