Secure e-Commerce. eCommerce blog.

Increase Sales with Secure E-Commerce Payment Solutions
Feb 3, 2008

An Internet merchant account for ecommerce can help retailers, that advertise online, give their customers the convenience of paying for products immediately. Accepting debit or credit payments through a website can help increase and maintain sales levels, tapping into the marketing ideas that consumers make decisions about purchases, usually, within seconds.

Accepting credit cards is the most well known way to accept payment on the Internet. Almost everyone has a credit card and by accepting his or hers, it makes customers' ordering process much more convenient and time saving, not to mention it encourages them to purchase from you. Accepting credit cards has become a necessity to the survival of e-businesses.

An Internet merchant account for ecommerce can handle all of the financial transactions for the company's website and deposit the money paid online directly into the website owner's checking or banking accounts. In order to accept credit cards, you're going to need a merchant account. Merchant services contract with several merchant-processing banks that will actually accept and process your business transactions.

There are three ways to perform transactions: 1. Terminals/Hardware2. Point of Sale Software3. Real-Time (Automatic Online Transactions)

There are different methods that can be utilized when accepting credit card payments online. Some of the agencies providing these services will have software that actually integrates with accounting programs. The technology that is being developed for online stores and real time processing is amazing. Gateways, or virtual terminals, are utilized to securely transmit a customer's credit card information from the website to the merchant's financial business accounts. These systems are generally encrypted with a secure channel, keeping a customer's private information safe during the entire process, which is a very important feature to predetermine.

A software program that accepts online payments will need to be big enough to grow with their customers. The most affordable programs are offered to those with valid businesses and proven ethical business histories. Before a company can secure e-commerce payment solution, it may be a good idea to conduct a price-comparison campaign. Speak with several different agencies, finding more about the programs that are offered and the various costs involved. Beware of agencies that charge large set up fees and have expensive monthly charges. Also, paying an Internet merchant account for ecommerce interest on sales figures could be costly. The most reputable online credit card acceptance programs will charge a reasonable monthly fee and offer excellent customer service.

Posted bySite Admin at 7:29 AM 0 comments  

Google Analytics Secure Tracking Code

Let me guess, you are all excited to use your new Google Analytics code on your ProStores store. You take the code they gave you and now you have security warnings during checkout?! What gives? Here is the deal…

When you sign up with this service, you can request tracking code that generates all the reports. By default, Google gives you the standard (non-secure) version of the script. Then when your shoppers go to checkout, ProStores secures the browser (as it should) and now there are insecure items on your page - you guessed it, the analytics code is the problem. No worries, the fix is simple. Somewhere buried deep in the knowledge base over at Google, they show you the secure version changes - to save you the trouble, here are some samples.

Standard code:

Secure code:

Posted bySite Admin at 7:28 AM 0 comments  

Customer Security: Basic Principles

Most ecommerce merchants leave the mechanics to their hosting company or IT staff, but it helps to understand the basic principles. Any system has to meet four requirements:

• privacy: information must be kept from unauthorized parties.

• integrity: message must not be altered or tampered with.

• authentication: sender and recipient must prove their identities to each other.

• non-repudiation: proof is needed that the message was indeed received.

Privacy is handled by encryption. In PKI (public key infrastructure) a message is encrypted by a public key, and decrypted by a private key. The public key is widely distributed, but only the recipient has the private key. For authentication (proving the identity of the sender, since only the sender has the particular key) the encrypted message is encrypted again, but this time with a private key. Such procedures form the basis of RSA (used by banks and governments) and PGP (Pretty Good Privacy, used to encrypt emails).

Unfortunately, PKI is not an efficient way of sending large amounts of information, and is often used only as a first step — to allow two parties to agree upon a key for symmetric secret key encryption. Here sender and recipient use keys that are generated for the particular message by a third body: a key distribution center. The keys are not identical, but each is shared with the key distribution center, which allows the message to be read. Then the symmetric keys are encrypted in the RSA manner, and rules set under various protocols. Naturally, the private keys have to be kept secret, and most security lapses indeed arise here.

