Your Improved Design website might simply be a new method of telling customers and potential customers as much as you want to say about your business, the service you provide or the products you supply, and perhaps your hours of business and how to find your premises. There is nothing wrong with that - it is what the majority of the world's commercial websites do.

But - there is more that your website can do for you if you want it to. The Internet can be used to accept orders, which can be supplied to customers by postal delivery or your own vehicles.

The process has become known as e-commerce, and at its simplest might consist of providing a form that your customers can print from their computers, fill in and post back to you with a cheque attached. When you send us your product details, Improved Design can prepare the form and add it to your website at our normal page charge.

At the next stage of automation, you might want to consider accepting orders online, where the customer sends you an order by securely encrypted e-mail, filling in the spaces provided on your order form with his or her order requirements, delivery address and credit card number, for you to process as if these details had been given over the telephone. Just click 'online retail' in the site navigation panel for more details.

The final stage is fully automated order processing, beginning with an illustrated catalogue which customers can search by product and price. Automation which provides stock quantity monitoring and reporting, delivery charge and vat calculation, payment processing, and packing list, invoice and back order creation.