Merchant Accounts for Small Businesses
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Search Engine Optimization for Small Businesses
Internet Marketing for Small Businesses
Merchant Accounts for Small Businesses
... and other Internet alternatives
If you intend to actually sell things from your website (rather than a referral or affiliate website) the chances are that you'll want to set up a merchant account to handle real-time credit card and debit card processing.
You may well wish to approach your own High Street bank for a merchant account; either they'll operate their own merchant service or will have an associate merchant service. But there are other alternatives available that you may want to consider, and you should at least be aware of them. Whatever you decide, you must ensure that your supplier has a secure system of taking payments. In particular, you should ensure that the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) protocol is used - this means that data cannot be read by other computers as it travels between your browser/your customer's browser and the bank's own server.
To learn more about merchant accounts for small businesses click here.
Some Major Resources
WorldPay: One of the biggest Internet merchant facilities is WorldPay, and their slogan - Worldwide eCommerce Solutions, Guaranteed - gives a good account of the huge range of services they have. They offer one-stop, global e-commerce solutions for the small business up to multinational companies involving many currencies. Highly recommended. To learn more click here.
QuickpayPro: This is a wonderful system to automate your online business as well as accepting your customers' cards. They partner with their own affiliate merchant bank but they say that "Unlike other real-time ordering systems, you do not need your own merchant account. QuickPayPro is fully integrated for automation using your existing PaySystems, Revecom, 2CheckOut, or PayPal account." You can have two versions - a single product order form or full shopping cart for multiple products. This system does truly cover all the bases - it's a seamless collection of paymaster, autoresponder, affiliate manager and return-on-investment accountant. There is a 30 day trial version for $2.95, and the full version costs from $37 a month. The system is designed to enable the sale of both "real" and digital products. Click here for the trial.
ClickBank: This is highly thought of, and probably suited to the smaller to medium sized business. They are geared to digital products only. A distinguishing feature of ClickBank is that they have a good affiliate program, where other people can sell your digital products on their site. This is a real alternative if you don't want a merchant account; they accept all credit cards. There is a one-off $49.95 activation fee of your account, and they also charge $1 plus 7.5% of each sale. You can sell up to 50 products through one account.They have a large range of virtual and digital products designed for distribution by third parties. Click here for more information.
For a comprehensive list of merchant account providers click here.
Micropayments
This relatively new e-commerce phenomenon has a huge potential demand but is sadly underdeveloped. New players are constantly entering the field but, as with any market that is far from mature, care should be taken when selecting from the various options available, as a lot of these providers will surely founder at some early point. Here are just two which look at least quite promising.
To learn more, click here.
Building the Shop
There are so many "shopping cart" options for businesses who would like a strong Internet retail presence that it would be impossible to make any specific recommendations, except only to recommend that businesses have a look at all the possibilities and permutations and decide what suits them best. Actinic Catalog (www.actinic.co.uk) is probably one of the better known packages that allow you to build an on-line store, and costs £349. Extend, from Equology, is a totally web-based alternative and can be administered from anywhere, costing from £39.95 a month. For a smaller online shop there's Astrosell's Small Store package which costs £99. Shopfitter is for small to medium sized businesses and charges a small commission for each item sold.
To learn more about building your online shop click here.
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