:Digital Signatures and Certificates

Digital signatures meet the need for authentication and integrity. To vastly simplify matters (as throughout this page), a plain text message is run through a hash function and so given a value: the message digest. This digest, the hash function and the plain text encrypted with the recipient's public key is sent to the recipient. The recipient decodes the message with their private key, and runs the message through the supplied hash function to that the message digest value remains unchanged (message has not been tampered with). Very often, the message is also timestamped by a third party agency, which provides non-repudiation.

What about authentication? How does a customer know that the website receiving sensitive information is not set up by some other party posing as the e-merchant? They check the digital certificate. This is a digital document issued by the CA (certification authority: Verisign, Thawte, etc.) that uniquely identifies the merchant. Digital certificates are sold for emails, e-merchants and web-servers.

:Secure Socket Layers

Information sent over the Internet commonly uses the set of rules called TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol). The information is broken into packets, numbered sequentially, and an error control attached. Individual packets are sent by different routes. TCP/IP reassembles them in order and resubmits any packet showing errors. SSL uses PKI and digital certificates to ensure privacy and authentication. The procedure is something like this: the client sends a message to the server, which replies with a digital certificate. Using PKI, server and client negotiate to create session keys, which are symmetrical secret keys specially created for that particular transmission. Once the session keys are agreed, communication continues with these session keys and the digital certificates.

:PCI, SET, Firewalls and Kerberos

Credit card details can be safely sent with SSL, but once stored on the server they are vulnerable to outsiders hacking into the server and accompanying network. A PCI (peripheral component interconnect: hardware) card is often added for protection, therefore, or another approach altogether is adopted: SET (Secure Electronic Transaction). Developed by Visa and Mastercard, SET uses PKI for privacy, and digital certificates to authenticate the three parties: merchant, customer and bank. More importantly, sensitive information is not seen by the merchant, and is not kept on the merchant's server.

Firewalls (software or hardware) protect a server, a network and an individual PC from attack by viruses and hackers. Equally important is protection from malice or carelessness within the system, and many companies use the Kerberos protocol, which uses symmetric secret key cryptography to restrict access to authorized employees.

Transactions

Sensitive information has to be protected through at least three transactions:

• credit card details supplied by the customer, either to the merchant or payment gateway. Handled by the server's SSL and the merchant/server's digital certificates.

• credit card details passed to the bank for processing. Handled by the complex security measures of the payment gateway.

• order and customer details supplied to the merchant, either directly or from the payment gateway/credit card processing company. Handled by SSL, server security, digital certificates (and payment gateway sometimes).

Posted bySite Admin at 7:19 AM 0 comments  

$1.54 bln will be spent on e-commerce platforms in 2008
Feb 1, 2008

Forrester is predicting modest but significant growth in the e-commerce platform market, from the $1.3 bln spent globally in 2003 to around $1.54 bln in 2008.

Posted bySite Admin at 4:52 PM 0 comments  

E-Commerce to reach $100 bln in India

E-commerce transactions, which are currently growing at the rate of 30% to 40% in India, are expected to reach $100 bln in 2007, according to Tradeindia. Revenue from the domestic IT and outsourcing market will reach $27.9 bln in 2008, partially offsetting a slowdown in IT spending worldwide, particularly in the US.

Posted bySite Admin at 4:51 PM 0 comments  

Adding Payment Gateways and Processors

There are literally hundreds of payment processors out there. We support a few out of the box, and have several others available as free downloads to customers, but it is not too difficult to add a new payment processor using an existing gateway/processor as a guide.

Basically there are two types of payment processors: gateway or processor. A gateway communicates behind the scenes (like Authorize.net) and processes the transaction in realtime, and a processor shows a form on a third-party web site, and credit card data is collected there (like Paypal.)

The basic procedure to create a new payment processor file in Cartweaver is to get the API from your payment processor, and use one of our payment processor files as a guide. Modify the form values in the file to use the names specified by your processor (for example, it might use "x-lastname" or "UserLastName" or "LastName"). Once you do this, you should be able to turn on the debugging email functionality, post test transactions to your payment processor, and proceed from there.

