paying with credit cards

[dark uncle]

now i'm thinking of moving my site to powweb, and if i want to let my clients pay with plastic, I have to have that set up, now will powweb set it up for me, and if not, how do i take care of it?

[fcsnc]

At this time, Powweb provides no free assistance in setting up an e-commerce site.

I have dropped an e-mail to SimCoWeb, who might be willing to give you some pointers.

[SimCoWeb]

Thanks, Tom. Got your message.

Dark Uncle, there's a variety of ways to establish an Ecommerce site. It all depends upon your budget, number and type of products, and your ultimate goals for expanding your site.

First, and most importantly, you need a merchant account of some sort. For the 'freebies' there's the following:

PayPal
ccBill
iBill
MerchantGarage
and more...

Each of these has their plus and minus column. The plus, no setup fees, and, in some cases, no monthly fees. The minus? The cheaper they are to set up the more they charge per transaction. Some as much as 16% plus a fixed amount per transaction. This makes it a little tough to make a profit!

For a 'true' merchant account I recommend Authorize.net. The reasons? Simple. A wide assortment of shopping carts automatically integrate with Authorize.net. It's one of the top secure credit card processing venues on the web and easily recognizable by your customers to help provide confidence in purchasing your items. They charge $299 setup and a monthly fee but only 2.4% plus .35 per transaction. Easier to make a profit that way.

Next, shopping carts. You will need some method for them to shop your site. Some merchant providers give you code for a 'buy button'. Which means that once they click on that button for a product they want it will redirect to the merchant account provider's site to initiate the cart and leave your site.

A 'true' shopping cart' is set up on your site and sets a 'cookie' when a new shopper enters it. They can shop around, add things, remove things, even leave your site for a day or two, come back, and the cart will still show what they have in it from the previous visit. Upon checking out, the cart will direct them to the secure order page to enter their data, process the entire transaction, approve the card (or reject) on the spot, send an email receipt to them as well as yourself.

Every night at midnight Authorize.net sends a nice little note to me that says how much they've just deposited into my account reconciling all my receipts for the day. I like that :)

There's a huge variety of ways to do it. Let me know what exactly you're selling, and how many items you plan to sell, and I can assist you further.

If you're looking for professional help in setting this up, installing the cart, customizing the templates, establishing the merchant account, etc. then i'd be happy to provide a bid for that. It's what I do professionally :D

[esccanada]

Check out Hyperwallet (http://www.hyperwallet.com). Their services are provided by Beanstream (http://www.beanstream.com).