| Ecommerce or Electric
Commerce is one of the most important aspects of the
internet. It permits people to exchange goods and services
quickly and with no restrictions of time or distance,
24 x 7 from anywhere on the world.
Imagine you are living in a small city in India and
are shopping in America sitting at home on your favorite
chair ----it is possible through e-commerce.
E-commerce Steps
There are various steps you have to take as a merchant
to make a successful e-commerce business.
Getting an Internet Merchant Bank Account
Web Hosting
Obtaining a Digital Certificate
Finding a Provider of Online Transactions
Creating or Purchasing a Shopping Cart Software
Internet Merchant Bank Account
Internet Merchant Accounts are bank accounts specially
designed for the merchants; they are approved and can
get payment via credit cards. Credit card companies
have strict rules and needs that have to be met before
a merchant can open an account. Merchant Account companies
act as a middle man between the merchant and the Credit
Card Providers making sure needs are met on both sides.
Internet merchant accounts do not hold funds for a long
period of time. Transfer of payments to another bank
account selected by the internet merchants are done
on a daily or weekly basis. The primary reason of merchant
accounts is the application and verification processes
which give them with reliability. Cards are processed
through an Internet Merchant Account either manually
through store credit card terminal, online through a
web based terminal page, or automatically through merchant's
web shopping cart.
Web hosting
A web hosting service is an Internet hosting service
that permits individuals and organizations to supply
their own websites accessible via the internet. Web
hosts companies give space on a server they own for
use by their clients as well as giving Internet connectivity.
There are many free and paid providers offering web
hosting services. A customer needs to evaluate the requirements
of the application to select what kind of hosting to
use. The website you place on the internet is your ambassador
in the virtual world, so be very careful and professional
when doing so.
Digital Certificate
A digital certificate is an electronic file which contains
personal information of its owner, like the name and
email address, as well as owner’s public key.
It acts as an identity card for each user; it is the
proof of ownership of a public key. There are many companies,
known as Certificate Authorities (CA), that issue Digital
Certificates. The CA signs the certificates it creates,
this enables users to know what CA made each certificate.
The signature also ensures that the certificate has
not been altered by a third party.
Provider of Online Transactions
To process online orders, you must present online payment
options. There are several options for online payment,
but the credit card is the most famous. Other methods
of collecting payment are charging items to a phone
bill, using electronic funds transfers (EFT), and paying
by electronic check. These methods need payment processing
either in the form of software added to your Web site
or by linking to a payment processing service. To accept
credit cards, you must set up a merchant account; your
merchant account provider (MAP) can be a bank or any
other institution that processes online credit card
transactions. Most MAP are local if you want to give
your goods globally, you may need to search specifically
for an international provider.
Shopping Cart Software
Selecting the best shopping cart solutions for your
ecommerce venture is vital to the success of your online
business. Shopping Cart are basically a series of scripts
that keep track of items a visitor chooses to buy from
your site until they proceed to the final checkout.
The payment gateway service then pushes the requests
and transfers relevant financial networks, including
the Internet merchant account with your bank. Then it
sends back verification back to the shopping cart software.
If the customer is verified then the sale is completed.
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