Creating Your On-Line Store

The first step to creating your own on-line store is deciding which products or services you will be selling. After this is defined, you can start envisioning your on-line storefront and picturing what kind of virtual atmoshpere you would like to create. If you already have a website, a simple option is to add a Shopping Cart to your existing site. If you do not have a website, we can help you build an entirely new e-commerce store from scratch. Either way, it is important during this visioning phase to consider how you will integrate other transactions with your e-commerce site. This includes deciding whether you want to process your phone, mail and fax orders through your website which may require additional features.

Processing E-Commerce Transactions & Payments

Once your on-line store is built, you need it to function in a higly secure manner to process your sales transactions and collect customers' payment and personal information. We will help you achieve this by using a combination of e-commerce
tools including shopping carts, merchant accounts and Virtual Terminals.

The Shopping Cart is the mechanism that allows customers to select and save items, then ultimately pay for them. There are a wide variety of products available that vary in price, function and security. We work with several carts regularly and will help you choose the one that best fits your store. If have already purchased a Shopping Cart we can help you integrate that into your new store.

Once your Shopping Cart is set up, in order to process and receive customer funds, you need a payment gateway to handle the authorizations and transactions as well as a merchant account to deposit the funds. Conveniently, many shopping cart services also offer payment gateway and merchant account services. If you already have a merchant account for your bricks and mortar store, you may also consider using this for your e-commerce endeavors.

While there are many merchant account options out there, we generally recommend PayPal Pro due to low monthly and per transaction fees. Additionally, PayPal Pro has Virtual Terminal services available which allow you to accept credit card orders over the phone, by mail or fax, and then process them through your computer.
PayPal Pro also gives you the ability to deposit funds directly into your checking account daily (AutoSweep) and does not require an additional payment gateway which is another benefit.

Another new payment processing option is Google CheckOut. For every $1 you spend on AdWords, a Pay Per Click advertising option on Google, you can process $10 in sales for free. For sales that exceed this amount, or if you don't use AdWords, you can process sales at a low 2% and $0.20 per transaction. One disadvantage of this option is that currently there is no option for a Virtual Terminal and the buyer is taken from your website to Google's for checkout. To learn more about Google Checkout click here.

Cost of E-Commerce Transactions

Costs associated with e-commerce ventures vary depending on the service providers that you choose. PayPal Pro is an excellent and affordable payment processing solution charging 2.9% + $0.30 USD per transaction for monthly sales under $3000 with no hidden monthly charges. If you have more than $3000 in monthly PayPal Pro sales, the rates are even more affordable. If you need a Virtual Terminal to process phone, mail and fax orders, PayPal Pro charges $20/month + per transaction fees. Most other merchant/shopping cart services will bill you a monthly gateway/merchant account fee of $30-$50, a fixed transaction fee of $0.25-$0.45, a transaction percentage fee between 2%-5% and a $35/month charge for a Virtual Terminal.

Due to the significant difference in pricing structure, we often recommend PayPal for our clients. To see up-to-date pricing information or to sign up for PayPal services, please click on the banner below.


E-Commerce Security

The primary concern of all business owners when venturing into e-commerce is protecting their customers from theft or identity theft due to unsecure processing of sensitive information. We take these threats very seriously and do our best to minimze risks associated with on-line transactions.

The first thing we do to secure an e-commerce site is to use a secure socket layer (SSL), a global standard security technology developed by Netscape in 1994. SSL creates an encrypted link between your customer's web browser and your website server allowing all data passing between the browser and server to remain private and secure. SSL protected sites are denoted by the widely recognized padlock which appears in your web browser window.

In order to use SSL, site owners must have one of two kinds of security certificates, private or shared. When your customer clicks on the padlock on their screen, it will give them information about your security certificate. A private security certificate is considered the gold standard. When a customer clicks on the padlock of a private certificate holder, they are able to view your domain name, your company name, your address, your city, your state and your country as well as the expiry date of the Certificate and details of the Certification Authority responsible for the issuance of the Certificate. This will help you to build trust with your customer because they are able to verify your security information directly. Private certificates are only available to businesses that have verified that "they are who they say they are" through bank checks and business certifcates.

On the other hand, a shared security certificate is issued to the web host. When the customer clicks on the padlock, the security certificate verifies only the server that hosts the merchant's website. While the customer's information is still protected passing from their browser to the server, they are unable to directly verify that the merchant is who they are claiming to be. This may make some customers uncomfortable. In addition, shared certificates may prompt some browsers to issue a security warning because the shared certificate path does not match the website address path.

Although a shared certificate is included free of charge with all Suloff Designs hosting plans, we generally recommend private security certificates for our e- commerce customers. We offer a 128-bit private certificate through Comodo for $79.95 per year plus a one-time $10 instalation fee. If you prefer to use another certificate authority such as VeriSign or Thawte, we can load this onto the server for a one-time fee of $74.95 plus any additional fees required by the certificate authority.

An alternative way to secure your e-commerce transactions is to use a third party shopping cart such as PayPal Standard or Google Checkout which allows buyers to make payment on the shopping cart website instead of yours. This allows you to rely on the security of the shopping cart site and avoid the additional expense of securing your own site. The biggest drawback to this payment option is that it takes the buyer away from your site. If for some reason the buyer loses their internet connection after they navigate away from your site, they may lose their purchases. Having to navigate away from the site also makes some customers uncomfortable because they have to deal with a third party. Despite these drawbacks, we highly recommend adding PayPal Standard and/or Google Checkout as an optional checkout since some people will only buy through these highly recognized secure sites.