Superpetstuff.com Launches a Fast Commerce Store

• Bark collar




• Dog containment




• Dog containments




• Dog fence




• Electric dog collar




• Electric dog fence




• Electric dog fences




• Electronic dog fence




• Electronic fencing




• Hidden fence




• Indoor pet containment




• Invisible dog fence




• Invisible fence




• Invisible fence collar




• Invisible fence dogs




• Invisible fence for dogs




• Invisible fencing




• Invisible pet fence




• Pet containment




• Pet containment fencing




• Pet containment system




• Pet containment systems




• Pet fence




• Petsafe dog fence




• Petsafe fence




• Petsafe fences




• Petsafe radio fence




• Petsafe wireless




• Petsafe wireless pet containment system




• Radio pet fence




• Underground dog fence




• Underground dog fences




• Underground fence




• Wireless fence




• Wireless fence dog




• Wireless fences




• Wireless pet containment




• Wireless pet containment system




• Wireless pet fence

FastCommerce is the fastest way to set up an online business: it rocks!

http://www.youtube.com/FastCommerce09

Low Cost High Powered e-Commerce

About FastCommerce:

FastCommerce is a web-based e-commerce business application for small to medium sized companies looking for a low-cost ecommerce solution. FastCommerce has all the features and functions of more tradition e-commerce software programs, but it is delivered as a web service requiring no set-up fees and no long term contract. Small to medium sized companies can quickly get started with a professional web store with back-end management tools powerful enough to run a successful online business. By delivering serious e-commerce business applications at a fraction of the price, FastCommerce.com enables small to medium sized business to expand their sales and market reach while significantly trimming costs. The whole package is available as an online service for $29.95 a month for an e-commerce store selling up to two thousand items.

With FastCommerce.com, companies have access to an e-commerce platform that delivers a search engine optimized online product catalog, product variables and customization, related items, featured products and tools for branding. There are additional tools for customizing the online product catalog for search engine optimization, including tools for evaluating SEO performance. On the back end there are many features that meet the required expectations for small to medium sized companies looking to effectively compete online. FastCommerce customers get a customer database, order processing that included the ability to edit the order, to add a tracking code to the shipping email confirmation, as well as generating an invoice and pick list for each order.

FastCommerce is also integrated with Google Analytics, UPS, FedEx and USPS live shipping rates; FastCommerce.com also includes extensive reporting tools for insight into store performance, including a report ranking all products by popularity by number of page views per product. FastCommerce also has inventory control, bulk uploading, as well as a growing list of features and functions. All delivered with a well-designed, easy to learn interface. FastCommerce also delivers performance, security, and support for hundreds of small and medium sized companies.

How do I get started?

That’s easy. Simply register and sign in. When you sign up for a FastCommerce store you automatically generate a professional web store, and a back-end management platform to build the store and run your business. You can watch the recorded seminar “Getting Started” which is located under “Webinar and Events” on the FastCommerce homepage.

Can I really get 2,000 items in my store for only $29.95 a month?

You bet. At FastCommerce, our goal is to get you started at a low price. But we want to accommodate your goal of growing into a significant on-line business. You get started with a low price; build a large store and a large web presence for your store, all the while keeping your costs to a minimum.

FastCommerce is inexpensive, but will it have everything I need?

FastCommerce is low-cost, but it’s high-powered e-commerce that brings together everything you need to run a serious on-line business. It has all the features an e-commerce veteran would expect, but with the ease of use that helps new users get off to a quick start. FastCommerce is a complete, all-in-one solution.

Can I try it out before paying?

Absolutely: simply sign up for the free version. It is not a trial; you can actually run a free online store. It is free for the first fifty products, and you can accept credit card payment through PayPal. Run the free version as long as you want.

Is my store secure?

Yes. Both the customer check-out and your back-end management modules are in a secure, encrypted environment. No need to purchase an SSL certificate, we provide it free of charge.

Do I need to find a hosting company for my store?

FastCommerce is a hosted solution. It is web-based, so when you sign up for a FastCommerce store, there is no need to find additional hosting services. And the hosting is free.

Can I remove the Google ads from my store?

The $29.95 service level does not have ads. However, if you want to start slow, all you need to do is sign up for individual features like Google Check-out, or hosting your domain on FastCommerce, and the ads disappear. Or, for as little as $19.95 a year, you can host your domain on your FastCommerce store, remove the banner ads, and sell up to fifty items using PayPal for credit card payments.

If I sign up for the free store can I upgrade later?

Yes. You can upgrade to the next plan at any time, or sign up for the individual services. Simply go to MY ACCOUNT on your management page. There you will see service options, and your current payment information. This is where you would update your service level.

