Services - Ecommerce Information ||||| Richmond, Virginia Interactive Agency

eLink total ecommerce web sites include a customized storefront and web site, catalog and shopping cart, variety methods of shipping options, and more. This is the ideal solution if you have numerous products to sell and need a complete product and order taking management system. The following information is to help you better understand what is involved with ecommerce. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions or to learn how eLink can help you get started.

What is Ecommerce?
Simply put, Electronic Commerce (Ecommerce) is any business transacted electronically. Electronic commerce is the buying and selling of products and/or services over the Internet. To conduct business on the Internet, you need an ecommerce web site. An ecommerce web site can be as simple as a catalog with an order form, or it can be a complex multimedia-enabled web site with real-time credit card processing capabilities. The Internet has enabled merchants to offer their goods and services to potential customers around the world 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Ecommerce offers customers the opportunity to browse, select, and pay for goods in real time from the comfort of their own home or office.

How to get started.

Web Site (Storefront, Catalog, and Shopping Cart)

Web Site Development: Web site design and development costs will vary according to the amount of products that you want to include on your web site. We will provide a firm price after reviewing how many products you want to add as well as how much information you want to include on your web site.
Hosting: Web hosting is the term that refers to the service involving the placement of your web site onto the Internet through a computer server. Once this is done, anyone, anywhere in the World is able to access those web pages and view the information that is provided there for them.
Online Shopping Cart: This is software that is hosted on a server along with your web site. The shopping cart is the vehicle that enables you to get the ordering information from the customer. It offers a powerful array of features for any size store that is affordable and customizable.

Credit Card Processing
You must have a bank account, usually either a checking or savings account, where funds can ultimately be deposited from the sales generated from your ecommerce web site. Fees involved will vary by banking institution.

Offline Credit Card Processing: This is a good option if you currently have a Merchant Account with a local bank. Your customer's credit card information is captured and stored on our server for later authorization and transaction processing through a traditional card swipe terminal or through a computer. However, if you are clearing more than 100 transactions a month, you may want to consider the real-time payment processing option.
Real-Time Payment Processing: If you want to accept credit cards, you will need to obtain a merchant account. A merchant account is what transfers funds from the shopper's credit card to your bank account. To process credit card transactions in real time through your web site, the following is required. Open a merchant account with a financial institution. eLink recommends e-onlinedata. You will also need to sign-up with a payment gateway. For example, Card Services or CyberCash Merchant Accounts give you the ability to take Credit Card information from your prospective customers over the Internet and securely transport the information to your Merchant Account.

Secure Server for safe online ordering.
One of the biggest concerns today's consumers have is "How safe is it to shop online?" It is our goal to ensure that as a business owner, we provide you with security options to make your customers feel comfortable about shopping online at your web site. SSL (secure socket layer) is the standard encryption used on the web today. Users can see if a page is secure by looking at the bottom right side of their browser. If there is a closed lock or a solid key, then the page is secure. All our hosting customers have FREE access to our shared Secure Server Solution, allowing you to run your web pages through a shared SSL connection. This helps save money as well as offer customers a secure web site. The down side of using a shared SSL connection is that if the end-user views the SSL certificate, the name displayed will be the hosting companies and not yours. To give your web store a more professional appearance, you can obtain your own Personal SSL Certificate. Now if end-users view the certificate information, your company name will be displayed. eLink will help you with the ordering and set-up if you choose to obtain a personal SSL certificate.