The commercial environment is vibrant with energy as computers play a major role in trade and e-commerce, and network computing take center stage in the commercial environment.

The Steps To Setting Up An Ecommerce Site are:

  • Products: You will need to determine the products you wish to sell online. In addition you need to know what options you wish to provide with your products ex. Shirts that come in different color options (White, Gray etc.)

  • Pricing: You need to determine what prices you will be charging and if you are going to accept payments in multiple currencies (US Dollars, Canadian Dollars, Euro etc.)

  • Languages: You need to determine if you will be creating your site in other languages. This depends on whether your market is primarily English speaking or if you need to have your site in other languages such as Japanese etc.

  • Shipping: Shipping and related shipping costs need to be determined, eg. FedEx Shipping Options, UPS Shipping Options etc. You also need to determine whether Shipping costs will be determined based on whether your clients are shipping to regions of a country or to various parts of the world.

  • Merchant Account: A Merchant Account is an industry term meaning a banking relationship which allows a business to accept credit cards. Existing businesses that already have an established Merchant Account with the Bank need to make sure that the same Merchant Account is acceptable for Internet Transactions. It is also important to find out the gateways over which the bank conducts its transactions. Smaller businesses that have not yet established the banking relationships necessary to accept credit cards should do so.
  • Payment Gateways: Payment Gateways process the cards in real-time. The most popular gateways are:
    • CyberCash
    • AuthorizeNet
    • GoRealTime
    • Signio
    • Linkpoint

  • Shopping Cart:: The shopping cart that you select must meet all of your requirements. In addition it must be scalable so that as you grow and adjust your marketing you are able to offer different options to your clients. It may happen (though rarely) that your ecommerce requirements are unique and that existing commercial shopping carts may not meet your needs. In such cases a shopping cart can be designed to meet your needs. However most commerically available shopping carts are feature rich, scalable and can be varied to meet individual needs. Selection of the right shopping cart makes the difference between a good working ecommerce site and a frustrating one.

  • Secure Server: All forms that accept credit cards must use SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) to encrypt credit card information. If you are using a payment gateway generally the gateway will provide the SSL certificates. At other instances, RaQport provides you the option of using a shared certificate or ordering and installing your own certificate for your company.