So you decided to start doing business on the Internet and now you need to get started from scratch to finally be ready to sell your services or products, but where to start and who can help?

I have been many times through this process and every time it is the same questions I ask myself!

Where do I find the hosting that I need for my Website?
What you need to consider is how big your website is and how much traffic you expect to hitting your website, since we assume you are serious about your new business venture, then you should  decide to find a cheap but reliable and stable dedicated hosting plan. I looked into Liquid Web and The Planet, both have starting plans from $69 and a very low setup fee, since The Planet messed completely up my credit card for not so long a time ago, and are very complicated to deal with if you are outside of the US, then I would recommend Liquid Web.

Now you have your hosting in place and can start uploading your website! Uups, you need to figure out how your website should look and if it would be of benefit for you to use a CMS or Shopping Cart.

Shopping Cart or CMS?
So I while I started my business I have been looking at several solutions both in regards to a CMS solution and a regular Shopping Cart solution. It will depend very much on what your business is, I will give you 2 great suggestions here;

If you are going to sell electronic downloads, e-books, products (of any kind) or something else that need to be downloaded or shipped after Payment, then you should look into a shopping cart like OSCommerce which is free at widely supported by millions of people, a much smaller solution and which costs $25 is Pphpldshop.com, it is very easy to install and easy to customize, the support is, sorry to say so, a bit slow, but it works great.

An example of the PHPLD shopping cart can be found here: shop.cclogic.com

If you are going to offer services which don’t can be downloaded immediately or accessed after payment I would defiantly go for a CMS solution, a good CMS software will have a lot of extensions to advanced your needs and is easy to customize and maintain. It is crustily of importance for you to install a CMS which is supported instantly with security updates and buck fixes and where new versions are released on a regular basis. My best suggestion for you is to use :   Joomla is also supported by millions of people and you get everything you need, in fact with Joomla you are able to extend your website to a large corporate professional website with less effort and for a few bucks.

The Design and Logo
Now you need a good designer, please avoid for any price services which will charge you several thousand dollars, if you just need to get started, I made a very bad experience with a company OGOsense.com they are crocks and took $ 1.800 from me, what they did is looking professional, they will send you massive of e-mails with questionnaires and a lot of other crap you don’t want to look professional. My result was that they then took a cheap template from: Joomla Templates and put it online. Stay away.

No find a good template that fits into what you have in mind you can find many great templates and later on get them customized for less than $100.

For logo design I highly recommend the service of Business Logo, they are fast and very reliable to deal with, the results of their works is professional, the website is here:  BusinessLogo.net

Accepting Credit Card Payments
Now you are almost done and ready to start selling your services and products on the Internet.
To be able to accept payments on your website I would recommend you to take a look at the marked, and to find a reliable payment processor which is difficult and where you ran the risk to get into a trap. During my more than 9 Years of Experience in the Internet Business, I have seen a lot.

For startup business you should look into 2co.com, paypal.com, alertpay.com and even moneybookers.com, they are all 4 companies which have been in the payment processing business for many years now and they have grown to huge multimillion companies which don’t disappear overnight.

Once you have grown your own business to be a small or even medium sized company with a monthly sales volume of let’s say approximately $15.000 you should look into becoming your own Merchant Account and connect your website directly with a payment gateway, a good start would be cclogic.com they are only working as consultancies, but have been in the business like the first mentioned 4 companies for many years.

They will provide you with the reliable and trusted solution you want.  With the large network of Banks and Payment processors they have, you will be in good hands.

Beside to accept credit cards you should also look into other payment methods, you have optional possibilities to Accept ACH Check processing, Debit Card processing like Visa Electron or Maestro, Bank Transfer payments, Phone Billing and much more… Ask your payment service provider for what other payments methods they offer.

Most important for you is, the payment gateway provider MUST be PCI compliant, here is the official website for the same: https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/ and at least Level 1, this is not something you need to worry about what it is about, just make sure your Payment Gateway provider is compliant. This is a second level of security for you and your business. If anyone tells you they are in process, or they use HackerSafe.com, RUN RUN RUN and stay away, it is not what we speak about. We want a fully compliant PCI Level 1 payment gateway, and we want to see a VALID certificate.

Now you are ready to get started, please make a short comment on this blog post if you find it informative or if you need  more tips and tricks.

Please also feel free to Visit our Webmaster Forum which includes many of the topics mentioned in this article and where you can discuss what YOU want.

Accepting credit card payments on your website is standard practice these days and if your site is not yet doing this, then you will definitely be losing customers and business. Credit cards can ensure business transactions are quicker and easier for all involved and lead to expansion. Online businesses are nervous about accepting credit cards due to the penalties banks charge if credit card fraud occurs, setting up a merchant account can be a simple process that will identify and reduce the number of fraudulent transactions. A little research can find the right merchant account suited to your type of business.

