http://www.practicalecommerce.com/topic/17/Shopping-Carts--Online-Payments/ Articles covering ecommerce shopping cart platforms and options for choosing an online payment gateway. en-us Copyright 2007 Confluence Publishing Mon, 05 May 2008 15:28:41 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/rss/ Practical Ecommerce v2.0.1 Ecommerce kmurdock@practicalecommerce.com bgetting@practicalecommerce.com 60 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/727/Many-Effective-Tools-to-Detect-Stolen-Credit-Cards-Part-3-of-3/ This is the third and final installment in a series outlining and explaining tools to identify and prevent credit card fraud. Previously, we discussed different methods of verification and geographic order tracking. Here are a few more methods you can use to combat fraud. Fraud scoring systems Through custom-built software or made-to-order fraud scoring services, results of the previous tests on good orders are scored and averaged. Every incoming order is then compared against that average, and given a rating of 1 to 100 with 100 being the highest. Points are given for different elements of a transaction, from IP Address, to free e-mail account, to time of day (most cases of fraud occur between midnight and 2 a.m., according to one source), AVS results, amount of sale, type of products ordered, shipment method, different shipping/billing address, certain zip codes, indicative browsing patterns, and so on. Merchants can set their own rules, lowering a score if the country isn't... Mon, 05 May 2008 15:28:41 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/727/Many-Effective-Tools-to-Detect-Stolen-Credit-Cards-Part-3-of-3/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/725/Effective-Tools-to-Detect-Stolen-Credit-Cards-Part-2-Of-3/ Many online merchants are already on board with fraud-detection technology. To fill in the gaps, here is part two of a comprehensive list of fraud detection strategies. Previously we discussed authorization and address and credit card verification. Here are five more ways to catch fraudsters in the act. Telephone verification The telephone number can be used for several fraud checks. First, the area code can be cross-checked against the address, to see if the two match. "I use WhitePages.com's 'Reverse Lookup' tool for that," says Michelle Rahm, owner of the jewelry selling site JewelryImpressions.com. "It's free and easy." Phone numbers also can be used by merchant-initiated services such as VariLogiX, PhoneConfirm, StrikeIron and MaxMind to automatically place a call. The person on the other end of the line is given a 4-digit code and then must enter that code into the order form. The payment process can proceed if the correct code is entered. Fraudsters notified of... Mon, 05 May 2008 10:27:45 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/725/Effective-Tools-to-Detect-Stolen-Credit-Cards-Part-2-Of-3/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/722/Effective-Tools-to-Detect-Stolen-Credit-Cards-Part-1-Of-3/ There are hundreds of branded tools that ecommerce merchants can turn to for help in catching fraudulent credit card orders. Some tools are free, and some come bundled or offered as additional features in payment processing systems like Authorize.net and Google Checkout. Others can be subscribed to, purchased as software or outsourced. As yet there doesn't appear to be any all-in-one solution, although some come close. Many online merchants are already on board with fraud detection technology. The average merchant uses 4.4 fraud detection tools according to the 2008 "Online Fraud Report" from CyberSource, a major electronic payment and risk management solution provider. The trick is to wade through all of the tools to determine which ones are best for your type of sales, your type of data storage and your type of customer. These articles should give you a sense of where to start or what you might be missing. Online merchants are one step ahead of the game if they can catch... Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:05:04 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/722/Effective-Tools-to-Detect-Stolen-Credit-Cards-Part-1-Of-3/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/723/PCI-Compliance-Is-Industry-Self-Regulation/ The major credit card companies, Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express, have collaborated on minimum payment-processing security requirements. These requirements make up the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). Merchants and merchant account providers who work with each of those four credit card companies must follow these standards. In that sense, the PCI standard is not law, but industry self-regulation steps that the credit card companies have adopted. We asked a PCI compliance expert, Sweta Duseja, to explain these standards to us. Duseja is Product Marketing Manager for nCircle, a security risk and compliance management firm. PeC: PCI compliance is not a law, but self-regulation by the credit card industry. Can you explain? DUSEJA: Many different industries have requirements that dictate security and privacy. Some of these are laws and regulations - mandates passed by federal government and by individual state governments - and others are... Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:27:26 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/723/PCI-Compliance-Is-Industry-Self-Regulation/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/721/Interview-AuthorizeNet-President-On-Fraud-Prevention/ Authorize.Net, a CyberSource Solution, is a leading payment gateway company with many years experience in combating credit card fraud. We asked Roy Banks, President of Authorize.Net, about common errors that merchants make with fraud prevention. PeC: What's the biggest fraud-prevention mistake made by ecommerce merchants? BANKS: Failure to use the Address Verification Service. It's a free option from most payment gateway companies and will potentially lower a merchant's processing costs when used. Unfortunately, many merchants don't use it. Another common mistake is merchants don't always require the card verification code from the cardholder at the time of sale. This is also a service that is free from most payment gateway providers. By using both AVS and Card Verification Code, merchants will be able to better detect and prevent thieves who attempt to purchase with a stolen credit card number. PeC: Where can a merchant turn if he's confused or has questions related to... Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:11:16 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/721/Interview-AuthorizeNet-President-On-Fraud-Prevention/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/720/Credit-Card-Fraud-How-Big-Is-The-Problem/ Reports of website data breaches, identity theft and credit card fraud are increasingly in the news. But is the problem as widespread as the coverage suggests? Anyone who collects payments or customer information online runs the risk of being targeted by thieves. However, the likelihood of being hit by a virtual shoplifter is statistically on the decline. Meanwhile, industry watchers say that rather than an influx of database hacking, it's the new breach reporting laws, enacted in many states, which account for the recent surge in reported breach activity. Indeed, merchants who maintain and regularly update their security procedures for credit-card data and processing seem to mitigate their risks. For now, let's tackle this question: What is the scope of credit card-related fraud and the subsequent impact on an e-merchant? In 2000, North American e-merchants lost an average 3.6 percent of their sales to stolen or fraudulent credit cards. In 2007, that figure was down to 1.4... Wed, 23 Apr 2008 14:42:20 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/720/Credit-Card-Fraud-How-Big-Is-The-Problem/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/714/Protect-Customers-Data-Or-Lose-Your-Business/ Back-end store security: It's the most important, yet the oft-overlooked parameter of running an online business. Without securing customer data, you have no claim to running a legitimate business. I often hear excuses of ignorance, which makes me wonder how many online store owners take the time to read the latest ecommerce news and even merchant account information that comes in the mail? But it doesn't matter. You'll learn now, and you'll commit-right now-to taking the steps to make it right. I've my own gripes and rants about the lack of attention to security, and they're vast. So I've picked a few key points and will preface with this fact: Nearly 80 percent of the online stores, upon my first entry, compromise customer information and sensitive sales information. Most heed to the warnings, but I have had to outright refuse to work on stores that ignored recommendations and continued to violate either legal or moral issues when it comes to security. Forget about what a... Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:00:37 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/714/Protect-Customers-Data-Or-Lose-Your-Business/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/709/Quick-Query-PayPal-Exec-On-Payment-Disputes/ Many ecommerce merchants allow customers to pay for their products using PayPal, the popular payment service that's owned by eBay. But some of these merchants say PayPal unfairly sides with customers if the customers dispute legitimate purchases. We asked Colin Rule, PayPal's Director of Online Dispute Resolution, about this assertion, and how, exactly, PayPal resolves disputes between ecommerce merchants and their customers. PeC: If an ecommerce customer pays for a legitimate product using PayPal and then decides he doesn't like it and complains to PayPal, what will PayPal do? RULE: In cases where the buyer is simply disappointed in the item, we would encourage the buyer to work directly with the seller. PayPal does offer buyer protection, but this protection covers buyers for items that they didn't receive and for items that are significantly not as described. It does not cover cases where the buyer is merely disappointed with the item or where the item did not meet the... Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:04:45 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/709/Quick-Query-PayPal-Exec-On-Payment-Disputes/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/690/Pay-per-click-Ads-Impact-Google-Checkout-and-PayPal/ If you're running an ecommerce store, you've probably heard of PayPal and Google Checkout. The following is a quick rundown of things you might not have known about the two. Google Checkout You can process 10 times your ad spend in Google AdWords for free. For example, if you're spending about $3,000 per month in AdWords, you can process up to $30,000 in website sales with zero transaction fees. If you hook up your AdWords account to your Google Checkout account, you will be eligible to display a badge on your pay-per-click ad. It really will make your ad stand out. See for yourself: type "toys" in Google.com. See that Toys R Us ad with the Google Checckout logo? Google Checkout offers almost seamless integration with some popular carts out there. Check out Checkout.google.com/seller/integrate_cart.html for more information. You're also able to accept payments via Google Checkout on the mobile version of your site. If your customers have existing credit card... Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:07:39 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/690/Pay-per-click-Ads-Impact-Google-Checkout-and-PayPal/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/552/Debate-Hosted-Shopping-Carts-Perfect-For-Most-Entrepreneurs/ 1ShoppingCart is a hosted shopping cart with thousands of small business customers. Michael Valiant, 1ShoppingCart's product management and marketing specialist, offers his views on hosted cart solutions. PeC: Why should an ecommerce business consider a hosted shopping cart, versus purchasing a one-time cart license? Valiant: A hosted solution ensures quick implementation and turn around, inclusive security, 24/7 monitoring, no investment in infrastructure, full and continued support, regular automatic and free software upgrades, a maintenance free environment, easy data management accessible from anywhere in the world and a generally more robust system. Hosted solutions are responsible for the entire infrastructure, as well as maintaining the safe and smooth operation of merchant’s data and order processing. It's fully prepared to deal with any emergency situations that may occur with its merchants' businesses online. A hosted solution is perfect for most... Mon, 27 Aug 2007 13:40:46 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/552/Debate-Hosted-Shopping-Carts-Perfect-For-Most-Entrepreneurs/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/551/Debate-Licensed-Carts-Offer-Flexibility-and-Portability/ ProductCart is a licensed shopping cart used by thousands of ecommerce merchants. We asked its CEO, Massimo Arrigoni, whether licensed shopping-cart software is better for smaller businesses than hosted cart solutions. PeC: Why should an ecommerce business consider a licensed shopping cart, versus a hosted cart?
 Arrigoni: Flexibility, portability, and cost. In many cases a licensed shopping cart allows you to modify the system to better meet your needs, which gives you tremendous flexibility. Flexibility not only to alter an existing feature to address a specific scenario, but also to add new functionality over time or integrate third-party solutions as your business grows. A licensed shopping cart is also portable: You choose where to host it and can bring it with you if you change your web hosting company. On the cost side, a shopping cart is normally a medium-term investment (at least 2-3 years using the same solution): Multiply the monthly fee of a hosted solution... Mon, 27 Aug 2007 12:15:48 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/551/Debate-Licensed-Carts-Offer-Flexibility-and-Portability/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/518/Lowering-Shopping-Cart-Abandonment/ As an ecommerce owner, you always want to make the checkout process as quick and smooth as possible for your own ecommerce customers. Here’s a quick checklist of simple website changes that could help you lower shopping cart abandonment. Prominent “Add to Cart” button Make sure that a “add to cart” button is prominent on the product page. If you must have other action buttons, make them secondary (make them smaller, a different color, etc.). If “add to cart” is intended as a primary action on your product pages, you have to visually communicate that to the user. Reliability Elements Since users can’t really walk up to your store to see who you really are, you’ll have to prove you’re trustworthy through others means. Third-party endorsements from such organizations as the Better Business Bureau or any other industry organizations are great. The idea is to relieve any tension associated with not knowing who they’ll be buying from. Short Checkout... Wed, 11 Jul 2007 11:06:29 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/518/Lowering-Shopping-Cart-Abandonment/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/512/Quick-Query-Alternative-Payment-Option-eBillme/ Marwan Forzley is president and CEO of online payment alternative eBillme (Modasolutions.com), formerly known as SECURE-eBill. How does a consumer use eBillme? Forzley: When you are at the checkout, there are all kinds of payment options. You've got Visa, MasterCard and American Express. eBillme is presented