The next step is to parse the result, and all payment processors handle this differently. For example, Authorize.Net passes results in comma-delimited form, so this sample line would parse the result, for PHP:

$authNetCodes = explode(",",$authNetResult);

For ColdFusion, use the simple list functions:

Some processors use name/value pairs in a querystring. The following will parse those types of results in PHP:

$resultArray = explode('&', $result);
foreach($resultArray as $val) {
$temp = explode('=', $val);
$response[$temp[0]] = $temp[1];
}

or for ColdFusion:

After this parsing, you can read the response array/struct values using the variable names described in the gateway API document, such as $response["success"]. The main point is that we have quite a few payment processors available, and although each one is different, you can probably locate code in these files that will assist you in creating a new payment processor file. For a list of which processors we support, check http://www.cartweaver.com/features/payments/

If you find out about the API and want me to take a look at it, let me know through my contact form. In the past I have converted payment processor files for customers for a fee, but it does not usually fit into my schedule

Posted bySite Admin at 4:33 PM 0 comments  

eCommerce, Your Client's Edge Against Recession!

2007 marked yet another banner year for e-retailing. Online sales have consistently grown at or near the annual rate of 25% for the last five years and will continue to grow at a healthy pace. Even though 2007 online sales were a little less than some prognosticators predicted, they still outpaced traditional retail sales by a huge margin.

So, what does this mean for us as web developers? We possess the skills to help our clients overcome the problem of slowing sales should the economy continue to move into a recession. Or, if we don't we should! If you haven't added the ability to develop ecommerce web sites to your skill set, do it, and do it now! Your clients and your bank account will thank you. In a recession, certain areas are hit more severely than others. If you and your clients are in one of the harder hit areas your business may suffer. As client budgets begin to shrink they look for places to cut. Clients with static non-revenue generating web sites may look at the web as one of the things they should cut or put on hold. That's you my friend, fellow web developer. How many clients can you afford to put your projects on hold before... Well, you get the point.

eCommerce saves the day!

eCommerce can help your clients recession proof their business by expanding their revenue source from their sales floor to the web. By offering their products and in many cases their services to a much broader audience and area, possibly even nationally or world wide, the effects of a recession in the local economy can be greatly diminished.

For you, having the ability to help your clients take advantage of the strong growth of internet commerce moves you and the web sites you develop from the expense column to the income column. It's simple business... in down times money makers stay, expenses get cut. Which group do you want to be in? The old, "I'm more of a designer, I don't want to have to mess with code" attitude will put a lot of "web designers" out of business. Decide here and now to bite the bullet, go through the learning curve and do what it takes to move yourself into the asset column by being able to help your clients take advantage of the growth market eCommerce creates.

Help yourself by helping your clients.

As the news media continues to negatively drone on about a deepening recession, you can be out there calling on your clients with a positive message... "Let's get you selling online and add an additional revenue source for your business!"

You'll be helping your clients in a real positive way, and immersing yourself in a growth industry, rather than duking it out with the other "Web Designers" trying to keep their share of what could be a slowing or shrinking market.

Fortunately the move to developing eCommerce sites is not that big of a hurdle. Yes there is a learning curve, you will have to become familiar with setting up a local development environment, you'll have to learn about at least the basics of databases, and you'll have to chose and gain some experience with a server language. But fear not, there is a lot of readily available training and learning resources to help you get up to speed pretty quickly. Additionally, there are shopping cart software applications like Cartweaver that allow you to implement ecommerce functionality with a minimum of coding knowledge. So, with a little determination and a willingness to dive in and learn some new things you can quickly become a valuable asset to your clients by helping them not only maintain their bottom line, but grow their businesses in a new and exiting direction.

One thing is for certain, eRetail sales will continue to grow and significantly outpace traditional retail sales for the foreseeable future. By positioning yourself as a resource your clients can call on to move into this growth market you will be recession proofing both your business and theirs.

In today's economy, eCommerce presents one heck of an opportunity for web developers and the clients they serve!

For more information read more of this blog. You may also want to check out this series of articles I did for the Adobe Developer's Network

Posted bySite Admin at 4:32 PM 0 comments  

Ecommerce Web Site Software

When starting your ecommerce business you want to make sure that you have state of the art software. Often, it is easy to get sucked into the web-based ecommerce sites, but for some people, having their own software that they can use is preferable. This is because, often, the ecommerce software not only builds ecommerce web sites, but also offers them ways in which to track their inventory, their sales and various other areas of their business that they need to keep organized. So how do you choose the ecommerce web site software that is right for you?