There are a number of benefits to accepting credit card payments online, first and foremost it will enable your customer base to grow and you’ll never have to turn a customer away again. Many people now use the internet to shop for a wide range of products as it is now possible to purchase items online without ever having to leave the comfort of our homes. The availability of the website will also open up your products to the worldwide market and attract international customers. Credit card payments are more convenient for everyone involved. With the setting up of a merchant account, everything is done automatically so sales will increase due to their availability 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

For a secure and reliable Merchant Account and Payment Gateway solution to Accept Credit Cards, contact cclogic.com

The decision to accept credit card payments and so increase revenue to your online business brings with it the difficulty in choosing a payment gateway to process sales.

In very simple terms, the gateway processes online payments by connecting your websites order form with the merchant account and returning the answer to the merchant and customer, either approved or declined. Although the gateway itself actually only connects the website to the merchant account, larger payment gateway providers offer additional services, such as merchant accounts and shopping carts.

All payment gateways have standard fees to be aware of. The first of these are setup fees, charged when the gateway is initially established and often non-returnable. There will also be monthly fees to pay for the service and charges for every transaction processed, regardless of whether the transaction has been accepted or denied. Nowadays, when searching the internet we want everything to be processed quickly and get annoyed if this isn’t the case.

If transactions are slow when purchasing or during check out, the customer is likely to leave your website and find another that can process the sale much quicker. You need a reliable gateway provider who can promise a quick efficient service. Gateways offer a range of features that will increase security and revenue. Listed below are several of the more common features to expect.

Contact CCLOGIC LLC to Accept Credit Card Payments today!

Something interested I read about cclogic’s business partners and the payment gateways they use.

Our Payment Gateway providers supports over 150 different currencies so the customer has the option of ordering products or services in the currency they are familiar with. Shoppers will know which cards are accepted by the card logos shown on the payment method page. When the account is set up the payment logos are automatically displayed so shoppers can see the cards available for them to use. If the online store requires more payment cards after the set up has been completed, an online application has to be submitted stating the extra cards to be added.

Our Payment Gateway providers accepts applications from most types of industries including Gaming, Pharmacy, Adult, Retail, Software, Ticketing Tobacco, Travel business, Airlines, Hosting business, Financial Services, Online Games, Luxury Goods, Digital Content. Opening a merchant account with Our Payment Gateway providers will show a growth in your online business as the website becomes available internationally. As an online merchant check out the options available with Our Payment Gateway providers and you will see that it is an affordable choice.

I came across some forums where some service providers of BIN (Bank Identification number) numbers offered those for sale. There are a lot of great Credit Card Anti Fraud providers that offer access to those numbers, however, the credit card association like Visa and MasterCard do not accept any member sharing them.

What are the BIN numbers used for ? If you Accept Credit Card Payments on your website or even Offline through a Virtual Terminal, then you can quickly compare live transactions against the BIN’s to validate the credit card number, also if a card is stolen, it will be listed as Stolen Card in the BIN database. So you will like to have an up to date BIN database to be effective.

So it is a question of where those numbers are released. If you Accept Credit Card Payments you will properly have faced fraud, fraud like someone that have bought a product or service from you and then made a chargeback or fraud where your credit card processor notified you that the transaction for a certain transaction was fraud due to wrong or non existing address or the card number is from a stole card.

What can you do about it? You will need to find a solution provider which is specialized in Credit Card Fraud on the Internet; you will be interested in looking at services like MaxMind or similar. The only problem is that most services only offer you a limited range of options to prevent fraud. They do offer you key data and some offer you a Management Interface where you can set up a few rules but so far no one offers a complete solution which protects you against fraud and where you can customize the system to meet your business requirements, sorry, there are a few companies but most small and medium sized companies cant effort the costs for it.
A good alternative would be to get those BIN numbers which I explained at the beginning of this post; however you will need to build your own script or software to use the BIN’s effectively. It makes no sense to buy them and just compare your Internet credit card transactions against the database, it needs more.

The question is; why does the card association not release this information the authorized payment service providers or at least let those companies compare their data against the BIN’s it would increase fraud dramatically. It is a question which will be left unanswered, sorry.

A theory could be that it is for security reasons and because the card association and its members not have full control of each and every payment gateway provider to make sure that they don’t release it to unauthorized people. This obviously is true, since if they had, there would not be that many companies offering the BIN’s for sales.

A good advice, if you offer your customers to pay online at your website and you also want to Accept Credit Card Payments, than use the tools available, even if they are not sufficient it is better than not have anything and just see the charge backs coming.

This posts contains the opinions of CCLOGIC LLC and its authors and don’t the opinions of neither the Card Association nor other Payment Service Providers.

