The default osCommerce version 2.2MS2 comes with the Authoize.net SIM module pre-installed. Unlike other payment gateway modules, there is no additional contribution to install. To enable payment gateway with Authorize.net, the following setup is required:

1. Login to Authorize.net and generate a “Transaction Key” or use the one provided at signup.

2. Go to Authorize.net “Settings” page, and go to “Transaction Response” page. Add “Receipt URL” and “Relay Response URL” as the secure “checkout_process.php” of the osCommerce catalog directory.

3. Go to osCommerce Admin page (Modules -> Payment -> Authorize.net), and enter ID and Transaction Key.

That’s all there is to it!!!

The first six digits of each credit card account number is called the Bank Identification Number (BIN) and the next three digits determine the card type. The first nine digits of credit card numbers allow merchants to identify card-issuing institution and what type of credit card is being used.

A bank card number is the account number found on credit cards and bank cards, which follows ISO/IEC 7812 numbering scheme. The first digit identifies the Industry of entity who issued the credit card, commonly known as Major Industry Identifier (MII). The MII digits represent the following issure categories (extracted from WikiPedia).

0: ISO/TC 68 and other future industry assignments
1: Airlines
2: Airlines and other future industry assignments
3: Travel and entertainment and banking/financial
4: Banking and financial
5: Banking and financial
6: Merchandising and banking/financial
7: Petroleum and other future industry assignments
8: Healthcare, telecommunications and other future industry assignments
9: National assignment

The first six digits including MII digit are known as the Bank Identification Number (BIN). The BIN number identify the institution that issued the credit or bank card to the card holder. The next three digits represents the card type. Online merchants may use BIN lookup to help validate transactions. The following BIN ranges represents commonly used Credit Cards in the USA.

American Express (15 digits): BIN starts with 34 or 37.
Discover Card (16 digits): BIN starts with 6011, 622126-622925, 644-649, 65
Master Card (16 digits): BIN starts with 51-55
Visa Card (16 digits): BIN starts with 4

The next three digits of the card number represents the card type. In order to determine commercial card type, you’ll need a BIN database. By looking up first 9 digits against BIN database, you’ll be able to determine the card type. The BIN database contains LowRange and HighRange values of the first 9 digits (which you’ll need to lookup), and the CardType value associated with this range determines the type.

In order to qualify for best rate available for Corp and Business cards, you’ll have to submit Level 2 or Level 3 data with your card processing data. The Level II data is supported by Authorize.net and PC Charge products; and they require the following additional data.

1. Customer Code – No longer required but encouraged if they have it.
2. Sales Tax – a tax amount included in the total transaction amount must be submitted separately.

Level III pricing can be obtained by Plugnpay Internet Gateway (virtual terminal) service and PC Charge products; and they require all Level II data plus the following:

3. Freight Amount – If unavailable, enter $0.00
4. Duty Amount – If unavailable, enter $0.00
5. Line Item Details:
    A. Product / Service ID (Product ID)
    B. Product / Service Description
    C. Quantity
    D. Product Amount
    E. Unit of Measure

Now that you have built an ecommerce website that converts (How to build an effective ecommerce web site?), you will have to drive traffic to your website so that you can make sales. There are a number of ways to drive traffic to your website, free and paid traffic. The goal is to use freely available resources first, and then explore the paid resources when you’re ready to expand your business.

Part 2. How to promote your ecommerce website?

1. Before spending any money driving traffic to your website, you must sign up to receive free traffic from shopping comparison engines. The three most popular shopping comparison traffic you can draw freely include (1) google prduct search, (2) bing, and (3) thefind. Those are shopping portals that allow merchants to add products to their shopping engine at no cost to you, and send traffic to your site for those customers interested in the products that you sell.

2. You may also consider selling your products through 3rd-party marketplaces. You’ll pay pre-determined commission (rate up to 15%) on each sale you make through marketplaces. The most popular marketplaces are Amazon, EBay, buy.com, newegg, sears and Walmart which will join the force in the very near-term. The benefit of selling through 3rd-party marketplaces is that you only pay comission when your product sells at the price you want.

3. Join an affiliate marketing program. Allow other publishers to advertise your business and drive traffic to your website by joining an affiliate network. By joining an affiliate network, you agree to pay pre-agreed percentage of commission to affiliates when they help you sell products (or services) on your website. Similar to marketplace sale, you only pay fee when sales occur.

