As a customer, when you search for 'crafts' on the web with any search engine, you are faced with thousands of choices. Looking for a particular craft to buy is much less fruitful, as you first have to find a web site that's selling and then once you've found one, you have to decide whether or not it is safe to give credit card information and trustworthy enough to send you your order.

As a craftsperson, setting up your own web site for e-commerce can be long, expensive and painful! You have to acquire a merchant ID (which usually needs 1 year's trading records), a shopping cart which can be enormously expensive and some are extremely complicated.

You also need a card processor and a business bank account where the funds are transferred. It's a lot for a small business to set up along with the listing on the search engines (don't make any mistakes!), web site layout, photography, image compression, etc., etc...

E-Commerce is still young in the UK and customer confidence is paramount. Credit card fraud on the Internet is tiny in comparison to traditional shopping methods. It's around 3% of all fraud, most fraud is done by stealing or copying card information. It is surprising to know that a great number of people would prefer to give their card number over the phone to someone they don't even know, or to an underpaid waiter in a restaurant, than to enter it into a hi-tech encrypted payment gateway, where no one ever sees it!

However, providing the media stop blowing this up out of all proportion, e-commerce in the UK is about to take off. This year will be the turning point as more and more people surf the net than ever before. If you are thinking about setting up for e-commerce, now is the time to do it as prices for selling on line can only get higher as e-commerce develops.

My wife and I run what is probably now, the largest craft web site in the UK, 'The UK Craft Directory'. www.uk-craft-directory.co.uk

We have developed the site to include an on line shop, sections for craft fairs, holidays & courses, a bookshop, on line suppliers and much more.

We set up this site to give everyone in the craft industry a chance to keep up with technology quickly, safely and cheaply.

The site has a secure shopping cart linked to World Pay's Payment system and the umbrella of Which? web trader to give the customer confidence.

Anyone can use the facilities of the web site, saving a great deal of time and expense.

If you want to 'go it alone', you can always develop your own shopping site later.

We have over 370 members from the UK listed on the site, many of these are selling on line.

It's much the same as craft fairs, where you find one craftsperson may sell well, another not so well.

One fear of selling on line is how many orders will come in, It could be thousands overnight! will I cope? - I'm afraid that is dreamland, the reality is steady, manageable sales.

This is true right across the board of e-commerce in this country, but it is improving at an amazing rate.

If you want to put your crafts on the web, please don't pay £100's or £1,000's for the privilege, set your web site up in the right environment, try to concentrate on your business instead of trying to be a high flying computer bod!

The UKCD will look after all your needs, web sites, domain names, hosting, e-commerce, etc. There are no heavy contracts, it's very open and we are always available to help you.

We have a members area where you are free to study our page hits, we also have a newsletter to keep you informed of developments.

For further information contact us by e-mail:
getonline@uk-craft-directory.co.uk

Quote '21098' or 'Kookykards', we will then give you priority attention.

Best Regards
Neil Derek
The UK Craft Directory