Setting up a website for ecommerce
The following are recommended stages in setting up a new website to take payments by credit card etc over the net.
(Note that each customer has different circumstances and before proceeding with any of these stages your particular situation should be discussed fully with a professional web designer such as Affinity Images Web Design)Stage 1
Open a paypal account which as a business and use their secure services to take credit card payments. Using paypal you can
- set up a shopping cart and people add items and when they are finished they pay using their credit card. Once they have ordered the payments all go through on there secure site and then they come back to your site.
- or once the customer has decided on an item you send them an email via paypal with the payment details and they pay online with their card.
Pro No Risk!, Cheap, Simple to set up.
Con There is a stigma attached to Paypal which some customers may feel your site is cheap.
Stage 2
Use a third party secure online shopping cart that is more customized to your websites look an example is Kick Start Cart these services have monthly fees etc so you need a reasonable turnover to make them viable. Advantage over having your own merchant account is they look after all the security of your customers details.
Pro No Risk! No merchant fees
Con fee are higher, a bit more complicated to set up.
Stage 3
Set up a merchant account with your bank and have your own secure shopping cart on your site. Downfall is high merchant fees from the bank and your site would need to be dynamic with high security.