Ecommerce is the term used to describe the selling of goods and services over the Internet. In the most general sense, simply creating a Web site that advertises and promotes your products can be considered “ecommerce.” In recent years, however, ecommerce has become much more sophisticated.

Ecommerce businesses now offer elaborate online stores where customers can browse thousands of products, place an order, select the desired shipping method and pay for their purchases using their credit cards.

If you are reading this, you are probably already half-sold on the idea of extending your business online. Online sales in the coming year are expected to total at least £7 billion, and that's a conservative estimate; as more people world-wide gain access to the Internet, ecommerce and online shopping will become second nature to consumers and businesses alike. Can you afford to open an online store? With our Ecommerce plans, you can launch your online store and take your business into the information age—for a lot less than you think.

With Ecosse Online's Ecommerce plans, all you need to set up your online store is the browser you are using to view this page. If you know how to point and click, you're ready to start.
 

No, you don't. The bundled shopping carts are also store building tools. You don't need to know any HTML or Web programming. We provide you with two options in OsCommerce and Miva both of which help you format a store without any prior HTML knowledge. However, integrating the store with your Web site will require some HTML or Web editing knowledge and we are here to assist you with this.

You can sell any number of products on your site, from just a few items to thousands. Once you decide how many products you want to sell, you can pick the hosting plan that best meets your needs. For detailed information on the different plans, visit Hosting Packages or contact us.

When you chose a plan, be sure to consider how your site and your product offerings may grow in the future, as well as what advanced features and functionalities you want to offer your customers. For example, you may want to provide a search feature that lets your customers search for a specific product. You want to be sure that the plan you choose will be able to accommodate your growth and your changing needs as your customer base expands and your traffic increases.

Ecosse Online's Ecommerce packages allow you to sell any products you wish. Live Streaming music would be an issue depending on the size of package you purchased as all your traffic, downloads, transfers etc will eat into your bandwidth usage.

Our hosting plans are very affordable and each is available with OsCommerce and Miva as standard. The Miva package costs are up to your selection of the licensing package you take through Miva - we make the package and software available for easy and automated installation but you have to choose the licensing plan via Miva.. The OsCommerce package is an Open Source free shopping cart system which again is easy and automatically installed using your Admin Panel so there are no installation or ongoing fees with this. You may need to develop this package to your requirements and design structure to fit in with your website and this may cost you with employing a developer if you cannot do this yourself. We can provide the additional development you require over and above the default setup provided with the basic installation. The default OsCommerce package works 'out of the box' but you undoubtedly want to change the look of the store and other areas where you need the package to fulfill your business requirements.

There are no minimum time constraints on any package you take through us. The billing cycle is monthly and if you supply us with 30 days cancellation notice your billing will cease and the package disabled and deleted - ensure you have transferred all critical data and files prior to the final cancellation date otherwise they will be deleted and irrecoverable..

There may be other costs associated with an online store. For example, if you want to be able to accept credit cards and process those transactions online in realtime, you will need a merchant account and a payment gateway service. Typically, there are initial setup fees as well as on-going costs for these services that will be in addition to your hosting costs. There are other options such as PayPal which can offer you the convenience of secure transactions without having to setup a merchant account. Another alternative is manual credit card processing if you have a retail shop or premises with an existing terminal card terminal. There are options but security is the real issue both for you and the customer. You need to ensure all data is secure both at transaction level and in the data you retain for your records and to protect yourself against fraudulent transactions and chargebacks.

Once you place your order online, you can start building your store within 24 to 72 hours. This is the time needed to activate your domain name (if it is new) and to spread information around the world about the physical location of your site on the Internet. If you have a new domain name, this process takes 24 to 48 hours; if you are transferring your domain from another hosting provider, it takes 48 to 72 hours. For more information, see the Domain Name FAQ.

Once you start building the site, it doesn't take long. Sites with just a few products can be set up in less than an hour. For most stores, however, it takes from a few hours to several days. One day is about average for our customers.

Yes. Ecosse Online makes it easy for you to add ecommerce to your site. All our packages include OsCommerce and Miva and you can integrate other shopping systems such as ClickCart Pro easily within the web space and database capacity your hosting package provides.  All our servers are Linux based and we do not offer any Windows or ASP based shopping cart facilities.

Once you have built your online store, you can easily integrate it into your existing site by either providing a link to your new store front or incorporating your products into your existing site’s pages.

You have a number of options for handling transactions. The most basic approach is to handle all of your transactions offline. For example, you could publish your address and have your customers send their orders along with a check or money order directly to you. You could also collect your customers’ credit card information via email or phone and then process the credit card transactions offline using your retail merchant account.

These are probably not the best approaches, though, because one the main reasons customers shop at an online store is for the speed and convenience it provides.

To increase the chances that customers will want to shop at your online store, it should be able to accept and process credit card transactions online and in “real time.” You can handle your own online transactions or outsource them to a third-party credit card processor.

Alternatively you can use commonly accepted payment processors such as PayPal who can provide you with secure payment facilities for a percentage of the transaction. With this option you do not need a merchant gateway and the secure handling of the transaction is done off your site.

If you want to be able to accept credit cards but do not want to handle these yourself, you can use a third-party online credit card processor. When your customers want to purchase a product, they click a link that takes them to the third-party’s Web site. There, they will submit their order and credit card information, which is then processed by the third-party processor. Essentially, these processors act as resellers. They may charge you a variety of fees for this service, including an initial set up fee, monthly fees and/or per-transaction fees.

While outsourcing your online transactions may seem appealing, you should consider the fact that it will be obvious to your customers that their transactions are being handled not by your company but by a third-party.

If you want to handle online credit card transactions yourself, you will need an Internet-ready merchant account, a payment gateway service and an SSL certificate.

A merchant account enables you to accept credit cards as payment for the purchase of goods and services. There are different types of merchant accounts. For example, if you have a traditional “brick and mortar” store, you can get a retail merchant account. If you want to accept credit cards on your Web site, however, you need a specialise type of merchant account known as an “Internet-ready” merchant account.

Internet-ready merchant accounts enable you to handle Internet transactions in "real time" without any human intervention. Because the risk of credit card fraud is greater when you are accepting credit cards over the Internet, these specialised merchant accounts also provide additional checks that can significantly reduce the chance of credit card fraud. Once the transactions are processed, the merchant account provider transfers the funds received from the credit card transactions from your merchant account to your bank account.

A number of companies offer Internet-ready merchant accounts and your own bank will have its preferred merchant account provider. You are free to choose any merchant account provider, as long as they support one of the following payment methods:

•	CyberSource
•	Authorize.Net
•	LinkPoint/Cardservice
•	VeriSign (PaymentNet)

 

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I already have a merchant account. Can I use it with Ecosse Online's ecommerce plans?

•	CyberSource
•	Authorize.Net
•	LinkPoint/Cardservice
•	VeriSign (PaymentNet)

 

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What is a payment gateway? How do I find one?

 

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How can I assure my customers that their transactions are secure?

 

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What is SSL?

 

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What is an SSL Certificate? How do I get one?