Now that you have a web site, it's time to realize the profit potential of your site by selling products or services directly from your web site. Order an e-commerce solution for your web site hosting package.

Some Recent Examples of our E-commerce sites

• Suedehead.biz Retail & Wholesale Vintage T-shirts
• Smokinlicious.com Smoking Wood

E-commerce Essentials
All e-commerce sites, big and small, require the following to sell products or services online:

• Hosting Account: Any of our standard web site hosting packages can be upgraded to e-commerce. E-commerce can also be added to your Expert hosting package.

• Products and Pricing: Once you know what products or services you are going to sell online, determine how much you will charge and how you are going to accept payments. Will it be in a single currency or multiple currencies, such as US dollars, Canadian dollars, and the Euro?

• Shipping: Establish your shipping and handling costs. Take into account where your customers are located. Are you going to be shipping locally or to countries around the world?

• Merchant Account: This banking relationship allows a business or organization to accept credit cards and authorize transactions manually.

• E-commerce Order System: If all you need is a secure online order form, basic scripts, written in Perl or PHP, for example, will allow you to complete online transactions.

• Secure Server: No matter how big or small you are, when accepting credit cards over the Internet, you need to ensure that transactions are secure. For this reason, all online forms that accept credit cards must use SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) to encrypt all credit card information.

• Trust: The main ingredient required in building a successful Internet-based business is trust. Since your clientele can't meet you face-to face, you must create an environment in which your customers feel safe to do business with you.

Complete E-commerce Solution

For an advanced e-commerce solution that includes real-time, online financial transactions, and a browser-based storefront, you will also need an Internet merchant account, a payment processor and a shopping cart software package.

Internet Merchant Account:
This banking relationship allows an organization to accept credit cards online. Please note that you need an "Internet merchant account" for real-time online processing - a standard merchant account is not enough.

Internet Payment Processor:
These processors - often referred to as payment gateways - allow you to authorize, settle and manage large amounts of credit card transactions online in real-time. Check with your bank to see which payment processors they accept and ensure that your shopping cart software is also compatible.

• CyberCash
• Verisign
• E-xact
• AuthorizeNet
• Signio
• Linkpoint
• Psigate (Canada)
• PayPal

Full Shopping Cart:
Software programs, such a MIVA, allow customers to select items they want to purchase and store them in a virtual shopping cart. Customers can view, add or delete items in their shopping cart before checking out. Check with your bank to make sure the Internet payment processor they accept is compatible with your shopping cart.