Are there any hidden costs?

No. There is no set-up fee, and no contract. You can cancel at any time. FastCommerce is all inclusive. For example, if you sign up for the $29.95 plan for 2,000 items, everything is included and there are no other additional fees, including no transaction fees. You simply grow and run your online business at one fixed, low price.

How can I accept payment on my store?

For the free store, you can accept credit card payments through PayPal. Simply go to SET UP on your management module, go to Payment, and click through to the PayPal section. Simply enter in your email for your PayPal account, save it, and your store will automatically work with PayPal for processing credit card payments.

Paying customers have the option of using PayPal Express Check out, Google check out, or both. To accept credit cards directly on the site, you need a payment gateway provider. FastCommerce partners with Authorize.net. If you have an Authorize.net account, go to the Payment tab in SET UP, click on the Payment Gateway tab: there you find two fields. Simply save your API login and transaction key into these two fields, and your store will be integrated with Authorize.net for accepting payments through credit card directly on your site.

Finally, you can set up traditional payment methods such as check, purchase order, or by phone.

Do I need to have programming skills to build my store?

No. You can build a complete and powerful e-commerce platform with no programming at all. It is a web-based application that is well designed, and easy to use. No knowledge of HTML is required.

Do I need to purchase and SSL security certificate?

No. FastCommerce provides a secure, fully encrypted check-out process at no charge.

Can I integrate my current site with my FastCommerce store?

Yes. You can simply create a link, or any number of links, to your FastCommerce store, and then create links back to the original site. You can even create direct links from product pages on your site directly to the same product page on your store. It is easy and quick to build a seamless interface between your web site and your store. You can even upload the same banners and logos to provide continuity for your customers.

Will my store URL be http://store.fastcommerce.com/mystorename?

Yes. But we recommend one of two options. If you currently have a domain, you can go to your registrar and have that domain forwarded to your FastCommerce store address. If you have a domain, you can also host that domain on your FastCommerce store. This means that your store address will no longer be http://store.fastcommerce.com but www.yourstorename.com. This is better for branding and search engine purposes. It is an affordable upgrade for your FastCommerce store, and it is also included in the $29.95 per month plan.

Will my store be search engine optimized?

Yes. FastCommerce has implemented all the best practices for search engine optimization. Most parts of your store will be automatically optimized based on the information you use. FastCommerce has also given you the tools to customize important parts of the site. This will enable you to fine tune your keyword optimization to boost your rankings.

Does FastCommerce charge transaction fees?

No. There are no fees charged per transaction. There are no fees other than the ones you have signed up for on a month by month basis.

Can I integrate Google Analytics into my FastCommerce store?

Yes, and it is easy and simple to do. Instead of pasting code into each page of your store, you go to SET UP, scroll down to “Google Analytics” and install a WEB ID from Google. Once it is installed, you will have every part of your store integrated into Google’s great analytics tool for tracking keywords and visits to your site. Go to your Google Analytics account to generate a Web ID.

Does the FastCommerce back-office management module have reports?

FastCommerce offers over a dozen reports to evaluate store performance, including sales for the month, or even for any customized date range. You can even generate a report that ranks all of your products by number of page views. FastCommerce gives you the tools to evaluate and boost your store’s performance.

How do I get an order?

You will get an order email notification that an order has taken place on your store. Additionally, you get a powerful order management module that lists out your orders, lets you edit , even add products to an order, as well as generating a tracking code and pick list with invoice.
I already have my product data in an excel format. Can I simply load the data onto my FastCommerce store and get started quickly?

Yes. For those customers on the growing plan, we can provide you with two excel templates. Simply format your data according to these two templates, and we will upload the data. To get the templates, simply send an email to sales@fastcommerce.com.

FastCommerce seems easy to use, but I don’t have time to set it up.

FastCommerce has third party companies that are experts in getting customers launched quickly with a well designed and completely installed FastCommerce web store. Simply call sales, or email sales@fastcommerce.com and we will get you in touch with reliable, low-cost vendors to help you get started.

Will my FastCommerce store be a success?

Yes. You do the branding, the logo and banners, and then provide information rich product data for each product in your store, and FastCommerce will do rest. We can’t promise that people will like or buy your products, but your FastCommerce store has been designed to give you a highly professional web store that is search engine visible. And, this is important; we do it at a low cost. The rest is up to you.

Fastcommerce

New templates are coming. Beautiful templates. One is almost as good as amazon.com.

