Frequently Asked Questions About E-Commerce
What is E-Commerce?
How does an On-line Store work?
What Do I need to start an E-Commerce site?
How does Off-line Credit Card Processing work?
How does "Real-time" Credit Card processing work?
What is a Merchant Account?
What is a secure server or SSL?
What are secure forms?
What is PGP (Pretty Good Privacy)?
What is E-Commerce?
E-Commerce can simply be defined as buying and selling goods
and services across the Internet. An e-commerce site can be as simple
as a catalog page with a phone number, or it can range all the way
to a real-time credit card processing site where customers can purchase
goods and have them shipped on the spot. E-Commerce merchants can
range from a small business with a few items for sale all the way
to a large online retailer.
How does an On-Line Store work?
Your customer arrives at the entrance to your store and is assigned
an order number to track their purchases while they are shopping.
Once inside, customers can search for products typically by category,
description or other parameters defined in the search criteria.
After the search is conducted, a list of products matching the search
criteria is displayed to the customer. At this point, the customer
can enter a quantity to order or may select an item and click on
a link for detailed information and photos of the product if made
available. The customer enters the quantity they wish to purchase
and clicks on a button to add the items to their order. The current
order status is displayed allowing customers to change the quantities
or delete items that they may not want to purchase. When the customer
has completed shopping, they will "checkout" of the store. They
will be required to enter shipping information and then will connect
to a Secure Server (SSL) to submit credit card data in a secure,
encrypted manner. Also, applicable tax and shipping charges can
be calculated here.
Once the order is finalized, the customer clicks on a submit button,
and receives an order confirmation via e-mail summarizing their purchase,
with a copy sent to the store owner as notification of a sale.
What Do I need to start an E-Commerce site?
- Order or upgrade to an E-commerce plan like SmallBiz or BigBiz.
- Create Your Web Site and Online Store.
- Choose Your Payment Processing Method
- Offline - Open Merchant Account Real-time
Open Merchant Account and select Online Real-time Payment Processor
How does Off-line Credit Card Processing work?
The most affordable way of processing credit cards is an off-line
authorization and settlement process. This means that your customers'
credit card information is captured and stored on our server for later
authorization and transaction processing through a traditional card
swipe terminal or through a computer
IMPORTANT: If you already have a merchant
account number from your existing business, you should be aware
of the following. Depending on the type of merchant account you
have, Internet transactions may not be acceptable to your merchant
account bank. Internet transactions are considered "card-not-present"
and you may need to obtain a merchant account specifically designed
for such transactions.
How does "Real-time" Credit Card processing
work?
A customer Purchases your product from your online store. He/she
enters the credit card information. The customer's credit card information
is encrypted and sent from our secure server to the processor's
secure server. The transaction is processed and an authorization
is sent back to your customer in a matter of seconds! The credit
card information is sent over the Internet (securely) to your online
payment processor. Your online payment processor in turn contacts
the card's issuing bank over the private financial network. Your
online payment processor returns approved/declined notice to your
customer who is still at your online store. You and your customer
receive e-mail notifications of the transaction with tracking numbers.
What is a Merchant Account?
If you want to accept credit cards, you need a Merchant Account.
If you already have a Merchant Account, you can use your existing
account to accept credit cards for Internet transactions. This will
work fine if you wish to do off-line payment processing as described
above. If you wish to add real-time payment processing or you are
a new merchant, you need to apply for an "Internet enabled" Merchant
Account. Each Merchant Account provider has different rates and
different solutions. You should shop around for the best solution.
What is a secure server or SSL?
Secure Socket Layer or SSL is an encryption technology on the server
that scrambles important data such as credit card numbers and order
information when it is being stored or passed from one computer
to another. Transferring information securely over the Internet
is the key to the e-commerce revolution. We enable you to have a
secure server using SSL to allow your clients safe and secure transaction
processing while doing business with you. They will visit your site
as https with no change from your www.yourname.com.
What are secure forms?
The purpose of a secure server is to encrypt the information clients
enter in forms on their browser before it is sent to the server.
Our servers use 128-bit encryption, which is the highest security
available for civilian purposes. It will keep your customer's information
as private as technology will allow.
What is PGP (Pretty Good Privacy)?
This is a program for encrypting your e-mail. We also provide a
PGPmail script as part of the control
center. Typically, a secure SL connection is made between the
client and the server using the SSL protocol (https://). The form
is submitted and the encrypted data is sent to our server and decrypted.
Next, a programmer or the PGPmail program takes the plain text and
encrypts it with your PGP public key and sends it off to you. So
the text is encrypted, sent to the server, encrypted and then re-encrypted.
This allows for secure e-mail transmission.
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