Web Business Resource

If you are selling products online, you will probably need ecommerce software. AmeriCommerce provides powerful shopping cart software and hosting. Their shopping cart software comes with many built-in features.

SEO is very important when you have an online store. You can make more sales by getting traffic from the search engines. AmeriCommerce understands the importance of SEO, and they even say on their website that their shopping cart is the most search engine friendly cart available.

Their software will also extensively log user activity, which you can use to better optimize your online store to increase your sales.

Another great feature is that you can manage multiple stores from one administration page.

They publish their phone number right on the homepage of their website, which is a sign of trustworthiness to me.

The shopping cart software can help you track inventory and manage prices. It can also keep track of sales and other records for you. So that will greatly help you manage your ecommerce business.

If you want to see AmeriCommerce’s shopping cart software in action, they have a list of featured clients on their website.

All in all, the AmeriCommerce shopping cart software seems like a really great product.

I know a lot you would like to run your own internet-based business. It comes with the freedom of being your own boss and the opportunity to make more money. Today I have the pleasure of telling you about an online phone card business opportunity at e.usprepaid.com.

There is a fee of $74.95 to be part of the program, but it comes with a pre-built website. Your website will be on its own domain so that you can market and manage it how you wish.

It seems like a simple program, which can be good if you are new to internet business. According to the website, you don’t need any technical experience.

Web hosting is included, which is good. I pay almost $75.00 a month in hosting costs, and that’s how much the program costs. So it seems like it could be a good start-up program. But I have not used it myself.

It’s a commission-based program.

If you want to get started with making money online, then you might consider a service such as pclink.co.uk which can sell you a ready-to-go internet business. For example, you can buy an out-of-the-box computer shop or internet dating site. The site would be mostly automated, so your main job would simply be to market and promote it.

I personally like to build my internet businesses from the ground up, but I could see how it would be much easier for a person without as much technical knowledge to start with an out-of-the-box solution.

Of course, starting any business is a risk. Do not spend more money than you can afford on a new business, and do not count on any income from the business because it may not work out. Try to avoid making business-related decisions on a whim. Think long and hard about any business decisions or other major financial decisions.

If you want to sell products online, you will probably need shopping cart software. Ashop Commerce will provide you with a hosted shopping cart. They are offering a total solution for web merchants.

Ashop Commerce’s software will enable you to accept credit card payments with your website whether you have a merchant account or PayPal. This is important because web merchants have different methods of receiving payments, and the shopping cart software needs to be able to integrate with all of these various payment methods.

Ashop Commerce prides itself on being affordable and easy-to-use. They offer customer service and tech support, which is important if you ever have trouble with your e-commerce store. Another advantage of Ashop Commerce is that it is search-engine-optimized. You are going to want customers to find your products when searching on search engines.

Deciding upon a shopping cart solution is a major decision. Your choice will affect your ecommerce business for a long time. If you make a bad choice, it will be a major and probably expensive hassle to move to a new shopping cart. The good thing about Ashop Commerce is that they offer a 10-day free trial, so you can try out the software before investing in it.

Make your decision carefully.

I think it is a good idea to display as much contact information as you can on your website. Obviously, trying to avoid spam and keep some privacy will limit your ability to publish your contact information. Nonetheless, it reassures your website visitors if they have the contact information of your business or the website’s owner. This is especially important for websites the sell anything, because trust is going to be a major issue for people you want to give you money.

Also, having a contact form is a great way to allow your visitors to give you feedback and ask questions.

What do you think?

by Sean Mize

Ecommerce is a modern way of saying shpping on the Internet. Productive ecommerce has become very popular over the years, and with the increasing number of global business ventures it has grown exponentially. Here are 4 steps to making ecommerce work for you.

Step 1: Targeted Ecommerce
This is the best way to find new customers. You do this by gearing your content and articles to a certain group of people using search engine optimization (SEO) principles. These principles will help your productive ecommerce by getting you in the top of the search engine rankings.