4. Build search engine traffic by optimizing your website for major search engines. Although it takes much time to rank well on SERP (search engine result pages), it is worthwhile investing preset percentage of your marketing dollars in search engine optimization. Paid PPC traffic stop immediately when you suspend you advertisements, but when you have organic search traffic you’ll be less pressured spend hefty marketing dollars in drawing traffic to your site.

5. Explore CSEs such as Nextag, Shopping.com, Shopzilla/Bizrate, shop.com, Amazon Product Ads, and etc.

Building and running an ecommerce website is not a trivial task. This two part article will discuss how to build a feature-rich ecommerce website, and also cover strategies for promoting your website efficiently.

Part 1. How to build an effective ecommerce web site?

Building a website is not hard, but building a converting website is not easy. It cost a lot of money and effort to bring traffic to your website, so it is your job to build a website that converts. Depending on whether you have the targeted traffic, your conversion rate will vary significantly. Assuming you have ppc or display advertisement traffic, you will most likely convert about 2% of your traffic which is not too bad.

There are a number of factors that will determine whether a prospect will purchase a product or service from your website. Here are a few important factors to consider when building an effective website.

1. Customers don’t have the time. Make it up front and show everything you’ve got on the product description page. Customer look at the pictures, price, description and product reviews. Make sure you display “add to cart” button next to the picture and the price. It will be noticeable and won’t be missed. Offer free shipping or at least be upfront about it. Don’t waste customer’s time or yours.

2. Customers make buying decision based son number of factors. Price is one of them, but it’s not the sole criteria. Make your description very clear, and have the answers to all FAQ questions. If they have a doubt or unanswered questions, they will haunts somewhere else. Remember, it cost you alot of money to bring this customer to your website. While they are on your website, you will have to convert this visitor to a customer.

3. Before committing to buy a product, over 55% of the people read product reviews. If your don’t have the product reviews, your are missing a puzzle in your ecommerce strategy. Solicit your past customers for product reviews even if you have to offer something free. Be sure to read those reviews, but do not delete or forge negative reviews. If a product received a lot if negative reviews, there are reasons for it. Help your customers and yourself by removing bad products from your catalog.

4. Provide closeup pictures in a different angle, and also provide videos if you have them. A picture is worth a thousand words. Give detailed description about the product. Customers will have a lot of questions before buying a product. Your description should answer all those questions, or you will not make a sale.

5. Make your checkout process simple and short. Every additional step require to complete a sale, your are risking your prospective customer abadoning their cart. Amazon introduced a 1-click checout, and pay phrase which perfectly explains streamlined checkout process.

6. Maximize your profit by offering cross-sell and up-sell. Cross-selling related items, and up-selling accompanying accessories will not only increase average order size, but will also increase profit as combined shipping will yield higher profit.

7. Make it easier for your customers to find the products they are looking for. Displaying best sellers, clearance items, deals and featured items are a good examples of showcasing hot sellers. Also, offering products by price, manufacturer, and category are must have feathers. Just understand that the customers don’t have a whole lot of time to spend on your website.

Continue to How to build a successful ecommerce business? (Part 2)

Building a traffic bearing website is easier said than done. It takes time, dedication and a careful plan. There are a number of ways to build a website, and each web site is built differently based upon their unique requirements. I personally like building a website with WordPress (blog), even though drupal, joomla and other open source content management systems offer more powerful features.

WordPress is a blogging application written in PHP, and it is available for free. There are thousands of plugins that you can download and install on your WordPress website to add functionality that is not available on standard installation.

WordPress has been around for more than a decade, and it is one of the most popular blogging application that is available on the Internet. It can be used to build a personal blogging website, or dynamic portal site with all the bells and whistles. For those trying to build an affiliate marketing website, display advertisement website (such as google adsense) or technology blog; WordPress is the desirable platform. It encourages site visitors to add comments, and contribute toward building additional contents which is the right steps for making the site search engine friendly.

As a beginner, you may be challenged by spammers who post spams on your blog. With the help of plugins, you may add captcha or prevent bot postings by installing 3rd-party plugins.

You will also be challenged by realizing how much time it will take to build quality traffic. You will not build traffic overnight. Just dedicate your time regularly, and write quality articles on your blog regularly and soon or later you’ll attract thousands of visitors a day.

Setting up an ecommerce website is a little more involved than setting up a personal homepage. The basic domain and web hosting setup are identical, but ecommerce website requires a few additional components in order to offer credit card processing and secure checkout process. You may also use 3rd-party hosted ecommerce application, but this article discusses the procedure for creating a standalone website built from a shopping cart application.

