eCommerce (electronic commerce) is simply refered to the buying and selling of products or services on the internet. eCommerce covers a range of different bussiness types such as retail, auction and music web sites and also allows consumers to electronically exchange products and services with no barriers of time or distance.

When your transactions are made electronically, it provides a vast competitive advantage over the old traditional methods. eCommerce is then often faster, cheaper and more convenient than the old traditional methods of exchanging products and services.

The trading system can then become more refined, reaching proportions of an online shopping cart.

There is a variety of software that you can use, but customizable, turnkey solutions are proven to be a cost effective method to build, edit and maintain an online store.

The following elements are used to create your online store:

1. Shopping Cart,
2. Secure Server Connection,
3. Merchant Account,
4. and Payment Transaction Software.

A shopping cart allows a web site to build up a catalog of products, stored in a database, which is then integrated it into the web sites pages. The consumer is then allowd to select any number of products or services within the catalog, review what has been selected, make necessary modifications or additions, and finally purchase the selection made. The consumer then commits to pay either on receipt of an invoice, delivery order, or with a credit card.

All information such as product details, customer data, order information, etc, is then stored in a database and used for further processing. Once the consumer has finished ordering, the customer indicates that they are ready to check out and the information then moves through a private and secure gateway to a processing network, where the issueing and acquiring banks complete or deny the transaction. This generally takes up to between 5-7 seconds.

An administration area is also provided allowing you, the store administrator, to manage your website, products and services. You will also be able to add, edit and delete your products, set up shipping & payment options, process orders and much more.

Our servers also support a number of eCommerce applications, pre-installed and ready to deploy.

A Secure Server Connection is a link to a special computer which encrypts confidential information such as, the ordering data supplied by the customer. This provides a safer and secure environment for all you customers.

This usually entails obtaining a merchant account and accepting credit cards through an online payment gateway (some smaller sites stick with simpler methods of accepting payments such as PayPal). By accepting major credit cards, you can increase your credibility, customer convenience, and best of all, your sales.

Payment Transaction software processes customer order information (address, credit card number, etc.) and sends data to credit card authorisation network. This service is provided by a Payment Gateway Provider.

With eCommerce websites you do not have a credit card terminal where you swipe the client's card, such as those presented in retail stores. The 3rd party payment gateway provider acts exactly like a credit card terminal and does the actual deduction for you. By making use of a 3rd party payment gateway (such as www.vcs.co.za) there is no need for digital security certificates. Please see a simple diagram below explaining the process.