E-COMMERCE SOLUTIONS - the basics Offering multiple payment methods for your products reduces the chances of losing an online sale and may even increase your chances of selling more of what you have. Aside from asking your online visitors to send an off-line check or money order, here are six ways to accept payments from your customers while they're connected to the internet and most importantly, on your website. CREDIT CARDS The most popular method of obtaining online purchases from website visitors is to offer payment by credit card. To offer credit card payments to your visitors, you'll need to either (1) get a merchant bank account (available through most major banks or your own if offered), or (2) sign up with a 3rd party transaction service to process these types of payments for you. If you are able to secure a merchant account, processing an online credit card order is a simple matter of forwarding your customer's credit card information to your bank and waiting for authorization from your bank to complete the order. Payment, minus a small transaction fee from your bank, is placed into your (merchant) account. DIGITAL CASH Digital cash allows your customers to place money into his or her bank's escrow account. Purchases from your website are taken from the customer's escrow account and then placed into your merchant account upon completion of a sale. What's unique about digital cash, is that it's tracked with serial numbers. This tracking strategy benefits you, the merchant, by decreasing the success of fraudulent purchases. DIGITAL CHEQUES Unlike digital cash, your customer's electronic cheques are authenticated though the use of digital signatures and certificates. These signatures and certificates are what places funds from your customers' bank account into your merchant account. DIGITAL COIN Digital coin allows your customers to make micro-payments for your products. Micro-payments are payments under the value of a penny. Through the services of a 3rd party transaction service, a customer can purchase a bundle of micro-payments and then spend a little of this bundle (stored on the customer's pc hard drive) at a time at your website. ELECTRONIC WALLETS To make online purchasing convenient for your credit card customers, offer payment by electronic wallet. Implementing online wallet payments into your website (via CyberCash, Microsoft, or BlueMoney) allows your customers to purchase items without having to re-enter address and credit card information per transaction. SMART CARDS Smart cards allow your customers to make online purchases just as easily as they can make credit card purchases, however for the merchant's convenience - payment processing is immediate, rather than delayed for approval and/or authentication from both party's banks. Used like a phone card or ATM card, the customer places funds onto the card, and then uses that card to purchase products and/or services from your website. Because the funds are on the card and not the bank, there is nothing to delay the sale via approval, verification, or authentication. Here are a few ecommerce solutions providers to get you started: CheckFree http://www.checkfree.com CyberCash http://www.cybercash.com CyberSource http://www.cybersource.com ICVerify http://www.icverify.com | 