Also coming, the ability to host your own domain on your fastcommerce store. Easy integration with Google Analytics. It is AWESOME

http://www.fastcommerce.com

And don’t for get to go to down load the lastest online line seminar.

https://fastcommerce.webex.com/fastcommerce/ldr.php?AT=pb&SP=MC&rID=25682097&rKey=0A3DC2D6925B0B57

RUN A FREE WEBSTORE, GROW YOUR BUSINESS, MANAGE IT FROM A SINGLE SYSTEM

SMALL BUSINES E-COMMERCE ENGINE

http://system.fastcommerce.com/static/online-retail-store.html

FastCommerce.com is a web-based e-commerce application that lets small businesses start and manage an online business, all from one single-system

By simply signing up with FastCommerc.com you can automatically generate a professional web stores, as well as all the back office management tools needed to run a growing online business.

FastCommerce.com is not simply a shopping cart, but a serious set of tools that give you the control and flexibility you need to succeed online. Features such as

A one-page checkout to make it easier for the customer to buy. The checkout process is automatically secured and encrypted.

A product can be assigned to more than one category

One a per product basis, you can disable the shopping cart to set up a Request For Quote, or any other custom pricing message

The ability to create custom product options for variables like color and size, or other add-on items for a standard product. Including the ability to offer different pricing within the same product, for example, for XX-Large

FastCommerce.com offers a number of payment options, by credit card, PayPal, Google checkout, or by alternative payment methods like check or Purchase Order. There is even the ability to create a custom payment option.

The shipping module also gives you complete control Live-rate for UPS FEDEX and USPS is standard. You can set up flat rates. For example, you can set up a flat rate of 6.99 for USPS priority mail. There is free shipping, and even custom shipping options. You have complete control how you want to do business.

There is customer management and order processing, all driven from within the FastCommerce.com system. You have quick access to customer information and order history. You can approve, process and ship orders. You can edit the order, and have back orders for partially shipped orders.

And then there are reports. Most interesting of all, one report will let you generate a ranking of each and every product by number of page views. This is the product popularity report that will give you greater insight in to site organization, customer navigation, and customer interest versus customer conversion.

FastCommerce.com is Web 2.0 e-commerce that will eventually let you run all aspects of your business, even accounting, from a single system and at a small business price. In fact, it is free up to the first 50 products. We automatically give you all the tools to run your business online by simply signing up, and then signing in.

<script src=”http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js” type=”text/javascript”>
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
_uacct = “UA-3717861-1″;
urchinTracker();
</script>

FastCommerce.com is Enterprise e-Commerce at a Small Business Price

WWW.FASTCOMMERCE.COM

easy low cost e commerce for one price	2
set up online paypal store	1
easy low cost e commerace	1
set up an ecommerce shop website	1
selling online wordpress.com	1

Yesterday

Search	Views
fastcommerce.com	3
“free ecommerce store”	2
web 2.0 ecommerce free	2
create paypal store free	1
authurized online retailer start ups	1
free webstore templates	1
effective small business management: an	1
volusion number of clients	1
free web 2.0 site builder	1
web 2.0 features for ecommerce

Get up and running fast with new ecommerce business tools from FastCommerce.com

New E-commerce Web Service Makes It Easy for Small Businesses to Move to the Web For small business owners, moving to e-commerce brings complexity and confusion. There is a steep learning curve, and e-commerce technology can be intimidating for the beginner. Not with FastCommerce.com: by simply signing up, the small business entrepreneur automatically generates a professional web-store. And the service is entirely free for the first fifty products.

San Mateo, California (PRWEB) November 9, 2007 — The demand for small business e-commerce technology is rapidly increasing as small business owners move to the web to capture more business. With on-line sales growing at a tremendous pace, small business entrepreneurs need to adopt successful technologies that will enable them to quickly set up and operate an on-line e-commerce store. But this first step brings with it the challenge of finding the right solution. A new and growing e-commerce platform, FastCommerce.com, has been designed to automate these first steps into e-commerce.

Small business owners also run the risk of spending money on the wrong solution. Misspent funds can quickly add up to sizable sums before a business’s website goes live. However, FastCommerce.com is a free e-commerce service. Full access to the service is free up to the first fifty products. It is free to start and free to use, making it even easier to get started with on-line sales.

The FastCommerce.com e-commerce web service has been designed to get small business owners up quickly with an on-line store to begin selling right away. A simple one-step registration automatically generates a complete and professional web-store. Users also gain access to their own web-based e-commerce management module or dashboard to process orders, manage accounts and select pre-set payment options such as PayPal, with Google check-out coming soon.