next to the credit cards. When you click on it, it takes the order information and presents you an ebill on the screen on your browser and sends you a copy of that ebill via email. The consumer then logs into his bank and pays the merchant through the consumer's bank's online bill payment option. It sounds like how I might pay my electric bill through my bank. Is that correct? Forzley: People know how to use their bank's bill payment option, so we are really just tapping into that behavior, enabling consumers to not only pay the utility bill using online banking, but to pay their favorite merchant. Is it as simple as going to my online bank and adding a new... Wed, 27 Jun 2007 10:34:50 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/512/Quick-Query-Alternative-Payment-Option-eBillme/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/497/Is-Your-Website-Ready-For-The-Holiday-Shopping-Season/ Anyone’s who has talked with me for any given amount of time will tell you I’m adamant about testing sites for security and navigation. Summer is the perfect time to plot out upcoming holiday season sales campaigns, and it’s also the time to make sure things are running smoothly. With an ever-growing number of people shopping online, comes a vast amount of new online stores, some of which will likely be competitors. It pays to be more than just the guy who offers a better deal. You’ve got to be better overall, right down to design elements, customer guidance and tools that give online shoppers a sense of security. Here are my top 10 things to look for when determining if your store will be ready for the biggest holiday shopping season ever: 1. SSL – Make sure it’s working and that no errors are present. Fix all errors as they are found. A dedicated SSL certificate lends more credibility to your business. 2. Navigation – Customers need to be able to browse the... Wed, 06 Jun 2007 13:45:12 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/497/Is-Your-Website-Ready-For-The-Holiday-Shopping-Season/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/487/Online-Payment-Alternative-Bill-Me-Later/ Vince Talbert is the vice president of marketing for I4 Commerce (pronounced "eye four commerce"), a company offering the online payment alternative Bill Me Later at I4commerce.com. What does Bill Me Later provide to customers? It is a payment option designed so customers can make purchases online without having to use credit cards. A customer simply checks the Bill Me Later option, and he will be sent a bill in the mail. If the billing comes later, how does the merchant know he/she will be paid for the product purchased? When the consumer is approved by Bill Me Later, the merchant knows that he is covered for that transaction. The merchant will get paid by Bill Me Later for that transaction, so he will go ahead and ship those goods to the consumer. That night, when the merchant settles his transactions through his existing payment processor — much as he would do with Visa and Mastercard transactions — he will get full payment for that purchase, minus the transaction fees... Thu, 24 May 2007 08:18:28 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/487/Online-Payment-Alternative-Bill-Me-Later/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/469/Analysis-The-New-PayPal/ To more than 50 million users, PayPal used to signify a peer-to-peer payment exchange that relied largely on email notifications. Not anymore. While PayPal still stands as one of the most recognized brands in the ecommerce world, it’s no longer a single payment system: It's a suite of different payment options that can assist merchants to start accepting payments online or enhance their existing payment functions. What are they? How do they differ from each other? Which ones should you use, if any? Let's take a look. 1. Website Payments Standard uses PayPal’s own website to process payments for you. Customers temporarily leave your store and pay on the PayPal website, with or without a credit card (e.g. they might use their PayPal account, which contains funds deposited from their checking account). Customers are taken back to your website at the end of the transaction. 2. Website Payments Pro combines two payment systems: * Direct Payments, whereby customers pay at... Thu, 26 Apr 2007 09:19:03 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/469/Analysis-The-New-PayPal/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/463/What-Do-You-Dislike-About-Your-Shopping-Cart/ RON JONAS, SALES AND SYSTEMS DESIGN WEBSITE: Soapequipment.com SELLS: Equipment for the handcrafted body care products industry ANSWER: We offer live UPS shipping rates, but for some reason 1ShoppingCart is only set up for commercial rates. It should default to residential rates. I would guess there are five residential buyers to each commercial buyer on the web, probably more. Why any shopping cart would neglect this very important requirement is beyond me. We even provided the one line of code from UPS Support that was needed to set it up. We have been through three carts, and they all had major failings in one way or another for the poor shopping sense they created. MARK ENRIQUEZ, OWNER WEBSITE: Usflowerhaus.com SELLS: Flowers