1. Register a domain name.

In order for computers to find your website, you’ll need a web address. Computers use IP address to find a website, but 32-bit IP address is not very memorable to humans. Domain name is a human readable Internet Address. Domain name is comprised of at least two parts: top level domain (TLD) and second level domain (SLD). TLD is the names that ends with .COM, .NET, .ORG, .INFO, .BIZ, and etc. Each TLD is designed for a specific purpose, so choose the one that is right for you. If you’re looking to build a business website, the .COM domain name is the right choice; and for non-profit organization, family or hobby website, the .ORG domain name will work.

The domain name that you can register from a registrar, is the second level domain (SLD) name followed by TLD. The domain names starts from right to left separated by a dot, so TLD is the rightmost name, SLD is the one before that, and third level domain name is the one before SLD, also known as subdomain name. To register a domain name, you’ll have to pick a name that suits your purpose. A domain name can consist of alphabet, numbers, and – (dash). The name cannot start with a dash. The webtrafficexchange.com is the domain name we used to publish this website. You may choose to find one that meets your personal or business needs.

2. Decide on the Shopping Cart script

In order to setup an ecommerce website, you’ll need a shopping cart script. There are more than a dozen popular shopping carts to choose from, and many of those are freely available. For those interested in open source shopping carts, try evaluating OS Commerce, Zen Cart, Magento, CRE Loaded and OSC Max for your web store.

3. Setup a web hosting

Depending on the shopping cart software you’ve chosen, you’ll need to setup a web hosting plan that can host your shopping cart application. Two most common hosting platform are Windows and Linux. Choose the one for your shopping cart. A web host provides you with storage space for your website, and also allows you to create email accounts using your domain name. Your web host delivers web contents to your visitors, and also provides email services. Since your website needs to be up 24×7 and you need uninterrupted email services, it is important that you find a reliable web host. For more information about setting up a website, please consult our sister site knowledgebase.

4. Design your website

It will cost a lot of money to bring customers to your site, so invest in your website and make it professional. The cost of building a website is a fraction as compare the the amount you’ll spend on the advertisement. Try avoiding using Flash, but build a rich contents with multi-media to describe the products you’ll be selling them on your website. If you’re not comfortable designing your own website, an ecommerce web design company can help you design one with search engine optimization.

5. Setup a Merchant Account

Once you’ve built a website, you’ll need to open a merchant account. Merchant account allows you to accept credit cards. Be sure to apply for one that includes MOTO (Mail Order Telephone Order), which will allow Internet transactions. A retail merchant account cannot be used for Internet transactions, unless you add MOTO service. Rates may vary, so do your research and find the one with best rates possible.

6. Setup Payment Gateway

You’ll also need to apply for a payment gateway service which will perform online credit card processing for your online store. Before getting your payment gateway service, you’ll need to make sure that the gateway is supported by the shopping cart you’re using. Most common payment gateway services include Authorize.net and Verisign Payflow. Many merchant providers provide packaged bundle that includes merchant account and payment gateway service.

7. Install SSL Certificate

Once you are ready to accept credit cards online, you’ll need to secure your website by installing SSL certificate. SSL is a protocol developed by Netscape for transmitting private documents via the Internet, which uses a cryptographic system to encrypt data. Without SSL, your merchant provider will not grant you permission to use your merchant account online, and your users will turn away from purchasing products from your website. With ecommerce web hosting plan, you’ll need a dedicated IP address which allows you to install your own certificate on a shared server. To purchase SSL certificate, you’ll need to generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) from the web server with Linux openssl (via ssh) or control panel.

8. Configure your website

The next step is adding your products, and setting up shipping methods. Your shopping cart will provide you with administrative control panel that you can use to easily add additional products and services, as well as setting up UPS, FedEX, USPS and other shipping methods.

Conclusion

Starting an online business is no different than starting a bricks-and-mortar business. Before you begin setting up your business, you’ll need to put together a solid business plan that includes all the bells and whistles of your business objects including competitor analysis and marketing plans. No one will visit your site if your online store is not advertised or promoted on media. To get it exposed to search engines, it’s a good idea to build your website search engine friendly from the ground up, and also place pay-per-click marketing campaign during initial debut and until your site is ranked well on some of the major search engines. To learn more about search engine optimization, please visit SEO page of our website.