Step 2: Websites
Use ecommerce principles to design your website to be friendly and to draw clients in once they have clicked on your link. Make your site friendly and easy to use. Productive ecommerce keeps clients and customers as well as gains them. If you have forms, make sure they work at all times, and that all links are functional.

Step 3: Autoresponders
Use autoresponders to save you time in answering questions by sending out an FAQ page to people asking questions. Also use it to keep in touch with your customers. Use these to send everything from newsletters to sale notices.

Step 4: Advertising
You can use sites like MySpace to create a page and advertise. You can also use social bookmarking sites, social networking and even YouTube to get the word out. Productive ecommerce has many faces and you can use as many as you wish and should use as many as you can.

Target your customers, use effective websites, autoresponders to help keep in touch with your customers, and advertise to better utilize Ecommerce.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, ‘Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide‘

Download it free here: Secrets of Article Promotion

Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 1574 articles in print and 11 published ebooks.

by William Robert Wood

The first thing that you need to understand is how e-commerce works: A consumer, or potential customer, accesses the Internet and navigates to your Web site. If you have a brick-and-mortar business, you’ll want to have vital information on your Web site so that your customers can find you; this would be a static Web site. This may include current products that are on special as well as other product listings that make consumers believe that your business is where they want to make their purchase and is both appealing and a good value to the consumer.

Likewise, if you have an online business, you’ll want to convince your potential customers or Web site browsers to make a purchase for the products you are selling from your Web site. Once consumers decide that they’re ready to make a purchase, they’ll need to be guided to an online transaction or secure Web server so that you can collect their personal and payment information using a secure encryption method. It is possible to create a Web site that can collect credit card and other sensitive data without offering encryption; however, most savvy shoppers will never enter credit card information into a nonsecure Web site. Therefore, we highly discourage any attempt to create a simple shopping cart that does not include secure socket layer encryption of personal or sensitive data. Operating a Web site without encryption for personal or credit card data is a sure-fire formula for disaster and loss of potential customers.

To enable your Web site for e-commerce, you must install and configure your products in a shopping cart. It is important to recognize the elements of a credit card transaction: your Web site contains the product pricing, description, and images, and the shopping cart is embedded into your Web site and stores the dynamic data regarding your product. When he or she is ready to “check out” from the Web site store, the customer typically clicks a “checkout” button and is taken to the encrypted version of the company Web site. The customer will typically continue with the checkout process by calculating shipping costs, entering personal information such as credit card data and a shipping address, and securely completing the transaction. All credit card companies charge a percentage of the sale as an overhead fee for using their credit processing services. The added service layer between your credit card processor and your Web site is known as a transaction service or gateway service. This layer recognizes an e-commerce transaction, performs immediate credit card authorization, and processes the transaction. While this service is not uncommon, it does add a layer of cost to operating your Web site. There are two distinct possibilities that account for how your order may be processed: after the order has been placed, all of the necessary information travels through a private gateway toward the “transaction/gateway processing network.” This processing network is where the transaction is approved or denied, depending on the credit history of the consumer and the funds available. Although this may seem like a long process, it takes only a few seconds to complete. For the business owner, offering an e-commerce service is an added service and an added fee.

Another lower-cost option is to eliminate the transaction/gateway processing network. Many Web site owners prefer to manually “run” credit card payments through their desktop credit card processing/authorization systems and merely use the shopping cart as an order processing and retrieval system, where the credit card is processed manually after the online session is completed. This low-cost alternative eliminates the cost of the middle-tier authorization and does not affect what the consumer sees after completing the checkout process. With both options, the consumer should be sent an order confirmation by e-mail.

As mentioned, you will be able to use many different systems of payment to accommodate your online transactions, depending on how many transactions you average in one day. No matter what type of payment method you choose, you need to ensure that it is encrypted and secure so that the privacy and personal information of your customers is never jeopardized. As a reminder, never operate a Web site where you collect personal data or financial information without offering a secure and encrypted connection.

Although Synaxis Solutions, a Colchester based web design company, our reach is not circumscribed by geography; we proudly serve a diverse international clientele.