First, before you even start comparing ecommerce web site software, you need to ask yourself how extensive you want your ecommerce web site to be. You want to make sure that you aren’t thinking too big or too small. You are going to want to have a website that reflects your business ideals, what you are selling and the type of environment you want to project. One ecommerce web site is not the same as any other e commerce website. They are as individual as the people who run them. That being said, here are a few different types of ecommerce web site software that are currently available:

Volusion is ecommerce web site software that boasts itself as an all in one solution for ecommerce. The best news about this software is that it offers a free trial. This means that you can test it out without being required to buy it, which is a sign of a very good company. Other perks offered by Volusion are built in marketing and advertising tools, a way to integrate phone orders and point of sale systems into your website, a one page checkout, advanced analytics and you have the option of having your software being completely web based, if that is something you prefer.

Nexternal is state of the art ecommerce web site software. You can schedule a demo to walk through all of the features of this software and you can also do a live chat with a customer service representative before you buy this software. Nexternal, like Volusion, also offers a free trial as well as Yahoo integration, e-coupons, and feeds into many of the most popular retail comparison shopping sites like NexTag and PriceGrabber.

These are just two of the many different kinds of ecommerce web site software. Once you have decided exactly what you want from your ecommerce business, you will be ready to go out and compare the prices and features of the various software that is available for ecommerce business owners. There are also some free software packs available through various open source channels, if you don’t have a very large budget.

The best part about ecommerce, as you will find when you start to work with your software, is that you can often think of the idea and then be up and running within the same business day. That’s the beauty of ecommerce web site software. It does the building for you.

Posted bySite Admin at 2:01 PM 0 comments  

Affordable Ecommerce Solution

Ecommerce is quickly taking over the world as more and more people choose to operate their businesses through the internet. Ecommerce is, at its core, the act of selling products over the internet. This can be done as simply or as extensively as you, the business owner, prefer. The main factor in deciding how to execute your ecommerce business is, usually, affordability—especially for people whose start up capital might not be a large amount. Here are a few choices for people looking for an affordable ecommerce solution.

EBay Stores EBay stores are probably the easiest stores to set up on the internet. EBay will provide users with as much space as they need to sell their items and, instead of charging for software, they charge a listing fee for each item that, typically, is a percentage of the item’s sale price. EBay stores are great for people who have never started an online store or who might want to sell a wide variety of items but do not have the experience to set up their own, individual, web presence.

Yahoo Merchant Solutions is another site that takes the stress of design and implementation out of your hands. You can use their wizard to design your store and Yahoo! gives the business owner deals on advertising through Yahoo. They also offer phone support for the people who purchase the ecommerce plans offered by Yahoo. The plans start at $39.95 per month.

osCommerce or Open Source Commerce is an open source solution for people looking to set up an ecommerce business. This shopping cart software is free and available under the GNU General Public License. osCommerce has a very large community of ecommerce retailers and they are constantly adding on to the features offered through their software. osCommerce is perfect for people who have a low start up budget but want to get started right away.

X Cart is for the Ecommerce business owner who has more of an idea of what they want to accomplish with their presence on the web. This software is far from cheap, so you need to really know what you are doing, but for the experienced ecommerce business owner, this software has plenty of options built in. This software is PHP based, has a variety of templates and stores everything in a MySQL Database. X Cart is also a turnkey package which comes with a wizard to help you set up your ecommerce business so that as soon as you set it up, it is ready to operate.

Finest Shops is another affordable ecommerce solution. This ecommerce software comes with a thirty day money back guarantee and has a customizable product catalog which lets you decide how your store is going to look. It gives the operator access to their database, codes and templates to help them customize the store to meet the exact business needs they have. They even offer ways to help boost the business owner’s rankings in the search engines and has a lot of advice and strategy on how to increase traffic flow as well.

