Online Store “What do I Need”

Many small business owners would like an online store to sell their products or services and receive payment by credit cards. We have been asked by small business owners “What do I need to setup an online store” as they don’t fully understand it. An online store that accepts credit cards require multiple components to make it operational.

1. You need a domain name (a web address - www.mystorename.com)
2. You need hosting (a place on a web server that holds your Shopping cart and files)
3. You need a Shopping Cart (web interface to post items and descriptions)
4. You need a merchant account (interface between your shopping cart and the bank or credit card company)
5. You need a bank or credit card company (to process the credit card transactions and link to your bank account for deposits)
6. You need SSL certificate for security and encryption (banks and credit card company require your shopping cart site is secure)

To setup an online store you would need to own or purchase a domain name, hosting, shopping cart, merchant account, SSL certificate and apply to a bank or credit card company to process the credit card transactions.
 
The above are straight forward and relatively inexpensive until you get to the Bank or Credit Card Company. Most banks and credit card companies charge an application fee, a monthly fee and transaction fees. Transaction fees usually vary based on the amount of transactions per month. An example would be if you processed $5,000.00 a month from your online store the banks might charge you 5% of each transaction they process. If you processed $50,000.00 a month from your online store the banks might charge you 3% of each transaction they process and if you processed $100,000.00 a month from your online store the banks might charge you 1.9% of each transaction they process. The fees in this example are not meant to be accurate as banks and credit card companies offer different transaction fees that can vary from bank to bank.
 
Credit card processing can be expensive for most small business owners so we offer several other options like PayPal, COD or manual payments in the setup and purchase of our Shopping Cart® that may be a better cost solution.  We also offer many FREE products with the purchase of Shopping Cart® like FREE hosting and FREE 24/7 Support.http://www.snswebsitedesign.com/products/website_products.html