Rob Wood is owner/lead developer of Colchester web design, Synaxis Services offers you a full suite of web design and development services. Whether you’re looking for a simple site build or a comprehensive online business strategy, we’re ready and willing to lend a hand

by James Krawder

E-commerce or Electronic commerce is generally the latest trend in making business. With the fast pacing in the industry, people have looked on to different way to conduct business transaction other than doing it the traditional way – the manual way that is. With E-commerce, people are no longer burdened to do commuting just to go the mall to buy some clothes or eat. We are also freed up from getting into the long lines to transact with our bank tellers because we already have the online bank transaction. With all these at hand, how can one be successful then in the E-commerce world? The small list below can help one adapt with the growing trend in E-commerce.

• Catch the reader’s attention by using appealing headlines. People have the tendency to browse and scan first before they actually engage in a long, detailed reading. Which means, with this kind of an attitude, it is a must therefore that, people who are engaged in E-commerce business should consider creating a website that provided eye catching headline banner to initially capture reader’s attention.

• Learn to know what the consuming public demands. If you noticed, popular search engines like Yahoo and Google release from time to time their most searchable keywords. By this, they are letting the public know what the majority wants to read and know. Therefore, it is also your obligation as one engaged in e-commerce business to determine what the consuming public wants so you know what to offer them.

• Create an impressive e-commerce site. By what I mean of impressive is that the content of the site should be high in standard. It must contain something that is not ordinarily found on common websites. Give your readers something different to look forward to on your site.

Want to learn more about it? Download the free ebook, Steps to Article Marketing Success.

by Olivia Hunt

Electronic commerce refers to a wide range of online business activities for produced products and services. It also means to any form of business transaction in which the parties interact electronically rather than by physical exchanges. E-commerce is generally associated with buying and selling over the Internet, or conducting any form of transaction involving the transfer of ownership or rights to use goods or services through a computer-mediated network. Although is it a popular, this definition is not comprehensive enough to capture recent developments in this new and revolutionary business phenomenon. More popular and complete definition is: E-commerce is the use of electronic communications and digital information processing technology in business transactions to create, transform, and redefine relationships for value creation between or among organizations, and between organizations and individuals.

International Data Corp estimates the value of it by 2000 at US$350.38 billion. This is projected to reach to as high as US$3.14 trillion by 2004. IDC also predicts an increase for the Asian’s percentage share in worldwide e-commerce revenue from 5% in 2000 to 10% in 2004. While some people use e-commerce and e-business interchangeably, they have distinct concepts about that. Information and communications technology is used in e-commerce in inter-business or inter-organizational transactions and in business-to-consumer transactions.

On the other hand, in e-business, ICT is used to enhance one’s business. It includes any types of process that a business organization conducts over a computer-mediated network. A more popular definition of e-business is: The transformation of an organization’s processes to deliver additional customer value through the application of technologies, philosophies and computing paradigm of the new economy. There are three primary processes are enhanced in e-business.

1. Production processes: It is a process which include procurement, ordering and replenishment of stocks; processing of payments; electronic links with suppliers; and production control processes, among others.

2. Customer-focused processes: this process includes promotional and marketing efforts, selling over the Internet, processing of customers’ purchase orders and payments, and customer support, among others. And

3. Internal management processes: this is a process in which include employee services, training, internal information-sharing, video-conferencing, and recruiting. Electronic applications increase information flow between production and sales forces to improve sales force productivity. Workgroup communications and electronic publishing as internal business information are likewise made more efficient.

The article was produced by the writer of Essay-Paper.net. Olivia Hunt is a 4-years experienced freelance writer of Essay Writing. Visit our website to learn more about our essay writing service and proofreading service.

by Tom Oki

Today, there are numerous resources to build an online store that did not exist just a few short years ago. The resources have made it possible for just about anyone to build an online store, even if they do not have technical skills. But before I reveal what tools I consider the best, let’s review what exactly you need in order to build an online store.

1. A Domain – You need a name for your store, which should be the same as your domain name. Good domains are becoming hard to find, so you may need to be creative to come up with a good name for the online store you wish to build. You can buy domains from websites called “domain registars,” or directly from the web hosting company you work with.

