E-Commerce Steps and Merchant Accounts

All of our linux web hosting packages include Secure Server Access to handle sensitive information such as credit card transactions and customer/client personal information.

In addition, each package includes a very easy to use shopping cart and many other features (such as comprehensive multimedia and database support) that you may tailor to create a professional online store.

Create Your Web Site.

This may or may not include a requirement for a shopping cart system. If it does, you may utilize the That's an Order Shopping Cart that we include with all linux web hosting accounts. A demo of this shopping cart is here.

Or, for a more robust shopping cart system, (which allows an unlimited number of products), choose one of our E-Commerce Packages (Order, Lite or Deluxe). The E-Commerce Order package includes Miva Order; whereas the Lite and Deluxe E-Commerce Packages include Miva Merchant.

See our Getting Started page for more information on creating and uploading your site.

Open a Merchant Account.

A merchant account is required in order to accept credit card payments online. The application for a merchant account is separate from an application for a web hosting account. The rates and fees for a merchant account can vary greatly depending on such factors as the country in which your business is registered, and the perceived credit risk of your business.

The basic requirement for any merchant account is that you must have a business checking account. Your business checking account does not have to be with the bank and/or organization providing your merchant account services.

Note:

PayPal

For details (including pricing) of merchant accounts for U.S. clients, click here.

For non-U.S. clients, consider the merchant account services provided by Planet Payment. Click on the link provided and follow the directions in order to receive the rates applicable to your business.

In addition, we recommend contacting your local bank and seeing what they have to offer (and what they recommend) in terms of online merchant account services.

If you have any questions about merchant accounts, please feel free to contact us at any time, and we will do our best to answer your questions.

Choose Your Payment Processing Method.

With a merchant account, credit card payments can be processed in one of two ways - Offline or in Real-Time.

Offline credit card processing is when a merchant uses the traditional method of obtaining authorization for the credit card transaction by calling it in. Offline processing can also be handled by using your web browser connected to the Internet and a third-party software (i.e., a Virtual Terminal).

Real-time credit card processing is when the authorization process is done online at the time of the purchase with code embedded into your html pages. Our merchant account program offers the ability to process credit card transactions either in real-time (at the very moment of sale) or offline (e.g., when the merchandise is ready to be shipped to the customer).

Promote Your Site.

No matter how great your site is, if you don't promote it, no one will come.

Promotion can take many forms, involve many steps, and never ends. It is probably the most important aspect of operating your web site.

The basic steps one should follow in promoting an online business involve registering the web site with all the major search engines, as well as with the specialty search engines and directories when and where appropriate.

Before registering with the search engines, however, you'll want to make sure to use the appropriate Meta tags in your html code to help increase the chances of your site being listed higher in the search engines.

An excellent (and free) newsletter on promoting via search engines is available from Web Position Gold.

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