Online sales are big business and these days every website has to offer their customers the chance to pay for goods and services using credit cards, if it wants to meet customer needs. Accepting credit cards is known to increase profits as credit card users are more likely to purchase on impulse and spend more. The advantages include payments arriving much faster, no waiting around period while the cheque is received and has to clear before the goods can be shipped and no bouncing credit cards. If this payment method isn’t available potential customers will take their money elsewhere and business will decline.

To enable your website to accept credit cards there are a number of systems to be put into place. These are outlined below.

Shopping Cart System

The first thing you need to set into place when selling online is an electronic shopping cart system. First, there is the product catalogue where products available to purchase from your store can be viewed. Once the customer has choiceed the product they want it’s added to the cart, customers are able to choice as many items as they like and the system will total it all at checkout. Once the shipping address is added, the system also calculates postage and any taxes to be paid. The final part of the process is when the customer enters their credit card details and this is where the gateway system comes into operation to conclude the sale.

Shopping cart systems can be simple with no frills, offered for free by organisations involved in ecommerce solutions in order to get you to buy other services from them, or they can be costly to purchase and contain many features. To choice the shopping cart system that’s best for your business, you need to take into consideration the type of product for sale, the purchase choices you want to be able to offer customers, the inventory control application and range of automation required.

Gateway Service

The gateway service is an automatic process of the payment transaction between the customer and the merchant. Once the customer enters their credit card details, these are electronically sent to the gateway service which then forwards the information to the credit card processor for authorisation.

Credit Card Processor

A credit card processor is a data center that electronically processes the credit card transaction. The processor will deal with the transaction, authenticate and accept or decline the credit card for the merchant using secure internet connections. After checking the validity of the transaction, if everything is correct, they will transfer the funds into the merchant account.

Merchant Account

Without a merchant account your website can’t accept credit card payments. An online merchant account is a bank or other financial institution where money generated from your online sales is placed by the processor. Some banks associated with credit card services, such as Visa and MasterCard, issue merchant accounts; however as online businesses are regarded as risky they may refuse you an account. This is not a great problem as due to the rapid growth of online sales there is a choice of merchant organisations that will set up an account for you. 

Shopping has changed dramatically with the expansion of retail stores online, offering shoppers anything from a fully fitted kitchen to a kitchen tap. Add to this the increasing number of websites that now accept credit cards and shopping online has never been easier or more convenient.

There are many organisations out there that will facilitate you in the setting up of your online credit card payment system and other requirements. These organisations have varying fees, so ask around and take a good look at their website before making any final decision. If you spend your money wisely in this area and choice a reputable company with a good reputation for its systems you will see an increase in sales from credit card customers. Lastly, ensure the service you decide upon has an up to date anti-fraud system that will protect your business from fraudulent transactions.  

Online sales are big business and these days every website has to offer their customers the chance to pay for goods and services using credit cards, if it wants to meet customer needs. Accepting credit cards is known to increase profits as credit card users are more likely to purchase on impulse and spend more. The advantages include payments arriving much faster, no waiting around period while the cheque is received and has to clear before the goods can be shipped and no bouncing credit cards. If this payment method isn’t available potential customers will take their money elsewhere and business will decline.

To enable your website to accept credit cards there are a number of systems to be put into place. These are outlined below.

Shopping Cart System
The first thing you need to set into place when selling online is an electronic shopping cart system. First, there is the product catalogue where products available to purchase from your store can be viewed. Once the customer has choice the product they want it’s added to the cart, customers are able to choice as many items as they like and the system will total it all at checkout. Once the shipping address is added, the system also calculates postage and any taxes to be paid. The final part of the process is when the customer enters their credit card details and this is where the gateway system comes into operation to conclude the sale.
Shopping cart systems can be simple with no frills, offered for free by organisations involved in ecommerce solutions in order to get you to buy other services from them, or they can be costly to purchase and contain many features. To choice the shopping cart system that’s best for your business, you need to take into consideration the type of product for sale, the purchase choices you want to be able to offer customers, the inventory control application and range of automation required.

Gateway Service
The gateway service is an automatic process of the payment transaction between the customer and the merchant. Once the customer enters their credit card details, these are electronically sent to the gateway service which then forwards the information to the credit card processor for authorisation.

Credit Card Processor
A credit card processor is a data center that electronically processes the credit card transaction. The processor will deal with the transaction, authenticate and accept or decline the credit card for the merchant using secure internet connections. After checking the validity of the transaction, if everything is correct, they will transfer the funds into the merchant account.

