I am a retailer looking to start a online store. how can I do this? Every website wants you to sign up for their mechant account. I already have one. Not in need of another one. I sell women and men clothing. Also have some Independent Sales Representatives that I can pass information to online much easier.

Hi Rublaken,

How are you? Perhaps my team and I might be able to help you. We specialize in apparel (men & women's clothing).

Give me a call when you get a chance. I can be reached at 1-800-896-4022.


Regards,

Pat Hardy
P Hardy Technologies, Inc.
When Retail Profits Count.
50 Charles Lindbergh Blvd. #400, Uniondale, NY 11553
1-800-896-4022 (phone) 516-342-4825 (fax)

Looking for higher profits in 2007? Visit: http://www.phardy.com/ideacafe to learn how.

Hi, are you looking for someone to design an ecommerce site? If you are, I know of a web hosting company called http://www.cyberhosted.com, they have their own web designer that can design a web store for you.

You don't have to signup with their merchant account, and you don't even have to have them host your website. If you already have a merchant account, and a web host, they will still design a web store for you to your specifications. If you need web hosting, they have a great plan for about $15.95 per month.

Contact Steve at sales@cyberhosted.com and he can give you all the details.

Hope they can help you!

If you already have a merchant account that is great, step one complete, you will however have to use a merchant gateway such as Authorize.net or VeriSign to handle the actual processing of the CC's.

Also you will need an SSL Certificate (Secure Socket Layer)the little lock icon that gives you the https:// and makes the process secure.

You should look for at least a 128bit encryption, you will see some hosts offer a free shared SSL certificate, with a shared certificate if someone clicks on the lock they won't get your information as the holder of the SSL, this may make someone uneasy. A regular SSL will display your contact/sign up information.

Look over this page we have on our website that gives more information about the topic. http://enginesofcreation.com/eCommerce-terms-explained.cfm

We offer eCommerce site design, development, SSL certificates and more, call or email us with any questions you may have.

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Dan La Bate
Creative Director & SEM - Engines of Creation.com
http://enginesofcreation.com


Phone: 518.842.3242
Fax: 866.643.4125
dan@enginesofcreation.com

If you need a custom website designed and e-commmerce integrated into your site, we can do that for you. You can visit our website www.zerogcreative.com and view our portfolio, prices, and order online.

We recommend using Auhtorize.net as your gateway. They have some of the best transaction rates out there and the customer service is excellent and the system is easy to use. Almost all e-commerce software packages can easily integrate with Authorize.net. You can then purchase your SSL Certificate from either Authorize.net or your hosting company. Bluehost.com has great hosting for $6.99 a month. You will not be able to go live with your e-commerce until you have purchased your SSL certificate. Your merchant gateway will not be activated until they have your certificate information.

During our web deisgn process, we guide you through all these processes so don't worry if you are alittle overhelmed now.

Hope this helps!

Hi Rublaken -

There are a couple of ways for you to get an online store and much of it depends on how much you're willing to spend and how much work you want to do (or are capable of doing) on your own.

First things first - you have a merchant account (which by the way is not always necessary with things like PayPal around.. you may want to consider using PayPal as well because of its popularity with online users) but do you have a domain name? To have a website, you must have a domain name. They're pretty cheap ($8-$15 or so) and you register them in a yearly basis. You can get one just about anywhere - do a search on http://google.com for domain names or you can go to http://pagebuzz.com and click on the domains tab.

In terms of your website - You can have someone build you a website and have them install the necessary components for the online store (there are a whole slew of responses above this one). That can be costly, so you will definitely want to have all the prices spelled out up front. You will want to also keep maintenance costs in mind - make sure you ask them about those.

You can also choose to build the website yourself by using a do it yourself system such as the one Yahoo offers or the one pageBuzz offers (see my link in the signature). Doing it yourself would be a cheaper alternative because you don't pay as much in fees. Another bonus is that you can do it yourself, on your own time, and update it with out paying all the extra costs. Also, with these systems, everythig is usually included for the fee (with pageBuzz it is $9.99 for hosting and the shopping cart is already included - you can use your merchant account without a problem and process real time or not).

In terms of using your merchant account, that usually is not going to be a problem. If you want to process real time, you will have to sign up with a gateway such as AuthorizeNet - http://authorize.net. I don't know if they have a set up fee but I do know they have a monthly fee. Again, though, you do not need to process real time - you could always collect the information and then charge the person's card later.

Good luck!!
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