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Free Bi-Monthly
Marketing Newsletter
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Merchants, Click
Below To Login
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This brief article is designed to give you a quick overview of how e-commerce works |
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| CRITICAL COMPONENTS FOR E-COMMERCE ON THE WEB |
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1) WebsiteYour online connection to your prospects and customers. There are a
number of places on the web to get "free" websites - although you
may be required to display an advertisement. The design of your
site is critical to the success of your business! If it does not
look like a professional, legitimate business - NO ONE WILL ORDER
ANYTHING - no matter how great the products you have. If you are
serious about doing business on the web, either go back to school
and learn html, java, cgi, etc., or hire a professional to designyour site.
2) Merchant account
Bank authorized account which allows you to accept major credit
cards, electronic checks, etc. Many banks will not give
you a merchant account if you do business on the internet because
they may classify it as high risk. Be careful when looking for a
merchant account provider! Watch out for hidden fees, high setup
fees, and other unscrupulous business practices.
3) Payment Transaction Software
Software which actually processes customer order information,
address, credit card number, etc. The data is sent to a credit card
authorization network which verifies that the credit card is valid
and verifies that the shipping address matches the billing address.
A possible warning sign that the card has been stolen is that the
billing and shipping addresses do not match.
4) Secure Server Connection - https://
Link to a special computer which encrypts confidential ordering
data for customer protection. You know you are on a secure server
when the URL in your browser says "https://". The "s" stands for
"secure." If ordering information is not sent via a secure server
it can be intercepted by computer hackers.
5) Shopping Cart
Software which allows you to accept product orders for multiple
products from your website. This software automatically calculates
and totals orders for your customers. Some setup must be done in
the html code of your website, and the shopping cart software
must be installed on the server which hosts your site or on the
secure server which accepts sensitive ordering information.
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That's it!
To understand how the money actually flows from a customer to a merchant's bank account, read on. |
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