2. Web Hosting – Web hosting is simply website space that you rent on “servers” that are connected to the Internet. You typically pay a monthly fee to have your site hosted by a web host. Depending on which ecommerce solution you use to build an online store, you will need to make sure your web host supports the technology used. Some web hosts offer turnkey ecommerce solutions to help you build an online store, but be aware that some of these solutions require much work to set up successfully.

3. Secure Server Certificate (SSL) – Any sensitive information the customer sends you, such as credit card numbers and billing addresses, MUST be transmitted over a secure server. This means you need to buy a security certificate from a place like Verisign or Geotrust. This certificate then needs to be installed on your server. The cost of certificates has come down in recent years, but they still typically cost hundreds of dollars per year.

4. Shopping cart/payment system – Finally, when you build an online store, you will need software to handle your shopping cart system. This can either be a solution that you buy from a software vendor, or you can use shopping carts of services such as Paypal or Yahoo. Traditionally, you also needed a merchant account, but if you build an online store using Paypal or an existing online store solution, you may not need one.

Setting up each step can take some time if you do them individually. A few years ago, I had to build an online store and the whole process took weeks. Fortunately, there are now complete, turnkey online store solutions that give you everything you need for a monthly fee. Using these services, it is conceivable to build an online store that is fully functional in a day or less. These services range from the very basic, to highly sophisticated systems that can support 50,000 products or more. Most are very easy to use, even if you do not have technical skills.

Unless you are absolutely determined to select specific solutions for every element of your store, I would highly recommend that you utilize turnkey shopping solutions because it saves you money and time, without sacrificing quality. If you build an online store using such a service, you still will look professional and be easy to manage as well.

About the Author: Tom Oki is editor of http://business-reviews.com/, a business opportunity and marketing review site.

To find out more about which services are available for building an online store, be sure to ready my full article on starting an online store.

by Trevor Kugler

That’s what we’re interested in, correct? Making money online, and making money online is accomplished through E-commerce. That is, having a website with a product to sell, and with any luck, selling that product via the World Wide Web. E-commerce isn’t as simple as having a product that you think will sell, slapping a website up, and selling it.

I used to think this is how it worked. I thought if you had a professional looking website, with products I thought would sell, I would receive orders. Then I realized that nothing could be further from the truth. Why I would have thought that the internet was any different from any other business, I’m not sure, but that’s obviously what I thought. It may have something to do with all of the crap floating around about people becoming “overnight successes” on the internet. It seems like everywhere a person turns, there’s another story in the media about someone making it big on the internet. In any case I fell into the trap of expecting the impossible. Namely, expecting to have a successful website without much effort.

Then after about six months of spinning my wheels, expecting the impossible, I realized a lot more effort was going to have to be put forth. I realized E-commerce was a process. I had to convince people to buy my products, just as is done in any other business. It wasn’t enough just to have a page with a product on it, you have to convince the public that they need it.

While learning to make money online, I also realized that many of the people that you talk to, want to make money off of you, and don’t truly have the best interests of your website in mind. For example, for months and months our webmaster was pushing a certain product on us to create newsletters. It seemed like a great product, but we had no one to send a newsletter to. Did he have any suggestions for getting subscribers? No, he just wanted us to buy the product. He wanted us to buy the product, because he got a piece of the action. He didn’t care whether or not we actually needed it. This kind of thing seems to happen a lot on the internet. I suppose to be truthful, it happens everywhere, not just the internet.

The biggest thing to remember is that making money online is a process and doesn’t happen overnight. If you want to make money online, the best thing you can do is start educating yourself. The more educated you can become about the process, the better. You didn’t learn how to do long division all at once, right. You learned through a process and making money online is no different.

About the Author: Trevor Kugler - Co-founder of JRWfishing and founder of yourmoneyconnection.com Trevor has more than 15 years of business experience and currently raises his three year old daughter in the heart of trout fishing country - Montana. Start actually making money online today. Find out how for FREE!