and gifts ANSWER: Being a full-time software developer, I choose osCommerce 2.2 as the shopping cart solution for my site, and I have done extensive PHP modifications to the standard system. What I least like about it is that the 2.2 version still... Wed, 18 Apr 2007 14:37:13 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/463/What-Do-You-Dislike-About-Your-Shopping-Cart/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/397/What-You-Didnt-Know-About-Payment-Systems/ What you don't know can truly hurt your online business. This has never been more true than when you set out to choose an Internet payment systems. It's not so much that making a wrong decision can harm your business irreparably (although, it can); it's that there is so much information to process before you commit to a payment gateway and merchant account provider. A Quick Review of the Basics Payment systems — if we may simplify a bit — are the combination of a payment gateway and a merchant account that allow customers to buy goods and services online, and that allow an ecommerce business to process transactions and collect money. If your accounting model is such that your online business must be integrated with an existing enterprise billing system, then payment systems can reflect that need as well. For our purposes, though, we'll refer to payment gateways and merchant accounts. According to Webopedia.com, a payment gateway is the "service that automates the payment... Wed, 17 Jan 2007 10:09:09 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/397/What-You-Didnt-Know-About-Payment-Systems/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/376/Fraud-Proofing-Your-Ebiz/ I know a business that had its website hacked: Its entire customer database was hijacked and thousands of customer credit card numbers were stolen at the same time. In the following months, the hackers did their best to steal as much as they could from this business through a number of "phishing" scams and direct email campaigns to the customers, all while posing as the legitimate business. After months of heartache, expense and lost sleep, this company cleaned up the mess and the hackers moved on to greener pastures. What's the lesson for all of us? Whether you operate a multimillion dollar ecommerce empire or generate part-time income with a small eBay or ebook enterprise, the following tips will help you fraud-proof your online business before it's too late. • Protect Your Passwords Never share passwords for sensitive applications such as web hosting, email, PayPal, bank accounts or anything else with anyone. If you must share hosting passwords with web... Mon, 11 Dec 2006 08:55:00 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/376/Fraud-Proofing-Your-Ebiz/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/363/Lowering-Cart-Abandonment/ With shopping cart abandonment at a high level, ecommerce owners continue to look for ways to motivate shoppers to complete the checkout process. Research from Shop.org indicates shoppers abandon their cart during checkout more than 75 percent of the time. Imagine 75 percent of the grocery carts half full at the local supermarket abandoned in the aisles. In fact, an IconMediaLab study notes the average online retailer fails to convert 97 percent of online customers to online buyers. While studies conflict as to the actual percentage of online shopping carts abandoned by consumers, nearly all experts agree - online retailers have much to improve upon in this area. Online sales are the Niagara Falls of shopping trends today. According to a comScore report, in 2005, online sales totaled $81.6 billion, up 24 percent from $65.8 billion in 2004. When you include other venues of online revenue, such as travel, the numbers jump significantly, to $143.2 billion in 2005, a 22 percent... Fri, 01 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/363/Lowering-Cart-Abandonment/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/318/AuctionCheckoutcoms-John-Waldron-and-Sloane-Bouchever/ What makes AuctionCheckout different from PayPal? In the PayPal environment today, if you're selling, the funds from your transactions are going into your PayPal account. PayPal is not a financial institution. They can freeze those funds. AuctionCheckout “Blue” is an auction-checkout technology that will fund directly into your local checking account, because you have your own merchant account. What does AuctionCheckout “Blue” provide that's of real merit? We see small to mid-sized merchants branching into sales on auction environments like eBay and Overstock auctions. AuctionCheckout “Blue” enables merchants to use their existing ecommerce merchant account and payment gateway to offer an automated checkout process directly from within their auctions. The seller can basically use whatever existing ecommerce infrastructure they have along with the AuctionCheckout system, and not have to funnel their customers off to a third-party system like PayPal. Can... Sun, 01 Oct 2006 01:40:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/318/AuctionCheckoutcoms-John-Waldron-and-Sloane-Bouchever/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/303/Product-Images-Matter/ One distinct advantage to a