For example, let's use shipping costs as an example. My company has dealt with a client who sells bird-scare equipment to military, government, and agricultural installations. To complicate matters even more, the company runs on very low margins and cannot afford to offer free shipping. Their only option is to charge actual UPS shipping fees with added incremental fees for pyrotechnic containers. The easy way to do this is to let their customers purchase, have the company manually process the payment, add the shipping fee, and confirm it with the customer before the order is fulfilled.
Automation is the name of the game, baby, and everyone wants to play.
Not only must your software make it easy for the business to sell, but it must also make it easy for the business to manage its online inventory, respond to customers, and provide a high level of online customer service. These questions are only scratching the surface. Again, to program from a businesses' perspective, you must think and reason like a business owner. Determine what the end-user needs and give the business the ability to offer it in a way that blends as seamlessly as possible with their existing business procedures. Once you've nailed down the specs that will provide the end-user with a full range of convenient possibilities, and empowered the business with a full range of customization options for their products and services, you then need to consider what it will take for the webmaster, or the individual who will be installing and configuring your software, to implement it.