The next step is to determine what payment options you'd like to offer to your customers. Credit cards? Debit cards? Purchase orders? Customer accounts? In most cases, the credit card-based e-commerce transactions are the best choice.
There are also some other exotic payment options such as WorldPay, PayPal or Neteller. These services let people draw money from their bank accounts or credit cards and send it via e-mail.

Online transactions
Here's how most credit card transactions work over the Internet:
• Authentication - It's a good practice to make sure the cards you are accepting have valid numbers, have actually been issued, and are not reported stolen.
• Authorization - This process checks whether the available funds are sufficient for the purchase. If they are, you can reserve those funds.
• Settlement - Once you've shipped the products to the customers, you let the banks know. The banks will release the funds that were previously reserved, and the money will be transferred to your account
Accepting online transactions

In order to accept online transactions you'll need the following:
• Bank account - If you have a legitimate business, you should already have such an account.
• Merchant account - This account will let you accept credit card payments.
• Subscription to an online payment gateway (optional) - This will enable your online store to automatically authenticate and authorize the credit card transactions. Alternatively, you can manually process the credit cards via your virtual terminal (most merchant account vendors will provide you with such a terminal).

e-Commerce Security

Many customers may be hesitant about submitting sensitive information, such as their credit card details, over the Internet. They might worry that someone can steal their information and fraudulently use their credit card numbers.

Fortunately, there's an encryption technology - SSL (secure sockets layer) - that can encrypt a message so that only the recipient can decrypt it. This technology is developed by RSA Security. URL's that begin with "https://" are using SSL.

To enable SSL on your web server, you'll need a digital ID (certificate) from a trusted third-party source that can vouch for your identity. Your certificate is like your passport or driver's license. It's a form of identification verifying that an established authority confirms that you really are who you claim you are. You can get a certificate from companies like Verisign, Thawte and GeoTrust.

Alternatively, if you don't want to spend extra money for your own secure certificate, you can take advantage of our shared secure server offer for only £99.99 per year.

In addition, if you need to save the credit card details of your customers (e.g. to check product availability prior to charging their credit cards), it is very important that the data be saved in an encrypted form on your server. This will guarantee that even people with access to your server will not be able to steal that information.

Halton Online Internet Services e-Commerce Packages:

Our standard e-commerce package includes the following services:
• All features/services of our standard UK web design package
• "Search our site" engine with a search tracking module
• Product catalogues
• Shopping cart with a configurable shipping and taxes calculator
• Web-based password protected inventory/orders and transactions management interface
• Integration with an online credit card processor (payment gateway) of your choice
• Promotions module, which includes:
o Support of multiple promotion campaigns
o Ability to define start/end date for each promotion
o Give-aways - you can set multiple price limits and select a give-away product and quantity for each price limit (example: if the order amount is £50 or greater then the customer would receive 3 "widgets" for free)
o Quantity discounts (as a percentage or fixed price)
o Amount discounts
• Website marketing campaign management tool
• Website usage tracking
• Website promotion consultation
• 30 days of FREE web site monitoring and maintenance
Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to request a Free e-commerce consultation !

e-Commerce (Shopping Cart) Solution

Are you considering selling products online? Do you already have a web site but no selling online capability? Don’t waste a lot of money re-developing a completely brand new e-Commerce web site. We can upgrade your existing web site with a seamless integration of a full online store ready for you to begin making a real profit from your online business.

Halton Online is proud of there technical and customer care team. Halton Online's fast and reliable network is one of the most reliable and cost-effective - and you share the benefits.

Every company promises great service. So it's in our best interests to keep you happy.

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