By signing up with the FastCommerce e-commerce service, small business owners have everything they need to run a complete on-line business. They simply enter their zip code, shipping rates for UPS and FedEx are automatically calculated in the shopping cart. Enter an email address and an email auto-responder for the customer order confirmation is automatically activated. Customers can create a product, go to their store front, add to cart: they can then register, complete the purchase, and go to their email box: a professionally formatted order confirmation email will be there waiting for them.

There are dozens of easy automation features built into the FastCommerce.com e-commerce application. For example, there a dozen reports, including a quick-link feature that gives a real time view of 10 top selling products and 10 most popular products by page views. The FastCommerce.com applications have been designed to be easy to use, with a very short learning curve. As Charles Han, CEO of FastCommerce.com states, “Our goal was to build a compelling small business e-commerce application, and then give it away. We have a lot of experience building web-based small-business applications, but here the aim was to simplify and automate the process. No one goes to YouTube.com looking for a set of instructions on how to use it.”

FastCommerce.com is the latest in Web 2.0 web-services that are web-based, easy to use and low cost. By simply signing up small business owners have access to low cost e-commerce applications that are also feature-rich and well designed.

The feedback to the service, both the product and the small business pricing, has been tremendous. Additional features in the near-term will include a set of templates designed to give customers complete control over the branding of their website. FastCommerce.com is dedicated to building state of the art small business applications at small business prices.

About Fastcommerce:
Fastcommerce.com provides business management software to small businesses, delivered on demand as a service via the web on a free or paid monthly subscription basis. We provide small businesses with a complete fully integrated package that run their entire operations, from inventory control, sales, marketing, support, on-line catalog, e-commerce, back-end order processing and built-in UPS and FedEx shipping tools.

The only requirement to use our software is an Internet connection. Unlike a traditional software company, our small business customers do not need to buy and maintain expensive software and hardware.

FastCommerce Has PayPal, and Free Secure Checkout

Review: Three Wise Storefronts Offer Free Services
By Wayne Kawamoto
December 6, 2007

FastCommerce.com
The most traditional e-commerce service of the three, FastCommerce.com is a complete system that offers a free subscription with no setup, hosting or transaction fees. In a sense, the free portion of the service is based on the old shareware concept. Try the program out for free and if you like it, you may eventually sign on and pay for more sophisticated features.

The service includes a product catalog, shopping cart, shipping calculator and auto-e-mail responder. It also supports inventory and comes with order and contact management features. For no cost you’re limited to 50 products and no tech support. But if you can live within these constraints, FastCommerce.com is a bargain.

FastCommerce serves a first-rate shopping experience to customers who can browse and add products to carts and register before they complete their purchases. After entering a zip code, the cart generates shipping rates for UPS and FedEx, and after the sale, customers receive confirmation e-mails. For now, the company only offers a single template with three color themes but promises more templates and color variations in the future.

Go Speed Racer: If you’re selling less than 50 products, FastCommerce can get you up and running an online store for free. (Click for larger image.)

There’s support for all major credit cards, but you’ll need a payment gateway and merchant account. You can purchase an optional SSL certificate to secure your Web store at $199 per year. A downside, FastCommerce currently lacks support for PayPal and Google Checkout, but again, the company promises these are coming soon.

The entry-level service is truly free. You only pay when you upgrade to the company’s Growing or Enterprise plans, which offer the ability to list more products — “Growing” up to 2,000 products at $29.95 per month, “Enterprise” up to 10,000 products at $99.95 per month. With these pay plans you also get support via e-mail, instant messaging and actual humans. If you want support for the free Startup Plan, it’s priced at $200 year.

To encourage you to sign up, the company says that its offer of free e-commerce service is for a limited time. But once you sign up, the company promises that it will be free as long as your usage stays within the quota. If you’re selling less than 50 products, FastCommerce may be worth the look.

FastCommerce In Article on Shopping Cart Options

Shopping Cart Options for SMBs, Part 2

WWW.FASTCOMMERCE.COM

By Andrew K. Burger
E-Commerce Times
10/23/07 4:00 AM PT

“Businesspeople have precious little time to learn complex systems and then to use them so it needs to be easy and accessible. Whenever possible I try to use the following guide when designing the systems: You shouldn’t need to read a manual to know how to use it — it should be self-evident,” said Daniel Vidoni, e-commerce software consultant and proprietor of Vidoniweb.com and Storefinder.com.

Increase customer confidence with Extended Validation SSL from VeriSign. EV triggers the address bar to turn green in Microsoft™ IE7, which helps prove site identity and helps reduce phishing attack threats. To learn more, read our white paper.

There’s a wealth of opportunities available for aspiring and small to medium-sized business (SMB) e-tailers looking for shopping cart technology, as Part 1 of this series points out.