brick-and-mortar store has over a business in the virtual world is that customers can touch the products on the racks and shelves at the local mall. Local retailers know that if they can get you to touch a product, you are more likely to leap from shopper to buyer. Using quality images on a site is important because that’s the closest your customer is going to get to your products. Adding the technology to your site that allows you to zoom into an image to see details, pan across the image to get a fuller view or rotate an image 360 degrees to see the product at every angle, helps bring to life what once was a one-dimensional image. Equilibrium (www.equilibrium.com) is one company in the marketplace that automates imaging solutions and offers various display options including zoom and pan features. Sean Barger, CEO of Equilibrium, says there’s been a number of studies showing that people are more likely to buy a product if they can see the... Sun, 01 Oct 2006 00:15:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/303/Product-Images-Matter/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/277/The-Rising-Tide-of-Alternative-Payment-Systems/ Alternative-payment systems are flowing into the payment processing industry. During the last two years, many new options have been announced, re-announced, tested, trialed, released or re-released. Many others are in development. Marc Abbey, a Partner of First Annapolis Consulting, said this innovative surge in alternative payments means that firms processing credit-card transactions (Independent Sales Organizations or ISOs) and merchant-level salespeople (MLSs) will have greater sources of revenue, but their businesses will also be more complex. “The development of alternative payment systems is well ahead of merchant demand at this time,” Abbey said. “So it is an extremely difficult time for ISOs and MLSs to pick the winners and losers. Most of these companies are completely speculative right now.” Ken Musante, president of Humboldt Merchant Services, agreed. “Which one of these systems the consumers will accept will be the driving force for which solutions... Fri, 01 Sep 2006 01:05:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/277/The-Rising-Tide-of-Alternative-Payment-Systems/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/276/Shopping-Cart-Checklist/ We’ve assembled a checklist to help you narrow your shopping cart requirements. The checklist is divided into six areas: function, shipping issues, payment processing, support, technical considerations and report generation. Function Is there a limit to the number of categories or products? Does the shopping cart support inventory tracking? Does the shopping cart have an affiliate program? Does the shopping cart have gift-certificate or discount-coupon options? Is the cart search-engine friendly, and can it be improved and modified? Is there a quick-buy feature or do customers need to register? Shipping Issues Do you need to determine shipping based on weight or by price range? Does the cart have UPS/USPS/FedEx integration? Payment Processing What kinds of payment gateways are supported? Can the cart support non credit-card and offline-payment options? How does the cart determine sales taxes? Support Does the cart supplier provide a... Fri, 01 Sep 2006 01:04:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/276/Shopping-Cart-Checklist/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/275/The-Future-of-Ecommerce-Solutions/ Given the trends in the marketplace, what do you see on the horizon for ecommerce solutions? This is such a dynamic field. Every day is a new day in the world of ecommerce. We see a lot of things, and looking in the near future, there are many different things that I think may happen. One of the things I certainly see happening is the decline of the revenue-share business model. A lot of the packaged and hosted providers have revenue-share pricing models. I personally believe that, over time, we’ll see a major decline. That is already happening because we see a lot of larger merchants, particularly, moving away from those providers because they are not happy and willing to share a percentage of the order value. A flat-fee pricing structure based on usage is likely to continue gaining prominence. I also see a lot of multichannel integration happening. Right now, most of the ecommerce and shopping-cart providers are focused on a more pure-play, Internetbased solution.... Fri, 01 Sep 2006 01:03:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/275/The-Future-of-Ecommerce-Solutions/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/273/Hosted-Shopping-Cart-Solutions/ How would you describe the merits of a hosted solution compared to various software solutions that are in the marketplace? I think it starts with the fundamental premise that people start businesses to sell products and services to customers, not necessarily deal with computer IT (information technology) issues. I think a great advantage of hosted solutions is that it removes a lot of headaches that you need to deal with on the IT side: There’s zero installation, there’s zero administration, you don’t need to know about patches, you don’t need to know about security