Merchant Account
Without a merchant account your website can’t accept credit card payments. An online merchant account is a bank or other financial institution where money generated from your online sales is placed by the processor. Some banks associated with credit card services, such as Visa and MasterCard, issue merchant accounts; however as online businesses are regarded as risky they may refuse you an account. This is not a great problem as due to the rapid growth of online sales there is a choice of merchant organisations that will set up an account for you. 

Shopping has changed dramatically with the expansion of retail stores online, offering shoppers anything from a fully fitted kitchen to a kitchen tap. Add to this the increasing number of websites that now accept credit cards and shopping online has never been easier or more convenient.

There are many organisations out there that will facilitate you in the setting up of your online credit card payment system and other requirements. These organisations have varying fees, so ask around and take a good look at their website before making any final decision. If you spend your money wisely in this area and choice a reputable company with a good reputation for its systems you will see an increase in sales from credit card customers. Lastly, ensure the service you decide upon has an up to date anti-fraud system that will protect your business from fraudulent transactions.

It has been a long time since all our business transactions were in cash or cheques. The wish to be able to handle more business, make our procedures faster and more efficient and to give a better service to our clients has resulted in a wide range of technologies and services that are now so pedestrian that we sometimes wonder how life would be without them. And as we are now working within a growing world economy, the need for fast and save business transactions and accepting credit card payments has never been greater.

We are proud to be a company that offers payment solutions, as accepting credit card payments online. We merge modern technology with knowledge and understanding in our field. Our products are valuable to private organizations as well as local authorities, and come with full support and guidance from our highly qualified team.

Basically, we offer a gateway for merchants , which is fast and simple in use. With our resources it is very simple to accept credit card payments online. All the transactions are safe and we always guarantee discretion from the start to the end of a procedure. Our services do not just cover this. Here is a list of the other products in our expertise:

·         Payment Gateway

·         Merchants Accounts

·         Virtual Terminals

·         Credit Card Fraud Detection Service

·         Consultancy Services

·         Partner Projects including:

Affiliates Program

Reseller Program

Private Label Gateway

Integrators

·         Customer Support

Payment Gateway - is a very powerful gateway solution that will provide you with:

·         All you need to run a lucrative e-commerce business.

·         A payment gateway that is a strong and secure and allows you to accept credit card payments online.

·         A system that is easy for medium sized as well as large companies.

·         Total power over all your transactions and printing your own statement.

·         A powerful system that lets you deal with several Merchant Accounts on a single server and install different clearing banks at the time.

·         A system that allows payments in any currency of choice.

Merchant Account – With the merchant interface you can:

·         Control transactions.

·         Observe transactions.

·         Get summaries, graphs and more. The merchant interface is a secure website that you can enter from anywhere with an Internet connection.

Virtual Terminal – Our Virtual Terminal software:

·         Allows fast manual processing of mail orders and telephone orders in a secure environment.

·         Is desktop application that allows use without browser and logins. This is to avoid online insecurity. Read more about our Virtual Terminal software here.

Consultancy Services – Cclogic.com Consultancy is for those are looking for advantages from the knowledge of our team and business. We can help you if:

·         you want to set up your own payment service provider.

·         you need insider information from the sector.

·         you need to plan how to deal with different complicated aspects of this industry such as risk management, due diligence and compliance.

·         you need tools to manage your business.

Partner Projects – Cclogic.com offers an unparalleled range of prospects for partners, and we are always looking for chances to expand our business. We offer:

·         a generous affiliate scheme where you can earn commissions from link backs and sales.

·         An excellent reseller program that connects your gateway to Cclogic.com. This means that you will make use of our experienced team, have the wide range of banks with which Cclogic.com is already connected and you will be able to start up your payment service provider business. You will have access to the advanced and recently developed anti-fraud system (VFraud) which you can offer your merchants as additional security. This is your opportunity to get started easily or to expand your existing PSP, ISO or MSP business.
As a reseller and Cclogic.com contractor, you will automatically join Cclogic.com’s affiliate program. Pass on a new or existing business to us as payment service provider, merchant service provider or independent sales organization and you will earn 45% commission for every lead that ends up as a contract. You see! We wish to make every effort to help you make good earnings while working with Cclogic.com.

·         Private Label Gateway – The private label gateway at Cclogic.com allows you to start accepting credit card payment fast and secure. We currently have two solutions; online or to install the Gateway Program on your computer.

Customer Support - Cclogic.com provides:-

·         Absolute support for all our products, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

·         Guarantee that we will look after your needs at all times, and supply many routes for support if required.

Press Releases and Current News – Cclogic.com provides:

·         a library of resources relating to the business

·         information to keep you abreast of relevant current news.

As you can see we are more than just a payment solution company that allows you to accept credit card payments online.  We offer an complete service of support and resources, which allows you to deliver the best service to your customers. We also keep you up to date with what is going on in your particular business area. We are sure that you will be very satisfied you choose us.