While this makes it easier than ever to find this important piece of the e-tailing puzzle, it also means startup and SMB e-tailers face greater challenges when it comes to choosing shopping cart software and putting it to good use.Ongoing rapid growth in e-commerce, the emergence of standardized Web 2.0 technology and open source software packages, shopping cart and e-tail e-commerce tools have become cheaper, more powerful, standardized and chock-full of all kinds of interactive, multichannel and multimedia features. However, perceptions of just how easy they are to use — and how easy and cheap it is to get online and start an e-tail business — often outrun the reality.“There is such an enormous amount to consider when creating these systems that in my view it should be left to professionals. If not, a merchant can become disillusioned with Internet technology and determine — incorrectly — that it doesn’t work and that it’s all hype,” Daniel Vidoni, e-commerce software consultant and proprietor of Australia’s Vidoni.com and Storefinder.com, told the E-Commerce Times.

The Front End

There are essentially two sides to shopping cart sites, Vidoni continued: “The merchant’s administration area (the back end), which allows them to manage the products, pricing and freight and things like that; and the Web site front end where visitors can see and read about the products, place orders and make payments.”

Getting the front-end user interfaces right is one key to creating a satisfying customer experience. They need to be intuitive and facilitate a smooth workflow, Vidoni elaborated.

“From a sales perspective, it is vitally important that we help make the purchase experience a good one — and good means easy, pleasant and enjoyable — the opposite of frustrating. Remember the phrase ‘it’s been a pleasure doing business with you?’ That should be your target,” he said.

As important as it is, the shopping cart is just a part of an e-tail site; it needs to be part of a fully integrated e-tail platform, pointed out Charles Han, CEO of FastCommerce.com.

“Most shopping carts today have the basic function of managing products, calculating shipping and tax, and checking out with credit cards. Most U.S.-based shopping carts also support alternative payment methods such as Paypal and Google Checkout. That’s about what you will get from 99 percent of the shopping carts in the marketplace,” Han told the E-Commerce Times.

As competitive as the e-tail and software markets are and with so many good SMB shopping cart platforms on offer at small business prices, the shopping cart in and of itself doesn’t really add any significant value to an e-tailer’s business, he said.

“Like in a brick and mortar store, you are not going be successful if all you have is steel shopping carts and some check out registers. You are expected to have a fully integrated retail system to manage your merchandising assortment, inventory, promotion, marketing, customers, product returns and financials. Nobody expects to see a shopping cart and POS (point of sale) not being of a complete retail system,” Han added.

The Back End

Equally important to e-tailing success as getting a shopping cart site’s front-end user interface and navigation features right, the back end also needs to come together.

“The back end of the Web site is much more important and complex than many people realize,” Vidoni commented. “One would think that it is where products are managed and photographs of items uploaded. However, there is a great deal more that the administration area can and does do.”

Typically, sophisticated databases are used. “A lot of time is spent on getting the data architecture right. This flows from the needs of the business. Every business is different, therefore every database structure is different,” Vidoni continued.

Like the shopping cart’s front end, the back end administration area should be well-designed and easy to use.

“Businesspeople have precious little time to learn complex systems and then to use them so it needs to be easy and accessible,” he said. “Whenever possible I try to use the following guide when designing the systems: You shouldn’t need to read a manual to know how to use it — it should be self-evident.”

Ideally, databases should be able to be exported and connected to and from accounting software packages, which allows data such as stock levels and orders and sales information to be exported into accounting software packages for processing and reconciliation, something that is frequently overlooked, Vidoni noted.

“As with many things, you get what you pay for; there are no shortcuts to quality design and implementation and the extra time and effort you invest is returned many fold over the years during which your Web site operates profitably,” he commented.

Open Source Options

As in a growing number of software market segments, open source software solutions are making their market in e-tail and shopping cart software.

“There are many decent — and free — e-commerce solutions, such as osCommerce, on the market. These products allow very rapid development and are a great way for beginners to get into Web development. When these products are used by professional developers, the results can be sensational,” Vidoni related.

Professional, well-designed templates can be incorporated within a solid e-tail system’s architecture and provide very cost-effective, good quality solutions, he continued. Beautifully designed professional template’s can mesh together with the solid architecture of these well-designed products to yield very cost-effective quality solutions. In addition, Vidoni noted, “Because the software is in the public domain it is constantly under peer review and if necessary can be modified by the Web developer to produce more customized solutions.

“I have been involved in the development of similar shareware products in the past which were developed by the global programming community and the results were incredible. Everybody contributes small fragments and everyone ends up benefiting. The open architecture is beautiful to work with and there are so many forums where questions can be asked and answered sometimes within minutes that it’s just incredible.”

