Considering e-commerce for your web site?

Giving your customer the ability to make a purchase on your web site can be a profitable enhancement to your online presence. What do you need to know?

Components of E-commerce

The basic components of an e-commerce enabled web site are:

• a shopping cart system or means to take orders
• a means for processing credit card transactions
• security features to protect those transactions

Shopping Cart System

A shopping cart system is software that "lives" on the web server and provides all the functions associated with the shopping transaction. This software allows your customer to browse your store online, place items in their shopping basket, and checkout when they are ready to complete a transaction. We work with several systems such as X-Cart, ClickCartPro, Miva Merchant and others.

Processing Credit Card Transactions

Processing payment online by credit card allows your customer to complete a transaction, whether your physical store location is open or not. To accept credit cards, you must first have a Merchant's Account. This is a special account that allows you to process credit card transactions from your web site. The money resulting from these transactions is then deposited into your regular bank account. This charge for this type of service typically includes monthly fees, plus a small percentage of each transaction. Other alternatives include services like PayPal.

Security

Security comes into play when handling such sensitive information as credit cards and other personally identifiable details like address and such. To make sure this information is secure, your e-commerce solution should include SSL to encrypt this information and to communicate with your credit card processing provider or Merchant's account provider.

Questions about how this works? Please contact us.