If you want to sell goods or services on the web you have a number of options open to you. One is to pay someone to design and build an online shop for you, and another is to create your own, either from scratch or using one of the specialist tools available for the purpose.

With Netdirector e-Trade Pro, however, you can do it all online, the fixed monthly fee giving you access to the tools needed to both build and manage your shop, with hosting also included in the deal.

Having signed up for the e-Trade Pro service and supplied basic company details, it takes just less than a minute before you’re presented with a vanilla-flavoured shop built to a standard design. This can then be customised to suit your business with options, for example, to display your own logos and banners, change the colour scheme, alter the way menus are displayed and so on.

Unfortunately, the basic layout is more or less fixed, so if you check out the various reference sites they all look pretty similar. Still, a custom design service is available if you want, and there’s nothing wrong with the basic template, which does enable you to get up and running quickly.

The next step will normally be to enter details of your products and services. There are no database import facilities or dynamic links, but as well as manually adding products, they can be bulk-imported in .csv format, and there’s a template to help with this process. Products can then be categorised, images added, prices and delivery terms set and so on.

There are no limits on the number of products you can list, and a number of promotional tools are also available, including the ability to direct customers to related items, highlight featured products and accept offer codes.

A whole clutch of payment gateways can be used to enable customers to send you money, including Barclays ePDQ CPI, Google Checkout, Protx and Paypal, with the usual online basket and checkout procedures built into the shop as standard.

We signed up for the free trial of e-Trade Pro, which gives 14-day access to the full package, and found it very easy to use. Building a shop for real is likely to take several days but there’s nothing difficult about it – all that’s required is a little time and determination.

Tracking and processing orders is easy too, with a management dashboard to see what’s been happening and mail alerts when orders are taken. Order processing is then largely down to you, but stock-level management can be automated and Sage integration added as a chargeable extra.

Other useful options include the ability to display adverts and to capture customer details and use them for marketing mail shots and newsletters.

In terms of performance, the reference sites we looked at all worked well and we were impressed with the response of both these and our trial shop. On the downside you are reliant on a single service provider for all your trading requirements, and transferring your website elsewhere could be a problem. There were also a few gaps in the documentation that could do with filling.

Other than that, we found Netdirector e-Trade Pro to be an effective tool for small companies looking to get up and selling on the web. Alternatives may have more to offer, but it’s quick and it works, and that’s what matters.