Making the Investment

For e-tail startups and SMBs to compete successfully in the increasingly competitive, fast-moving e-tail market means having the willingness and means to invest the necessary capital — and the capital required isn’t insignificant or shrinking.

“For small businesses that are just launching an online store or expect online sales to be under (US)$2 million, we usually recommend a shared revenue platform like Yahoo Merchant Solutions,” Sandra Fathi, president of Affect Strategies, told the E-Commerce Times. “There are quite a few companies that will provide their hosting services and e-commerce platforms for between 0.5 and 1.5 percent of sales revenue.”

Going with an established third-party e-commerce platform hosting provider offers startups and SMBs — particularly those with limited technology expertise — a number of advantages.

“This approach also provides merchants with peace of mind that tech support and maintenance of the platform are included in their agreement. Often, these platforms are well established and fully integrated with complementary services that the business may want to leverage as well,” Fathi explained.

Aspiring e-tailers can expect to invest $50,000 and upwards for a custom developed e-commerce platform while making use of an off-the-shelf offering may run as little as a few hundred to a few thousand dollars a year, according to Fathi.

“Many small businesses just don’t have the cash to layout upfront. Having a fixed percentage on top of their cost of goods sold allows them to have better cash flow and less volatility in operating costs if something should go wrong with a proprietary platform,” she noted.

BabyRide.com, one of Affect’s SMB e-tail clients, generates annual sales of more than $3 million yet still chooses to stay on the Yahoo Merchant Solutions platform, Fathi related.

“Although they are paying about 0.75 percent of each sale (or $22,500 annually), BabyRide.com has been able to avoid hiring a full time Web developer or technology expert to maintain and update the site. Having an e-commerce platform that is maintained, supported and operating 365 days a year is worth much more to the company,” she said.

Shopping Cart Options for SMBs, Part 1

Next Article in E-Commerce: New 3-D Tech Makes Online Shopping More Like Being There

Back to Online Version E-Mail Article <!–////–> Digg It Reprints More by Andrew K. Burger Talkback  

Related Stories

• New 3-D Tech Makes Online Shopping More Like Being There (22-Oct-07)
• The Scramble for Sticky Online Banking Customers (28-Sep-07)
• Online Billing, Part 2: Problems and Possibilities (18-Sep-07)

Related Resources

• Successful Offshore Outsourcing for Small to Mid-size Businesses
• Sales Outsourcing, Lead Generation, and Sales Consulting
• Sourcing Strategies for your HR-IT – A Webinar by Forrester
• State of IT Outsourcing

Don’t miss a story — sign up for our FREE e-mail newsletters and view the latest headlines at a glance.Tech News Flash [ View Sample ]
E-Commerce Minute [ View Sample ]
ECT News Network Weekly Newsletter [ View Sample ]

More Stories by Andrew K. Burger

• Marketing Automation Solutions for Startups, Part 2 (26-Oct-07)
• Marketing Automation Solutions for Startups, Part 1 (25-Oct-07)
• Shopping Cart Options for SMBs, Part 1 (22-Oct-07)

[Search More...]

Letters: Click here to send a letter to the editor…

Talkback: Click here to add your comment about this story…

Shortcuts

Sign Up for Business and Technology News Alerts
Most Popular | Spotlight Features | Podcasts
This Week on ECT News Network | Archives
Online Retail Transaction Performance Indices

Tech Entertainment News

Broadband Video: Has Its Time Come?

Joost Beta Presents a Rich Tapestry of Oddball Offerings

Organizing a Personal Media Library, Part 3: Sorting It Out

[More...]