Posted bySite Admin at 1:56 PM 0 comments  

Secure E-Commerce Shopping Cart Software

The most important part of any ecommerce site is its shopping cart. The shopping cart is what keeps track of the different items your customers want to buy and without it, your ecommerce business is nothing more than a website with a bunch of pretty pictures on it. While photo sites are fun to look at, ecommerce sites are for shopping and it is the shopping cart that makes it possible. So, how do you decide what kind of shopping cart software is right for you?

First you need to decide what kind of ecommerce business you are going to be running. The more products you sell, the more versatile you will want your shopping cart to be. Someone selling an ebook, for example, could easily make do with a very basic shopping cart system. Someone selling various handmade items or clothing would need something more complicated. Think about the shopping cart on Amazon versus the shopping cart on somebody’s affiliate site. The differences are staggering aren’t they? So, before you start downloading ecommerce shopping cart software, decide what exactly you will need from it.

1ShoppingCart is a shopping cart software system that will take your orders via the internet, set you up with a variety of marketing tools and let you sell just as many products as you need. This shopping cart software will allow you to accept credit card payments and even online checks. The software is also web based, so you don’t have to download anything or install any special equipment onto your computer. You simply install the script and you are ready to go.

1AutomationWiz offers a great starter pack for people just getting started in ecommerce. The starter pack has shopping cart software that is certified by Verisign and can easily be integrated into your ecommerce site—no advanced programming knowledge is required. This shopping cart software generates an email receipt for every order, for you and even for a third party if need be. It has live help support and can store up to ten thousand items and ten thousand clients in its memory.

E Commerce Plus offers shopping cart software that is integrated with Google Checkout and lets people pay via paypal, paypal pro, linkpoint, Worldpay and more. It offers credit card processing off line and works with front page, golive, Dreamweaver, and CSS website design. This ecommerce shopping cart software is a little spendy at just under one hundred and fifty dollars, but it works well no matter how your ecommerce website is designed.

Because the shopping cart is the most important part of your ecommerce website, you will want to take your time in deciding which software to use. Make sure you test out each product before you make your final decision because what sounds great in the marketing materials might turn out to be a nightmare to operate. Your shopping cart is the heart of your business. You want to make sure that the ecommerce shopping cart software you use is perfect.

Posted bySite Admin at 1:55 PM 2 comments  

A Full Blown Internet Business In An Ecommerce Shopping Cart Solution

All you need is the product or service

A successful internet business needs the following; a domain name, a website, a product or service, shopping cart software, a merchant account, marketing tools, traffic and training. 1ShoppingCart.com provides all of this.

Whether you are starting from scratch, or you’ve been online for a short while and need to expand, every possible internet business tool is available at 1ShoppingCart.com. What’s more there are packages available so you can cater to your own business needs should you already have some of the above.

Let’s look at some of the features included:

1 Shopping Cart offers domain name registration, webhosting and other web hosting related services including a website builder.

Once you have your domain name and web hosting set up, let’s look at the Shopping Cart itself for your products and services.

1. Sell Unlimited Products - great if you sell physical goods or use dropshippers
2. eBooks & Digital Products - use their server and bandwidth to store your downloads including .exe, .pdf, .doc, .mp3 files and more; distributes usernames and passwords for secure products and memberships
3. Recurring/Residual Billing - for ongoing subscriptions
4. Collect Credit Card Payments - easy
5. Calculate Shipping/Sales Tax - Integrates with Fedex, DHL, Canada Post, UPS & USPS; state and country sales tax rates
6. Detailed Sales Reports - by date, clients, card type, product item, ad campaign, affiliates
7. Offer Discount Coupons - without having to change anything from the front-end
8. Upsell Other Products - simple: increase sales revenues by offering customers other products automatically every time they buy
9. Support Multiple Web Sites - if you have more than one business!
10. Customizable - give your shopping cart pages the same look and feel as your web site theme

Now that you have a web site selling products and services, let’s look at the Marketing Tools available.

