Ecommerce

If you plan to sell products from your site, then you’ll need an eCommerce solution. Typically, this means a shopping cart script, as well as some type of Merchant account and payment gateway.

When it comes to shopping cart companies, we prefer to use one of two: Mals-e or osCommerce. These carts offer some of the best functionality, on both front end and back end. When you purchase a website design that includes e-commerce, we’ll do all of the shopping cart integration, for you! If you would prefer we use a different shopping cart provider, just let us know.

Setting your website up as a “store” where your customers can purchase your products online, requires a few extra components. If you also own an off-line (often referred to as “brick and mortar) store, then you probably already have a merchant account.

Merchant Account: A “bank account” established with a payment processor for the settlement of credit card transactions. Any merchant who wants to take credit card orders must establish a merchant account. Internet merchants need a ‘Card Not Present Merchant Account.’

Internet Merchants also need a payment gateway to process payments online.

Payment Gateway: A payment gateway is a service provided by a billing processor, which allows credit card information to be collected and passed over the internet. A payment gateway can be thought of as a digital equivalent to a credit card processing terminal.

If you do not have a merchant account, there are ways to accept credit cards online, without having one. The companies who offer this service generally take a percentage of each sale as the fee for using their service. Many times this can be economical for a small, start-up company. We recommend that companies with a larger sales volume set up a merchant account and gateway from the start, as the fees will generally be less in the long run.

*denotes a provider that does not require a merchant account.