E-Commerce Times

Creating Synergy With Online and Offline Marketing

Financing Your Startup: Some Essential Tips

Motorola Profits Slide, Investors Cheer Nonetheless

Microsoft Goes Cheek to Cheek With Facebook

Tech Heavies Form IT Security Phalanx With SAFECode Forum

Nintendo Half-Year Profits Double on Demand for Wii

Second Life Becomes First Job for Adventurous Few

BEA Hits on 17, Hopes for 21

RIM Puts Facebook in Motion

VPNs and Small Business, Part 2: Solutions and Alternatives

TechNewsWorld

When a Man Loves the Internet

Russian Firm Files Patent for Password Cracker

Web 2.0: Spreading Vital Info Amid Calif. Firestorms

The E-Learning Adventure

DNA Pioneer Watson Resigns Amid Cloud of Scandal

CRM Buyer

Marketing Automation Solutions for Startups, Part 2

Marketing Automation Solutions for Startups, Part 1

Revealing the Secrets to Effective Supply Chain Management

Getting Specific

Microsoft Slashes CRM Live Pricing for Partners

LinuxInsider

Virtualization: Do Your Homework

Mozilla Flies High on Google’s Coattails

Enterprise Web App Platform Maker UnCurls Code

Parents Face Real Bills for Virtual Real Estate

Twine: Stringing Together the Semantic Web

MacNewsWorld

iPod, This Is Your Life

Gearing Up for the Leap to Leopard

Apple’s Leopard Is Spot-On

Fake Steve Jobs’ Book Has Kernels of Real Insight

Apple COO: Users Unlock 1 in 6 iPhones Sold

Vendor White Papers

Find the resources you need to make informed purchasing decisions. [ Browse Directory ]

Sponsored Links

Marketing A.M.M.O. for 2008

Register for this Free Webinar: Alternative Marketing Methods and Options

Search For Your Domain Name

Thousands of businesses rely on BuyDomains.com to secure great premium domains.

White Paper

Boost online sales with VeriSign EV SSL, read our white paper.

Free White Paper

12 Site Search Tips for Holiday Success. Download Today.

White Paper

Learn how to accelerate sales conversion and reduce site abandonment.

A powerful server from HP

The HP ProLiant DL380 G5 Server with Systems Insight Manager (SIM).

<!–////–> <!–////–>

Section Snapshot

Business Strong Camera, LCD Sales Boost Sony to Record Q2 Amazon Shares Slide Despite Stellar Q3 MySpace Pens Formal Agreement for Casual Games	Communications Feeding the Cash Cow: Beefing Up Mobile Business Services IBM Developing Wicked-Fast Wireless Data Transfer Chip AT&T Teams With Napster on 2-Buck Song Downloads	Critical Issues Citrix Unwraps New Virtualization Strategy Alliances and Intrigue in the Virtualization World Poison Apple? Greenpeace Slams Apple for ‘Toxic’ iPhone
E-Commerce Google Draws Nielsen Into Its Advertising Web Music Piracy Police Cut Off Feeding at Oink’s Trough America the Haunted?	E-Marketing Report: Cheery Outlook for Holiday E-Shopping Season MySpace TV to Air Bite-Sized Serial Drama EU Postpones Google-DoubleClick Day of Reckoning	ECT News Exclusives Digital River’s Jim Wehmann: Building a Better E-Commerce Site GNU GPL Creator Richard Stallman on the Meaning of ‘Free’ BlueRoads CEO Shinya Akamine: Out With PRM, In With POM
Enterprise IT IBM Offers New Ways to Store Ginormous Amounts of Data A Plethora of One-Stop Shops for Small Biz Tech Microsoft Eyes Enterprise With New Mobile Server	Hot Topics Comcast Confirms Fiddling With Net Traffic Leopard vs. Vista, Brazil vs. Cisco, True Security Horror Story, Product of the Week The Difference Between Vista and Leopard: Fear	Law AT&T Puts Vonage Back on Litigation Merry-Go-Round Microsoft Ends Resistance to EU Antitrust Ruling Four States Reverse Stance on Microsoft Oversight
Must Read GPL v3: Was It Worth the Effort? RIAA’s Next Target: Usenet VPNs and Small Business, Part 1: The SMB Case	SMB Apple and SMBs, Part 2: The Case for the Xserve Shopping Cart Options for SMBs, Part 2 Apple and SMBs, Part 1: The Case for the All-Mac Shop	Security Overzealous Ticket Bots Choke Rockies’ Online Sales Call Center Agent Charged With Stealing Customer IDs Virtual Browsers: Disposable Security
Spotlight Features The Bandwidth Shortage That Stole Christmas RFID: Thinking Outside the Box, Part 2 Free Software for the SMB	Trends MySpace: A Place for Developers Murdoch ‘Never Imagined’ Scale of MySpace Success Virtual Meetings: Bridging the Distance Gap	Wall Street Lexmark Smudges Q4 Expectations Mac Sales Power Apple to Record Quarter AT&T Rides BellSouth Buy, iPhone to $3.1B Profit

ECT News Network Information

Publications E-Commerce Times TechNewsWorld LinuxInsider CRM Buyer MacNewsWorld Free Newsletters E-Commerce Minute Tech News Flash ECT News Network Weekly Newsletter Newsletter Sign Up

Locate Products and Services E-Business Info Center IT Resources Open Source Technology CRM Solutions Center Corporate About Careers [NOW HIRING] Contact Us Business Development Permissions Reprint Information How To Advertise

Reader Services Account Management Become an Affiliate Discussion Letters to the Editor Linking Policy RSS / Headline Feeds Search ECT News Network News Alerts [NEW]

Copyright © 1998-2007 ECT News Network, Inc. All Rights Reserved. See Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. How To Advertise.