1. Online Contact Database - Keep in touch with your customers 24/7
2. Online Newsletter Program - Create text, HTML or MIME email messages
3. Unlimited Email Marketing - Send email messages and sales letters to your customers, prospects, affiliates or your entire database of clients; unlimited broadcast emailing capabilities
4. Unlimited Autoresponders - create autoresponders and opt-in forms for many purposes
5. Customizable eZine forms - Easy to use Ezine/Newsletter management
6. Affiliate Program Included - unlimited affiliates; create multiple affiliate programs; associate different products to each program; pay affiliates by check or paypal; email affiliates 24/7; affiliates training and more!
7. Ad Tracker & Split Testers - test and track ads, links, email and affiliate ads; split-test campaigns to see which work best
8. Surveys & Questionnaires -Quesionnaire Wizard lets you easily generate web forms to ask customers, prospects and affiliates alike a number of key questions, helping you to make the sale or perform general or advanced market research.
9. Pop-Up Wizard - use it in conjunction with surveys, opt-in forms, sales to grab visitors attention

It’s up to you, but if you want to Accept Credit Cards using your own merchant account:

1. Accept Credit Cards & Online Checks - Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover with your own merchant account includes both gateway account and merchant account
2. Simple Fast Online Application - just 4 simple steps
3. 99% Approval Rate - and it takes just 3-5 business days
4. No Cancelletion Fees: Cancel Anytime! - that’s right, costs nothing to cancel
5. No Long Term Contracts - pay by the month
6. Lowest Prices on the Internet - just $26/month
7. No Software or Equipment Needed - 100% compatible with 1 Shopping Cart

Along with the features above, important things you also need in an ecommerce shopping cart solution is:

1. Reliability
2. Deliverability
3. Customer Service
4. Security

1 Shopping Cart is reliable having serviced thousands of top name companies, just check out their Featured Clients to see for yourself.

Deliverability is important with online businesses, 1 Shopping Cart being able to handle over 1 million messages per hour.

Their customer service is second to none, whether online, over the phone and even through their training materials and knowledge base.

Finally, security is a top priority at 1 Shopping Cart using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology to protect the security of your online order information, and is one of the only online shopping cart software solutions that’s fully Certified by Visa and Mastercard through their stringent PCI & CISP regulations.

As you can see, you may be starting from scratch with just a product or service, or selling other companies products; or you may need to expand your current business. 1 Shopping Cart has it all. I have been using 1 Shopping Cart for years and simply would not look anywhere else, but…

Posted bySite Admin at 1:54 PM 0 comments  

Secure E-Commerce

The main concern people have when shopping online is security. Everybody knows how easy it is to grab information over the internet and this is the main reason why online shopping is taking a while to become popular. People are afraid to give out their bank or credit card information over the internet. They are afraid of people being able to hack into their computers and steal their identities. So what does this mean for you, the ecommerce businessperson?

You want to make your customers feel safe when they use your ecommerce site. You want to assure them that your site is secure and make sure they know about the various safety precautions you have in place to protect their financial information as it transmits from their keyboard to your servers.

Did you know that ecommerce is actually a much safer method of consumerism than traditional commerce? Here is an example: When you pay with your credit card at a restaurant, your card is run through before you assign how much you want to leave as a tip. You write in the tip amount when the signature receipt comes back to you and when you do this, you are basically acknowledging that you are putting your faith into your server or the restaurant manager to put in the amount you have written down and nothing else. Usually the number of your card is printed all the way out on the signature receipt. Anybody who has access to the receipts has access to your credit card number, etc. When you shop via ecommerce, the only people to see your financial information are you and the business to which you are making a payment.

The best way to ensure the privacy of your customers’ information is through Secure Socket Layers and Digital Certificates. Typically these two items go together. In fact, the Digital Certificate is what confirms to customers that the website they are transmitting to uses Secure Socket Layers (or SSL) when it receives or transmits data Make sure that any page that takes in personal or financial information from your customers is protected by Secure Socket Layers and has a Digital Certificate. Typically your ecommerce website will have these built into your hosting package, but you will want to check with your hosting company to make sure.

Another trusted method of securing the transactions on your ecommerce site is by using Verisign. Verisign is a very trusted and widely recognized SSL Certificate host. Many businesses use verisign to obtain their customer’s financial information. The security on verisign is known world wide and is very trusted.

You should always have a page on your site that is dedicated to letting your customers know exactly how you secure the information that is processed through your site. When you use Digital Certificates, SSL and Verisign that the information you are getting is accurate and is not likely pirated from someone. Using Ecommerce security measures helps everybody feel better about ecommerce and its growing popularity.