holes, you don’t need to know about network operations, you don’t need to know about this techno-babble stuff that most small businesses don’t necessarily need or want to know about. You get scalability. You get reliability. You get load balancing if your business is a little more cyclical and you sell more during Christmas season. The really, really big merchants, who can absorb all this cost and can... Fri, 01 Sep 2006 01:02:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/273/Hosted-Shopping-Cart-Solutions/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/272/Getting-to-the-Heart-of-the-Cart/ If you came to this article hoping we’d tell you exactly which shopping cart you should choose for your business, you will be disappointed. We don’t know. However, thanks to the expertise of a pair of industry veterans, the process of choosing a shopping cart is about to get easier for online-business owners. It starts with an understanding of what types of shopping carts are available. For example, www.shopping-cart-reviews.com, managed by Australian Mark Baartse, features information and reviews of 157 shopping carts. “I find that people are overwhelmed by the choice,” he said. “There are just so many products out there that people get confused and flustered, I guess, which is one of the reasons I created my site in the first place.” Baartse said his hope is that ecommerce entrepreneurs might utilize the information on www.shopping-cart-reviews.com to narrow their choice to two or three applications. However, don’t bother asking this Aussie which shopping cart... Fri, 01 Sep 2006 01:01:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/272/Getting-to-the-Heart-of-the-Cart/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/274/Shopping-Cart-Software-Solutions/ What are some distinctive characteristics of shopping carts that you might share with a new ecommerce business? I’d say everything has a place. Yahoo! Stores has over 150,000 merchants now so, without a doubt, the hosted solution has a place in the marketplace. There are other solutions out there. The eBay ProStores have a large user base. For certain kinds of merchants, I think they are attractive. Specifically speaking about Yahoo! Stores, I think they make it easy for a broad base of users to get started quickly. They have an attractive fee schedule that, if you’re not selling much, works out well. I think they hit you when you start becoming more successful. Those kinds of solutions become more expensive and tend to be more limited in what you can do with that solution. Hosted solutions say users don’t need a lot of technical experience to use their solution and, by default, imply a software solution needs significant technical prowess to use. Is that a fair... Fri, 01 Sep 2006 01:00:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/274/Shopping-Cart-Software-Solutions/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/287/Does-Google-Checkout-Affect-Your-Business/ On June 30, 2006 Google launched a service called Google Checkout. This is a new application allowing businesses to process online orders through Google. It serves as an alternative to PayPal or regular credit-card processing. It’s interesting to look at the launch of this service from Google’s point of view to try to understand how it ties in with their core business — search. In theory, many buyers begin their shopping process by searching for what they want on Google (or any other search engine). Next, they click on an advertiser’s link and go to the business’ website. By taking care of the final step — processing the actual purchase — Google can accumulate a vast amount of information about their own advertisers and use that information to further improve AdWords. The tie-in with Google AdWords is quite logical. In fact, Google launched its Checkout service with a special promotion: for every $1 advertisers spend on AdWords, they can process $10 in sales... Fri, 01 Sep 2006 00:18:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/287/Does-Google-Checkout-Affect-Your-Business/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/213/BuySafecom-Founder-Steve-Woda/ For every person who shops on the Internet, there are hundreds of others who don’t – who won’t. They don’t want to. They feel, with some justification, that doing so would lead to the nightmares others have lived through with identity theft, undelivered merchandise, credit-card fraud – you name it. If you’re in the ecommerce game, you know about abandoned carts. One of the main reasons why folks leave shopping carts at the checkout page is fear – unadulterated terror about their financial security. Steve Woda’s own mother has that fear, too, and he is doing everything he can to help her and millions of others who would like to shop on the Internet to be comfortable buying that hardto- find product or sending that gift to a loved one without the hassle of crawling the real mall. Woda himself got burned in an eBay transaction, to the tune of about $400. And that is how BuySafe.com came into being. PeC: How did you conceive of the idea of creating a... Wed, 31 May 2006 13:25:51 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/213/BuySafecom-Founder-Steve-Woda/