Begin to utilize the Shopping Cart Software, tutorial on how to utilize the software.
Break off into to groups, decide on your products and begin to build your store.
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Amazon — In 1994, a former investment banker, Jeff Bezos began an online book store out of his garage. It quickly led to a community where individuals could give book reviews and discuss their purchases online before buying.
Bezos, found an advantage in the online realm to selling books and reaching his audience. While a brick and mortar store was only able to sell what it could fit inside the store, or while a mail order catalogue only had a specific amount of pages to showcases their goods, Bezos soon realized that an online store could essentially hold an infinite amount of goods.
Ebay — Computer programmer, Pierre Omidyar, created an auction site and first sold a broken laser pointer. Named after an epidemic, the ebola virus, the company expanded to allow individuals to sell a vast variety of goods. Today it is a multi-billion dollar business selling all over the world.
Most of the retailers on ebay, were not traditional companies and were not able to processes credit cards or receive a merchant account because of a lack of commercial credit history.
A merchant account is: A merchant account is a type of bank account that allows businesses to accept payments….
After you have set up a merchant account with a bank… the next step is to select a payment gateway to make the transaction. The payment gateway authorizes payments online in order to complete the transaction.
Payment gateways that accept credit cards are: moneybrokers.com, authorize.net, paypal, 2Checkout, Google Checkout, Cyber Source, and Link Point
In the case of Ebay, they utilized Paypal in order to authorize their payments because it was a way of allowing and verifying transactions for customers with out their need to establish a merchant account. With Paypal, an individual set up an account online, and users were able to purchase items to add to that account.
In the early days of online transactions, security was a major hurdle in order to make sure the transaction was legitimate and the individuals account information was not sabotaged.
Paypal invented the Captcha System in order to block fradulent access from automated systems, when entering important data.
Netscape developed a protocol of transmitting packets of data over the internet called, SSL or “secure sockets layer“. SSL packages information using a crypotographic system in order to safely transmit files via the internet.
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So what is the process for making a transaction?
1- The individual sees a product they want to purchase.
2- They enter a secure page… passing through the Captcha System.
3- They enter their data and send it electronically over the internet using the SSL protocol.
4- That information goes to through a payment gateway to the bank of the individual they are purchasing the good or service from.
5- That individual had set up a merchant account with the bank to store their money and the help process the transaction.
6- Then the merchant sends the product to the individual.