Online business is the buzz at the moment. Everyone wants to take their business online and start making sales, yet there are a few things you need to know before you start selling online.
This is a 4 part series about selling products and services online.
- Part 1 : what you need to know about selling online : Accepting Payment
- Part 2: what you need to know about selling online : part 2 – Shipping & Distribution
This post I will focus on legalities of running an online store.
Terms & conditions
It is really important that you have your legal pages sorted if you’re dealing with money online. These terms need to cover how you deal and protect personal information and also cover things like you refunds policy, which you must have in place (and most often refunds are a requirement for faulty products).
I advise you engage a lawyer to draft your privacy policies and terms of service pages to ensure all your bases are checked. If budget is a concern there are some legal template websites you can purchase these documents from such as Legal123.com.au
Don’t make these pages hard to find, they should be on every single page of your website and generally will be found in the footer of most websites.
Privacy policy
Every website that collects personal information MUST have a privacy policy, this includes email contact forms, email marketing subscriptions and online shop registration. The government is cracking down on it big time.
A privacy policy will generally outline what you intend to do with any details that a user inputs into your site, and if any information is collected when they visit their site via cookies & google analytics.
Keeping it professional
I know this isn’t a legality but it’s worth noting, if you want customers to hand over their credit card details you need to make sure your online store looks and functions well. By not having a professional looking website you’re not portraying trust, hence a user will be reluctant to hand over their payment details.
Reliable & Secure Hosting
You get what you pay for. Nothing is worse to an online business than having a site hacked because the hosting company failed to upgrade their servers. If you collect credit card details onsite and your host isn’t up to date and you get hacked, it’s likely to have repercussions from the PCI compliance stand point.
It happens more than you would think. Make sure when you’re looking for hosting you find a reputable, reliable and contactable host.
I advise you engage a lawyer to draft your privacy policies and terms of service pages to ensure all your bases are checked. If budget is a concern there are some legal template websites you can purchase these documents from such as Legal123.com.au
If this post just made your head hurt get in touch. The next post in this series is all about marketing an online store.