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E-commerce
What
is e-commerce?
Does Coastline offer an e-commerce solution?
How does Coastline support e-commerce?
How can e-commerce help my business?
Is every business good for the web?
Why is SSL important?
Do I have to take credit cards?
How do I get a merchant account?
What is a shopping cart?
What types of carts do you support?
What are some good sources of additional information?
What are the components that make e-commerce 'work?'
What
is e-commerce?
E-commerce is jargon for "selling stuff on the
web." An "e-commerce" solution offers a
way for your clients to choose what they want to purchase, a
way of paying for that purchase (securely) and a way for you
to get the information about that purchase. Of course,
it's always more complicated but those are the basics.
Does
Coastline offer an e-commerce solution?
Yes. CoastCart is our unique shopping cart included with
Plan B accounts. Click
here for more info.
How
does Coastline support e-commerce?
Through our Plan B accounts, you receive
-
SSL
(or Secure Sockets Layer) so your clients can send their
credit card information securely,
-
database
connectivity, which allows you to set up system DSNs and
get the appropriate write permissions for your database
folder,
-
weekly
stats, which let you see how many times your site was
hit, where they came from and what pages they viewed
most often, and
-
plenty
of server space for large databases and illustrations
for shopping carts, 250 e-mail accounts, and 2,500 megs
of transfer bandwidth.
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How
can e-commerce help my business?
E-commerce can give your business a whole new class of
customers and can increase your sales dramatically.
Is
every business idea good for the web?
Although the .com industry is really shaking out, it seems
that the e-commerce sites that are thriving offer their
products at an excellent value. After all, the client
is loosing the ability to pick up the product, turn it over,
kick the tires, etc. If they don't like it, they have
to send it back to you or be stuck with 'buyer's
remorse.' In exchange for that flexibility, the buyer
expects value. The sites that are succeeding in
e-commerce give the buyer excellent value.
Why is SSL important?
SSL is one way of ensuring your credit card orders are
transmitted over the Internet safely and securely. It
minimizes the chances hackers are going to intercept the
data.
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Do
I have to take credit cards?
You don't have to take credit cards but it is very difficult
to take an order, bill the client, wait for their payment
and then send out the items they ordered.
What
is a merchant account and how do I get one?
A merchant account allows you to take credit cards and
process them. Cybercash, E-Commerce Exchange, PayPal
and others allow you to take credit cards and have them
processed, either in real-time or manually. You need
to go to the merchant account provider of your choice and
put in an application for your account. Once you have
the account, you will need to get software for your site for
real-time transactions or for your own computer for manual
processing.
What
is a shopping cart?
A shopping cart is an interactive program that allows your
client to see your product, choose how many of each item she
would like to purchase, pay for her order and indicate where
you will need to send that order. Some shopping carts
are excellent and some are less than adequate. Amazon.com has created the standard of what buyers expect.
What
types of carts do you support?
We support ASP shopping carts, which means the script for
the cart is on the webpage rather than stored in your folder
or on our server as a small program.
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What
are some good sources of additional information?
The E-commerce section at Internet.com
is excellent, as is WebMonkey.com.
If you like case studies and insight into how the 'big
sites' do it, eCRMGuide.com
has interesting information, as well.
What
are the components that make e-commerce 'work?'
There
are several components necessary to make 'e-commerce' work.
1. You will need a registered business name with a valid
Merchant Account setup with a Bank that supports online
transactions (note that some banks do not yet support online
transactions and you should discuss this with your bank
prior to setting up the account).
2. You will need to purchase service from an online system
that can interface with your Merchant Account online.
Coastline recommends a company called "Cybercash".
This company will request from you various information about
your Merchant Account so that they can setup your Cybercash
account accordingly.
3. You then need your site configured with some sort of form
method to collect the sensitive credit card information
through secure / encrypted channels. This is done through an
Internet protocal called SSL (acronym for "Secure
Socket Layer" meaning secure web pages). This allows
any information entered into an online form to be encrypted
both on the client and server side. When the client clicks
submit on your form, you then need a way for the information
to reach you. Many clients like to receive these form
submission via email. We recommend that you send the mail to
a local email box that is native to your domain and not
forward the mail to some unknown source. This provides extra
security for the email. You would then logon to your email
box and download any received orders.
For details of how SSL works please visit the URL listed
below. Also note that as of this email we have granted SSL
access to your Plan B domain account. details of how this
works are listed in detail at the following URL:
http://www.coastline.com/support/faqs/ssl.asp
4. Assuming the orders that you receive are valid, you can
then process the credit cards via your Cybercash account
manually. Note that Coastline highly recommends that you use
this manual method to process credit cards due to the fact
that there are many stolen or fake credit card numbers
floating around on the Internet. If you setup an automated
system, it is cause for disaster. Cybercash's interface is
very slick and easy to use, and manual transactions are
definitely the way to go.
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