The Sleeping Fee-Earner and the Mechanics of Ecommerce
By Gabriel Karawani
Is the myth of “making money while you sleep”, just a myth? Can ecommerce be a way of selling relatively simple legal services, while saving internal and often limited resources?
And what exactly is ecommerce? Enter “define:ecommerce” into Google and you will be provided with eleven slightly different interpretations! In this article, I will take it to mean the delivery of a legal service via the internet to an individual or organisation in return for online payment.
The “nuts and bolts” of a classic ecommerce transaction can be a bit daunting but really it is
very similar to going into a shop, purchasing a product and paying via a PDQ machine. The
online scenario is here.
As a good starting point for ecommerce, we will think of two relatively simple Digital Delivery services:
An example of a simple document could be a standard Power of Attorney which will require no additional input. More advanced services can be defined where for instance information is captured via a standard web form, but where additional work can be carried out (such as an optional document review or approval by a lawyer) before final document assembly and delivery to the client.
DesktopLawyer www.desktoplawyer.co.uk is an example of a company selling legal documents, as is CompactLaw www.compactlaw.co.uk, where they also provide packaged products such as an Employers Pack.
Setting up your “e-firm” for ecommerce
Having suitable products and adequate technology in place is only part of the story. No matter how helpful your website is, those responsible for maintaining the service must be prepared for many questions from new clients that often will seem like a waste of time to answer. This shows natural lack of trust from new prospective clients. Over time this will develop into full trust once they have been satisfied with the service you provide.
Step 1: Products and Pricing
Start by identifying the relevant products and how to price them in a competitive way. Remember that clients will price-shop (that is largely what the internet is all about) and there are quite a number of suppliers of legal documents and packages available already, although mainly from commercial companies rather than from firms of solicitors.
Step 2: Where to display your products?
Will you set up ecommerce on your own website, or will you use an existing retail service through which you can sell your products? You may not have thought of this, but legal documents are in fact for sale on EBay. This article assumes that you will set up your own website to provide online services and ecommerce.
Step 3: How to take the payments?
There is no reason why you can’t take payments in traditional ways but to get the real benefits of ecommerce you should aim for online card payments so that you get payment approval instantly. Using a well known and trusted payment service can be crucial when the client is about to make a decision about whether to use your service or not.
There are many to choose from but WorldPay www.worldpay.com is a well established Internet Payment Provider used by a large number of UK businesses including some of the largest. PayPal www.paypal.co.uk is very well known in the wider retail community due to its association with websites such as eBay. PayPal is typically the cheaper option, but the downside (in my opinion) is a perception that PayPal is used for less established and low cost retail services. A number of other options exist, including solutions that your firm’s bank may recommend (Barclays for instance will recommend ePDQ).
Step 4: Secure the domain
Websites that display the padlock icon at the bottom right corner of the browser increase the level of trust and have been secured with what is know as a SSL Certificate (SSL comes from Secure Sockets Layer). From a technical point of view, having a SSL certificate means that the client’s web browser has established an encrypted communication channel with the website.
Thawte www.thawte.com and VeriSign www.verisign.co.uk are two of the more established and trusted brands, but their costs are typically 3 to 4 times higher than some others. Comodo www.instantssl.com is cheaper but is less well established. All these companies have information on their sites about the processes involved in obtaining a SSL certificate.
Step 5: Implement the Shopping Cart
There are a number of off-the-shelf Shopping Carts that can be added to an existing website. On the other hand, the more costly but flexible and scalable option is to develop your own Shopping Cart. This will allow you to sell your services in exactly the way that you want to and to plan for future features that you may want to implement.
In both cases, you will need to integrate the shopping cart into a Payment Gateway (such as WorldPay or PayPal). PayPal offer their own Shopping Cart as a free alternative, while WorldPay maintain a list of third party solutions that support payments through WorldPay. netCharge, Actinic and CactusSoft are examples of other Shopping Cart tools.
Step 6: Get approved to sell online
When you are selling directly from your website via a Payment Gateway such as WorldPay you will need an Internet Merchant ID (even if you already have a normal Merchant ID). This can be issued by your bank, or directly from WorldPay. It is often more cost-effective to get it via your own bank and then provide the Internet Merchant ID to the Payment Gateway as part of the registration process.
You will have to show that you are in control of the online sales process and that you have prepared all the necessary groundwork, such as clear service descriptions and prices, terms, policies and more. WorldPay’s activation rules offer a good example of what needs to be in place - see support.worldpay.com/activation/rules.html.
You should start this process as soon as possible since a lot of bureaucracy is involved.
Step 7: Testing and launching
Ensure that you are confident that your website will provide the online services in the way that you and the client would expect. You will need to test the website in a number of possible scenarios, not forgetting that some potential clients will be novices when it comes to purchasing anything online and will quickly go elsewhere if your website is difficult to use. Carry out worse case scenarios, and complete the whole payment process as well (in test mode).
Once you have completed this, you will be ready to take your first real online orders. Set-up a small pilot group and invite some known users, possible existing clients if appropriate, to use the service initially.
Costs
The total cost of implementing ecommerce can vary from a few hundred pounds to five or even six digit figures. Setting a budget is really down to the functionality, scalability and flexibility required. A cost that is often left out is the internal cost to get it off the ground and then to manage and support the service afterwards.Secure Certificates for domains have dropped significantly in price over the last few years. Comodo certificates prices start at just over £50 for its lowest priced, while Thawte and VeriSign are typically 3-4 times higher.
The costs associated with Payment Gateway services are in the region of a few percent per transaction. PayPal charge up to 3% + approx 15 pence per transaction. WorldPay charge a one-off set-up fee, an annual fee and a transaction service charge. The pricing will vary depending on transaction volume, but you can expect around 4% per transaction assuming WorldPay provide you with the Internet Merchant ID. If you have obtained the Merchant ID from your own bank then the Payment Gateway will normally charge you less, but you will have to pay a transaction fee to your bank instead. Negotiate these fees with your bank (and Payment Gateway) again as your online transaction volume grows.
The cost of implementing the shopping facility on your website will again vary depending on requirements. PayPal’s is free, netCharge licenses start at $125 for a license, while Actinic start at £20 per month. Add to this the cost of implementing it.
Payment Gateways offer a number of ways to prevent fraud and guarantee the merchant
against fraud, as well as requiring that the site adheres to regulations and legal requirements.
WorldPay as an example offers a number of options and provide a set of activation rules to
ensure compliance with these.
Gabriel Karawani is Director of Technology with ClearPeople Ltd www.clearpeople.com, a
leading provider of advanced web solutions and services primarily for the legal sector.
ClearPeople provide consulting and development services for Web Content Management, Ecommerce,
Knowledge Management and Customer Relationship Management. ClearPeople is a Microsoft
Certified Partner and a WorldPay accredited partner.
email: gkarawani@clearpeople.com.
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Summary
Sleeping fee-earners may after all not be a myth, and if your firm can identify some simple and
fixed-price services then you are well on your way. This checklist summary will hopefully be a useful
tool for you when moving forward with an ecommerce project.