Ecommerce Websites

simple ecommerce using a 3rd party credit card processor

Using an online service (like Paypal) to process your customer's credit cards can get you selling online quickly and cheaply. It works like this:

• the items you want to sell are listed on your website
• when customers click 'buy' next to an item they are taken to a secure payment page provided by the processor
• the processor collects the customer's order and credit card details
• the customer receives an email confirming their order and letting them know that their card is being processed
• when the transaction has been confirmed the processor emails you a confirmation of the order and deposits the money (minus their processing fees) into your nominated bank account
• you supply the product or service to the customer

There are a variety of credit card processing companies that provide this service. Paypal is the best known; others include Paymate (an Australian company) and 2Checkout. They each have a different fee schedule but it's typically a set fee plus a percentage of the sale.

Benefits

• You don't need to deal with credit cards at all
• Reasonably inexpensive to set up on your website

Drawbacks

• Complex product options (like variable postage and tax fees) are limited
• Customers leave your website to complete their transaction

For example

• River Stone TV
• Air Iononics

simple insite ecommerce systems

If you have your own credit card processing facilities (like an EFTPOS machine) a simple e-commerce system may be the solution for you. It works something like this:

• the items you want to sell are listed on your website
• when customers click 'buy' next to an item they are taken to a secure payment page that's part of your website
• the customer's order and credit card details are collected
• the customer receives a confirmation email
• you receive an email letting you know that an order has been placed
• you log in in to the secure area of your website and collect the order and credit card details
• you process the credit card using your facilities
• you supply the product or service to the customer

Benefits

• Customers don't have to leave your website to order

Drawbacks

• You have to manually process the credit cards (which can be time consuming)
• More costly to set up
• You need to purchase or be able to access an SSL certificate (what?)

complete ecommerce systems

If you would like complete control over the products listed on your website and advanced order processing functions you need a full-blown e-commerce system.

As administrator you'll have lots of options when managin the website, including the ability to

• add categories that will appear in the online store's navigation menu
• add products, descriptions and pictures and choose which category you want them to appear in
• edit product details
• store records of customers how make orders
• feature products as specials

Benefits

• Customers don't have to leave your website
• Slick, professional image

Drawbacks

• More costly to set up

payment gateways

We can also arrange setup of a payment gateway with a financial institution that will allow you to securely process credit cards in real time.