.iTt{ FONT-FAMILY: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica; FONT-SIZE: 11px; FONT-STYLE: normal; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: black; BACKGROUND-COLOR: lightyellow; BORDER: black 1px solid; PADDING: 2px; } <!–////–>

Payment Gateway and PayPal Options on FastCommerce.com

Accepting Credit Cards/Securing Your Store

With FastCommerce.com, you have an online service that lets you automatically create your own online store: it also gives you all of the tools you need to run an online business, from processing orders, managing customer accounts, shipping, taxes, and more.

There are several additional steps you will need to take in order to fully automate and secure the online ecommerce process. The first step is automating the purchasing process by accepting credit cards online. This is normally handled by third-party services, and FastCommerce.com has a payment option section to guide you through the set-up process with these third-party providers.

 Secondly, you will want to secure the transactions by installing an SSL certificate. An SSL certificate is an encryption technology that secures all customer and transaction data in your shopping cart: this extra step goes a long way to protecting both you and your customer.

  Setting Up Payment Options: Payment Gateway   

The ability to accept credit cards and automatically process transactions is essential for having a professional and successful ecommerce store. Ideally, it is best to offer your customers the ability to shop and complete a transaction while remaining entirely on your site. When customers decide to buy from you, there is an expectation that they can complete their transaction without having to leave your store. The customer enters in their credit card information, clicks on the order tab, and is taken to an order confirmation page: at this point the customer assumes that his work is done, and that the transaction is complete. How to make sure that this step-by-step process runs smoothly with each customer order?

To automate this process, you will need a payment gateway provider. How does this work? The customer enters their personal information, the billing address and credit card number, and then hits the order tab. Before an order confirmation appears, the payment gateway validates the credit card and secures authorization for this transaction. If the credit card number was entered incorrectly, the customer is prompted to enter the card again. This saves you and your customer the aggravation of getting an order confirmation, only to find out later that the credit card was entered incorrectly.

Once you process and ship the order, the funds will be automatically transferred from the customer’s credit card to your checking account. It doesn’t get any better than this.

Processing credit cards through a major payment gateway provider is an industry standard “best practice.” FastCommerce.com works exclusively with Authorize.net as a payment gateway. You simply go to payment section, click on the applications page for Authorize.net, and submit an application.

How To Apply:

1)      Go to the Set-up and click on Payment

2)      Click the box for: I want to process credit card transactions online.

3)      To make an application, just click on the Authorize.net logo.

4)      This will take you to the FastCommerce.com page on Authorize.net. There you will see payment terms and set-up.

5)      Click on the PDF application form on the right hand side, and fill in the information. There is also contact information at Authorize.net if you have any questions you want answered.

6)      For Company or business type, simply enter “sole proprietorship.” Unless you have already incorporated your business, this designation will be appropriate.

7)      Then submit via fax or email.

Once you are ready to go live, FastCommerce.com sets up the payment gateway on your site, and we make sure it performs flawlessly. You now have a live shopping cart, one that will smoothly and effectively process credit cards on the site, and then make sure the funds are delivered to your bank account.

 Payment Options: PAYPAL  

PayPal is also available from FastCommerce.com as a Payment option. The FastCommerce.com offers the PayPal’s express checkout, which offers a number of advantages. When your customer chooses the PayPal option in the shopping cart, a window automatically pops up. Customers then enter in their account information and complete the transaction. When the transaction is finished, the customer is automatically directed to a confirmation page in your shopping cart; it will have all the relevant information, billing and shipping address, and a list of items purchased and a breakdown of the costs.

Even better, once your customers order is completed on PayPal, all order information as stored on your site: customer name, shipping address, items purchased, etc. This means that you can have a PayPal account but still manage it from your FastCommerce.com order and account management module. The order even gets stored in your customers order history for them to access and review at a latter date.

  

 If you already have a PayPal account, either as a business or consumer, you can sign up with your current account and simply upgrade to “business Class.”

<a href=”http://www.romow.com/”><img src=”http://www.romow.com/banners/romow80×15.gif” alt=”Romow Web Directory – Online Internet Marketing Center” border=0></a>

 

 

 

<a href=’http://www.botablog.com/bots/subscribe/?feed=http%3A%2F%2Fwordpress.org%2Fdevelopment%2Ffeed%2F’ target=’_blank’><img src=’http://www.botablog.com/img/botablog.gif’ width=’80′ height=’15′ border=’0′></a>