Posted bySite Admin at 1:53 PM 0 comments  

What Is E-Commerce

Ecommerce is actually Electronic Commerce which is a method used by people to buy and sell services or products via the internet or other kinds of computer networks. This is a trade that has shown significant growth since the internet’s popularity exploded. Ecommerce involves on a number of functions including electronic funds transfer, internet marketing, electronic data interchange, inventory management systems, supply chain management and even automated data collection systems. Most ecommerce makes use of the World Wide Web at some point in the business dealings and often it will make use of email.

Many people think that ecommerce is the simple act of buying and selling goods over the internet, but there is more to it than that. Some ecommerce is done primarily for “e” items like website building, internet file hosting, graphic design via the internet and other services. It is true, though, that most ecommerce involves the buying and selling of goods. Often people who run an ecommerce business are called e-tailers as a way of illustrating that they are, basically, electronic retailers.

Ecommerce can take on many forms. Most forms of ecommerce involve the selling of goods from a business to an individual though there is a type of ecommerce known as “B2B” or “business to business” which is the act of ecommerce between businesses. B2B is a very competitive field as one business can often do business with thousands of other businesses via the web. Because the transactions are done electronically, the transactions can finalize more quickly, which means that businesses specializing in B2B commerce can do hundreds of transactions in a single day. This makes B2B a very lucrative field for the experienced ecommerce businessperson.

Why specialize in ecommerce instead of opening a traditional “brick and mortar” business? Here are a few reasons to work with ecommerce:
1. The start up costs is lower: starting up your own ecommerce website is often far less expensive than staring up a “traditional business.”
2. Staring an ecommerce business takes less time. You can often start an ecommerce business in as little as a day. This is because there is no travel involved when deciding which goods to stock or who to use as a vendor for your business supplies. You don’t have to spend time on the phone. Everything is done via the internet.
3. Little to no inventory. Thanks to drop shipping, which is how most ecommerce businesses make their money, most ecommerce businesses have little to no actual physical inventory to keep track of. Instead they simply ferry the orders placed with them over to their vendor and keep the profit made from marking up the vendor’s price.

These are just three reasons to start your own ecommerce business. Ecommerce sounds like it should be a very fancy system, but it isn’t very hard to learn at all. Anybody can start his own ecommerce business. All it takes is a little bit of business savvy, a little bit of start up capital and a little bit of time.

Posted bySite Admin at 1:53 PM 0 comments  

Ecommerce Dropship Integration

Drop shipping is a technique of supply chain management in which the eCommerce business owner does not actually keep the stock on hand but takes orders from his customers and then places the same order with a wholesaler who will then ship the goods to the customer. The eCommerce owner then keeps the profit from the retail markup of the goods ordered in the sale. Drop shipping is a common method used by ecommerce business owners who might not stock any products at all, but drop ship everything sold through their ecommerce business.

There are some definite business advantages to drop shipping. For one thing, you don’t have to purchase the goods and then hope that you sell out of your inventory. Instead, you simply charge the retail price and then keep the profit when you order the item at the wholesale price. And, because you aren’t required to purchase the items before they get sold, you don’t have to actually find space in your home or office to store the items that you sell on your ecommerce site. Also, if you are running your ecommerce business out of your home, your town or county might have very strict rules about what you are and are not allowed to keep in terms of inventory. Using a drop shipper could help you circumvent the inventory laws but allow you to still ship the goods being sold from your business.

Of course, there are risks as well. One of the biggest risks when using the drop shipping method to sell items via your ecommerce site, you run the risk of taking an order for something and then, when you try to order it through your wholesaler, finding out that the item is out of stock. Having to refund the customer’s money makes you look unprofessional and, if it happens too often, your business could suffer. Another big risk is ending up with a wholesaler who is less than ethical in their business practices. Middle Men can make working with drop shipments complicated and, often, costly.

There are lots of drop shippers that offer their services on the internet and the best way to find one is to search for wholesalers who specialize in the same sorts of goods you are selling on your website. Another option is to ask the wholesaler who would be supplying your business with goods if they will drop ship the goods directly to your customers for you and, if they will, what kind of cost is involved?

