ecommerce

Marketing Software Group

A Payment Gateway That Beats All Others19 March 2010

Thinking of starting a business? Be it online, brick and mortar or brick and click, requires some sort of point of sale process. When you have a brick and mortar store front, you may just need a cash register and credit card machine. However, when you open online stores, you have the need for something a little different. Here, you need a payment gateway to be most effective.

A payment gateway provides the connection from the little "submit order" button on your website to your merchant account. It allows your business, big or small to accept credit cards and online checks as payment types. It does this quickly and sometimes at no cost.

An important feature that the payment gateway offers is secure transactions. In today's identity theft abundant world, this is on everyone's mind. A good payment gateway will encrypt the credit card number and other personal information on it's way to the payment server. After the payment server accepts or declines the transaction, it will send back to the website an authorization number for the approval or a declined message if rejected. This entire communication takes about 2-3 seconds. A merchant will then send all of his approved transactions to his merchant account and payment arrives in 2-3 days usually.

So where do I, as a new business owner get this magical payment gateway? That's the good news, many companies offer this software bundle. It comes with the shopping cart program that allows customers to pick and choose what they want to buy 24 hours a day, and pay for it safely and securely with their credit cards. If you're going to have an online store, it's imperative that you have this software program as a part of your website.

A great feature that some payment gateways offer is the ability to take a phone order too and process the credit card payment with the customer on the phone. The software provides you with an order entry website that you're able to access via the Internet. The last thing you want to happen is that a customer call you up, ask you a question, want to place an order and you have to re-direct them back to your website. No, you want to be able to take that payment right then and there.

As mentioned before, many companies offer this subscription service to business owners. Compare prices and services with several before making a decision on which one is best for your business.

Learn more about a superior payment gateway. Stop by PayLeap where you can find out all about our merchant account services and how we can help your Internet business.

Comment

Running An Online Shop19 March 2010

An ecommerce site is different from an information site - it has a different function or purpose altogether

The main function of an eCommerce site is to allow people to buy on line.

As a result the software required to run such an eCommerce site is a lot more sophisticated. Fortunately though it doesn't have to be all that much harder to build or maintain.

So if you have ever thought of selling on line, here's a short checklist that will help you get started

Five Things You Will Need are

1. Products. Do you have to have something to sell? It can be a physical product like a CD or clothing or a downloadable product like MP3 files or software. One other option if you don't want to manage any inventory is to try drop shipping. This is where people buy from you but the actual order is fulfilled by your wholesaler who delivers the product the customer without any further involvement from you.

2. Shopping Cart Software. There are many of these. Possibly even thousands. Some are better than others for certain purposes, some have annual license fees and some are completely free. More important though than the license fee is the level of technical support available.

The shopping carts I recommend for 99% of all eCommerce sites are zencart and CS-cart. They are both easy to install, modify and have good technical support. Plus they are fairly easy to use!

3. SSL and Dedicated IP. An SSL certificate creates the 'https' version of a website - you often see this on shopping carts and finance sites. This represents the fact the page is encrypted and more secure than a straight http page.

So sensitive financial data like credit card details are protected. Thankfully you don't need to know too much about how to install an SSL certificate just be aware that you need one. Let your web host or web designer do the rest!

4. Merchant Account and Payment Gateway. Typically new online stores use an online credit card processing company such as PayPal or Paymate to accept credit card payments. These work well and are widely used and inexpensive. Most shopping carts integrate with them easily too.

If you prefer you can approach your bank to set up a merchant facility, Just be aware there is usually a monthly fee involved, however if you have a high volume of sales you can often you can negotiate a lower rate .

Otherwise stick with the online processors. They are almost always cheaper and every bit as secure.

5. Shipping Provider. This can be harder than you might think. Getting the shipping right is a key part in how competitive your site will be.

The simplest way is to have the shopping cart link directly to your chosen shipping provider. The software tells the shipping company the weight, size, origin and destination of the item being sent and gets a shipping cost in return. This is then used by the software in the checkout process

Another popular way to do it if you have an inventory of smaller or lighter items is set a flat rate for all deliveries. Or even free delivery within a specified region.

Be sure your shopping cart allows these options..

Putting it all together

If you are a DIY sort of person and have enough time then you can save some money by doing it all. ie you can set up a hosting account, map the domain name over, order the SSL certificate and have it installed and then finally installing the chosen shopping cart software.

This eCommerce site will also need configuring for your desired payment gateway and shipping providers and probably need some code modifications and template modifications.

You will then need to input of your privacy statement, trading terms and so on.

Finally you'll need to set up your categories. And also input your products.

As you can see it's not an overnight process and if you're doing it for the first time it might take 60 - 80 or so hours. But it would only have cost you about $500

Alternatively you can outsource it to an eCommerce web designer ( like myself ). It will cost you more than a few hundred dollars but it will also free up 80 hours of your time!

You have a shopping cart: what now?

Now you're online with your shopping cart that just the beginning. You're going to need some good traffic to make sales. But at least you have a solid foundation in place to start from.

Looking for a web designer to help you one your eCommerce project? Get an Ecommerce Web Site Design quote from Richard Law, the Web Design Specialist