1. Your website should reflect
the nature of your business, be well organized and easy
to navigate and display all information and products in
an attractive and clear format. The website will contain
the products, usually by categories and then as individual
products with expanded descriptions and larger images. The
products will be linked into the shopping cart which is
the next stage of the e-commerce process. (unless you have
an all-in-one online estore in which the website itself
is integrated into the shopping cart)
2. The shopping cart contains
all of the product information: product name, description,
sku #, price, options, shipping weight shipping method(s).
The shopping cart keeps track of all items entered in the
cart by your customers and calculates totals, taxes and
shipping. It also gathers the customer billing and shipping
information including credit card information and sends
it securely to the internet merchant account.
3. The internet merchant
account collects all of the information from the shopping
cart, authorizes the credit card transaction transfers the
funds from the customer's credit card account into your
business bank account.
Typically you will pay around $20 a month
for hosting your website, $30 a month for a shopping cart
and $50 for an internet merchant account. This is a simplified
explanation and there can be many variations of this as
far as cost, what kind of shopping cart is used and also
the option of using an online estore in which the website
and shopping cart are integrated and so there is just one
fee for the website and shopping cart. So, in round figures
it's usually around $100 a month to run your e-commerce
business. If you are on a tight budget this can be reduced
to the least expensive hosting option and using Paypal for
the shopping cart which eliminates the cost of a shopping
cart and a merchant account.
Site-Maker
can help make your E-Commerce experience a simple, clear
and cost-effective one. We are affiliated with USAePay
(Internet Merchant Account and Authorized Gateway) and have
done business with them for almost 10 years. We also work
with Authorize.net and other merchant account companies
and you are free to choose any company you would like. One
important thing to keep in mind however is that the merchant
account company has to be able to integrate with the specific
shopping cart solution you choose and vice-versa. We often
work with Securenetshop.com and Cartmanager for shopping
carts and here again we have had a long and successful relationship
with them but you are free to choose any company you would
like.