Drop shipping is a great way to save yourself time and money. While you are selling the goods at retail prices, you are actually having them sent at wholesale prices. You get to keep the profit and you don’t have to deal with any of the inventory issues or shipping problems that can arise when having to ship goods to customers. Drop shipping can be kind of a sketchy business so make sure the drop shipper you use has ethical business practices and is reliable!

Posted bySite Admin at 1:52 PM 0 comments  

SSL Certificates - Important for your online business

If you’re starting an online business, you already know there are a number of things you need to determine before your site can launch and you can start handling orders and shipping products. By now, you’ve probably decided on the perfect shopping cart software for your site and you may have already purchased a Dedicated IP and researched payment gateways so that you can accept credit cards, checks, and international methods of payment.

But did you know there may be one thing you’re still missing? An SSL Certificate is a necessity of any online business that wants to accept credit card payments and have a secure website from which to do so.

What is an SSL Certificate?

SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, and is a certificate that is installed onto a server to identify specific merchants and to encrypt credit card and other sensitive payment information.

Why do I need an SSL Certificate?

Take a look at the bottom of any major website’s order page (for example: VeriSign.com or Amazon.com). If you don’t see a small locked icon in the lower right side of the browser, you are not on a secure website. An SSL Certificate secures your site so that your customers can trust inputting their sensitive information onto your web forms. Plus, if you are taking credit card payments, you need an SSL Certificate. In fact, many merchant accounts will not work unless you already have your SSL Certificate in place.

What else do I need to know?

Lunarpages proudly offers two types of SSL Certificates, a Basic and a Pro version. Below you can find some information on each, but for questions regarding the insurance warranty, please see Comodo, our trusted SSL provider.

Posted bySite Admin at 11:29 AM 1 comments  

Setting up a Secure E-Commerce Site

Whether your e-commerce operation involves selling an entire catalogue of items, a small collection of goods or even just one product, the simple reality is that unless people buy the items for sale on your Web site, you won't make any money.

And while the last few years have done a lot to make consumers more comfortable with the idea of shopping online, a significant effort is still necessary, on your part, to convince potential customers that they will be doing business with a secure and trustworthy operation.

Because you'll have to employ some form of remote payment, you'll need to do business with some type of transaction-processing business. Even more than your customers, your billing solution partners will demand some assurance that your operation is secure before they involve themselves in your transactions.

To put it simply, in the e-commerce business, securing trust in your company is essential to your success. Trust is as important to a potential customer's purchasing decision as the products you offer. And an essential element of building that trust, with both customers and partners, is the assurance that your e-commerce operation meets the demanding security standards required of organizations handling sensitive financial information.

Setting up a Storefront

A big part of building trust with your customers is your presentation. That they're even browsing your online store is a good indicator that they're familiar with the possibilities of online shopping and are prepared to consider buying. What you do to convince them, and the effectiveness of your efforts, may be the deciding factor in a possible sale..

The shopping interface you introduce to customers is arguably the most important piece of your e-commerce site's presentation. A familiar, easy-to-navigate interface can go a long way toward establishing the trust you're after. Seasoned online shoppers will know what to expect from an e-commerce site, and meeting those expectations is a good way to gain their confidence. Novice surfers will probably be more comfortable if your online store closely resembles the major e-commerce interfaces they might have encountered.

Building a storefront compatible with your customers' expectations is one of the more obviously beneficial features of using an e-commerce software product such as those provided by Miva (www.Miva.com), BizCrafter (www.BizCrafterCorp.com) or eCartSoft (www.eCartSoft.com) to build your site. Most of these programs will help you to build a simple, effective and familiar shopping interface that can include pictures, shopping cart functions and a number of useful security features.

In addition to helping you build an attractive online shop, most e-commerce software has features allowing it to help manage your inventory, interact with your payment processing systems, simplify your relationships with suppliers and affiliates, and even promote your site.

E-commerce software can usually be purchased online from the maker. But it is also quite often included as part of a specialized e-commerce package from any of the many Web hosts that support such operations.

Posted bySite Admin at 11:26 AM 0 comments