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Beginners Guide to E-Commerce

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E-Commerce Web Site Design

The main features of an e-commerce web site are:

• a manageable product database
• a shopping cart mechanism
• a payment mechanism such as online credit card facility

E-commerce - Online shop solutions:

There are many solutions available providing variations on the product database and shopping cart including:

• a template system linked to your website provided by your web hosting company (for example - eshops from www.1and1.co.uk)
• an online service that you connect your website to to provide a shopping cart (for example - romancart)
• an off-the-shelf online shop that you load on your pc and web server from which you can build your own shop (and link to your Accounts system in some cases (for example - actinic)
• a bespoke system built for you (this option I would only recommend if you have special requirements not available in standard packages due to the cost of development)

Online Credit Card Payments:

There are also a variety of online credit card payment facilities available and they are much easier to obtain than they used to be. The important consideration is that this is your account which you have to obtain, I cannot do this for you.

Merchant Account

The first step is to go to your bank and see if they will provide you with a "Merchant Account". This allows you to accept credit card payments. If you already can take credit card payments you will still need your providers approval to take online credit card payments.

If you cannot get a Merchant Account from your bank there are other solutions available (for example - Paypal) but they may cost a little more.

Payment Services Provider

Your bank will probably also be an "Online Payment Services Provider" (or have connections with one if they do not do it themselves) and have an online credit card processing system. (Other Payment Services Providers include Worldpay, Secpay and Protx.) This will provide fraud checking, be secure and allow you to tailor the look to fit in with your shop. In most cases it is quite a straight-forward process to link your website shop into this system.

The simple Alternative isn't Simple

Some people just want a "simple" form added to their website to take credit card details. This is not the recommended way to take online credit card payments. You loose the fraud checking services and security also becomes your problem. It is not the "simple" solution - it is the complicated, difficult and less satisfactory solution.