What You Need To Do Business Online

What You Need to do Business Online


Are you ready to do business online? There are
many things that you need to make sure you have,
to ensure flexibility and security for your online
store. In this article, we will outline the basics of
bringing your business online.


Shopping Cart Software There are several different
solutions that you should consider for your shopping
cart software that we will go over here. First off,
you can open a Yahoo Store. This is a good solution
for people without much technical knowledge, and doesn't
take too much to set up. However, you need a lot of
flexibility, you should probably consider another
solution. My personal favorite is osCommerce.


This is an open source (so its free!) shopping cart solution
with a big, very active community to help you out along
the way. Your host will need to have PHP and MySQL for
osCommerce to function. It is very simple to run an
unmodified version of osCommerce. You just download it,
upload it to your server, and run the web-based install,
or if you have Fantastico, you can automatically install
it from there. There is a web-based administration backend
allowing you to add products to your store and edit
configuration settings. There are many contributions that
you can install to customize your store, but minimal
knowledge of PHP is needed.


I think that osCommerce is a great solution for many people.
Another popular shopping cart is Miva Merchant Pro. Unlike
osCommerce, this one isn't free, but there are hosts who can
license it to you at a monthly rate. This can be a very costly
solution, but they do have many very happy users of the program.
There is a clean GUI (graphical user interface) and a nice administrative
backend. Both osCommerce and Miva Merchant Pro require you
to find a web host, but with Yahoo Stores you are hosted
directly by Yahoo.


Merchant Account This is a necessity of any ecommerce business,
because you need to be able to take payment in your store.
There are several different ways you can go here. You can either
go with a 3rd party processor, or a true merchant account which
is built into your shopping cart. The most well-known 3rd party
processors are Paypal and 2CheckOut. If you are going with Paypal,
I would strongly recommend you have another payment processor as
well. There are many users who won't buy from someone who only
accepts Paypal, but then again there are users who would only go
with someone who accepted Paypal.


Personally, I'd recommend using Paypal and a merchant account.
A merchant account makes your store a lot more professional, and
gives you more flexibility. There is a unique company that you can
get a merchant account from called ProPay. You get a "virtual credit
card terminal" and there are no monthly fees, just a low annual fee.


Web Host If you have a website, you need a web host! For most
shopping carts, you will need PHP and MySQL, so make sure that you
look for hosts that support the technology that you need. If you
go with a Yahoo Store, your hosting is taken care of by Yahoo. If
you choose osCommerce, Miva Merchant Pro, or another shopping cart
program, you will need to find a web host.


If you plan on collecting credit cart numbers directly on your website,
you will need a SSL certificate. To have a SSL certificate, you need
a dedicated IP address. Most hosts will offer you a dedicated IP address
for an extra monthly price. You can get a SSL certificate for $29.99 at
GoDaddy (http://godaddy.com) and several other hosting sites or you can
get this included at Beryl P Hosting on most hosting packages.