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e-Commerce
e-Commerce stands for electronic commerce. An e-commerce site is any site
that involves the buying and selling of goods and services. e-Commerce typically requires a shopping cart system and a payment
processing system.
You can start collecting sales revenue for as little as 4% of the total
transaction.
Six steps to online shopping are:
1. The Consumer - Obviously,
this is the person shopping on your site, who wants to purchase your products and services, pay for a subscription to your
monthly newsletter, donation to your worthy cause, etc. The consumer can do these things safely and securely because
you give them a page protected by a SSL certificate, which will encrypt their payment and personal information prior to their
payment, subsription, donation, etc. being processed.
2. The Cart - The cart can be an actual shopping cart application that
gives a consumer a means to store information pertaining to a product and/or service they want to purchase; or a
simple page where the the consumer can enter their payment information. Regardless, the ultimate goal is to have
the consumer click the payment button and begin the merchant account process. Once that payment button
is clicked, all of the data that the cart has stored is compiled into a format that can be easily passed on to the payment
gateway.
3. The Payment Gateway, part 1 - Information that is gathered
by the cart is passed on to the payment gateway (also known as a payment processor, ie. Authorize.net or USA ePay or Paypal). The information is checked to make sure it is complete enough to
send off to the credit card company for actual processing. Once the information is checked, the payment gateway determines
which credit card company will manage the transaction. The payment gateway then passes the information on to the appropriate
card vendor.
What is Paypal? Click here to listen to an audio clip to learn more.
4. The Credit Card Company - Information passed on by the
payment gateway is received and validated by the appropriate issuer of the credit card being used. The credit card company
not only validates the information it receives, it also validates the credit card and account being used for the purchase.
As long as everything checks out, the credit card company will send an acknowledgement back to the payment gateway in order
that the funds being requested can be moved on to a merchant account. Should the transaction fail, the credit card company
will send a denial code back to the payment gateway that indicates what problem was encountered with the transaction.
5. The Payment Gateway, part 2 - After information is gathered
and validated by the credit card company, it is passed back to the payment gateway for processing. If the transaction fails,
the payment gateway will relay the denial code back to the cart where it is (usually) displayed to the consumer. The consumer
can then choose a different payment method or simply abandon the purchase. If the transaction is a success, that information
is relayed to the consumer, usually in the form of an order confirmation or thank you page. Also, the payment gateway initiates
a funds transfer (also known as a settlement request) to the merchant account for deposit.
6. The Merchant Account - The merchant account collects
funds from purchases and then makes scheduled transfers to a merchant's actual business or personal bank account. This is,
essentially, the final step in the whole merchant processing scenario. Funds collected into a merchant account are generally
transferred over to the merchant's regular account within 48 - 72 hours.
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• shopping
• real estate
• autos
& recreation
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• website hosting
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website design
• domain names/email
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• online ezine
•
print magazine
• positive outlook
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• calendar sharing
• customer tracking
• invoicing |
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• online tutorials
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customer support
• e-Commerce training
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