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What do I need to sell products/services on my web site?

Shopping Cart Software The first thing you will need to decide is what software product you would like to use for your shopping cart. Advanced Hosting offers a choice of shopping cart solutions. Miva Merchant- is a dynamic browser based storefront development and management system that allows merchants to create and administrate multiple online stores from anywhere in the world. OsCommerce- is a premium e-commerce solution which enables small to medium-sized businesses to implement a robust, secure, and professional online store.
Before you can begin to take advantage of your shopping cart software, there are a few things that you will need. Below, you will find a list of items that you will need, as well as some items that you might want to consider: Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Certificate: An SSL Certificate is what allows your web site and online store to accept information via the Internet, securely. Basically, when installed on the server where your site is being hosted, an SSL certificate will encrypt all information before transmitting it over the Internet. Without this, many people will not even shop in an online store because security of information is a major concern for Internet users. Advanced e-Resources provides two choices of SSL certificates. Our shared certificate will enable your customers to shop safely from our shared secure server. Or we can provide a private SSL certificate at a reasonable annual cost. We offer a wide selection of security certificates to meet any shopowners needs. Click Here >>> for information on how to use your secure settings in Miva Merchant. Your private certificate can be installed through your control panel or contact support if you need assistance. Our shared certificate is pre-installed and ready to use. Merchant Account: A merchant account is a type of bank account that will allow a company to accept credit cards for goods and/or services. Most banks require merchants to have a separate merchant account for online transactions. This allows them to underwrite the added risk of fraud when accepting credit cards online. Online transactions have a much greater chance to be fraudulent when compared to those done in a brick & mortar store in which the shopper presents the credit card. Payment Gateway: A payment gateway is the "middleman" between your merchant account provider (see above) and the Miva Merchant or CartXpress software. The payment gateway service is needed to automate the authorization, and capture of funds from credit cards on the Internet, but is not necessary if you will not mind manually submitting the credit cards to your merchant account provider. Advanced Hosting has partnered with Authorizenet to provide a state-of-the-art reliable payment gateway. Please contact our support team for more information. Following is the process of how a payment gateway would work with Miva Merchant or CartXpress, your merchant account provider, and the shopper in our online store: A shopper places an order in your online store, using Miva Merchant or CartXpress. The payment gateway encrypts the information entered, and sends it securely to the credit card issuer for validation and verification of available funds. An approval or decline is returned to Miva Merchant or CartXpress via the payment gateway. If approved Miva Merchant or CartXpress will provide the customer with an invoice, and may notify the merchant of a new order via e-mail. Once the order is fulfilled, either automatically or by the manual shipment of goods, a settlement request is sent via the payment gateway to the merchant account provider. The merchant account provider will then deposit the funds for the transaction from the shoppers credit card into the store owner's checking account. There are integrations bundled right into both shopping cart software solutions. This will save tons of time by letting you avoid developing the integration, yourself.