Have you heard of the iSafe Backpack? When I first saw the iSafe Backpack on TV, I thought of Jaycee Dugard who was kidnapped at the age of 11 and found 18 years later as a mom with two children. We live in a scary world with sex offenders every corner of our neighborhood. Should this girl had the iSafe Backpack, could this terrible incident avoided? Chances are pretty good at least someone would have seen the victim, and may have reported to the authorities and this tragic incident could have been avoided. Or, perhaps the offender may have chose to leave the kid alone while the backpack is alarmed with siren.

As a parent of 3 children, I would feel a little more comfortable if my kids have backpacks with security alarm installed. As with any security devices, nothing is foolproof but having a security alarm in a backpack will certainly add security.

We will give away one iSafe backpack to a lucky blogger!!!! The backpack will be shipped to arrive BEFORE 2010 school year starts! The winner will be selected and the backpack will be shipped on August 17th 2010.

The iSafe Backpack has paired up with Broadband Media to ramdomly give away a iSafe Backpack to one of bloggers!!! There are a number ways you can gain entries in this give away! YOU get to pick and choose which one or all that you would like to participate in… The more you do, the better your odds are of winning!

• Tweet this give away and tell people to go to webtrafficexchange.com, and come back here and provide the link to your tweet.
• Share your thoughts and experiences by adding comment to this article.
• Become a fan of iSafe Bags on facebook, and comment on this blog.
• Become a fan of Kiddie Toys on facebook, and comment on this blog.
• Do a clever ways to spread the word about iSafe backpack, and comment on this blog.

Related Information:

• Where can I buy a iSafe backpack? You may find one at Kiddie Toys or iSafe Bags.
• Backpack Thieves Beware, The iSafe Is Here by CBS channel 11 TV, July 7, 2010.
• “iSafe Backpacks & Bags” is a registered trademark filed under various categories.
• Keep your kids safe with the iSafe Backpack.
• The iSafe Bag – A Smart Way to Keep Kids Safe

Every once in a while customers call us at Kiddie Toys, and tell us that they are seeing “unauthorized” credit card charge(s) on their bank account. Customers attempt to place an order online, and the credit card declines for some reason but the bank account shows that the charge went through. We look up our payment gateway and see multiple “declined” transactions. Customers ask us to remove the charge(s) for those transactions that were never approved on our end. So, here is the customer’s question and the merchant’s response.

Q. I have tried to purchase an item online, but my credit card was declined. However, when I call my bank they are telling me the charge when through. My credit card company tells me that your company double charged my credit card, and you’re telling me the order didn’t go through. I trust my bank, so please remove the charge(s) from my bank.

A. The answer is both the merchant and the bank are right!. You’re credit card charge has been declined from merchant’s perspective, but the charge went through from buyer’s perspective. It is the way how the banks operate, so it’s not your fault nor merchant’s fault. The merchant cannot remove the charge, so please do NOT ask merchant to remove this charge. The charge will be on “pending” state, and the money will never be taken out of your credit card account but the reserve will be put aside so it will reduce your credit limit until the transaction clears on it’s own within 2-5 business days. The bank will say “ask the merchant to call in to cancel this transaction”, but the merchant CANNOT call in on your behalf as the credit card companies will not share account information with non-account holders such as the merchant.

To understand why this is happening, you’ll have to understand how credit card transactions are processed. For full explanation, please read the Credit Card Processing Diagram with explanation below.

1. When a buyer commits an order, the credit card transaction goes to the payment gateway provider such as Authorize.Net and forwards the transaction to Merchant Bank’s Processor.

2. The information is then sent to your bank (“issuing bank”), and your bank will either approve or decline the transaction based on customer’s available funds. If transaction is declined by your bank, the transaction stops and there is NO problem. The customer’s bank account will show transaction declined and so does the merchant’s processor so there is no reason to argue with the merchant or bank.

3. If the transaction is approved by your bank, now the transaction is once again go through a security check by the payment gateway company with billing information sent by the issuing bank. If customer entered address, zip code and card code do not match with the credit card billing information provided by the issuing bank, the payment gateway may decline the transaction based upon merchant’s fraud security settings. This is the reason why your bank says it’s approved, and your merchant says declined — and, they are both right!! Your bank approved the transaction, but the payment processor declined the transaction.

To conclude, the net result of transaction status is a failure as the payment processor declined the transaction even though your bank approved it. This transaction will NOT show up on your credit card statement as it is declined by the payment processor. To your bank, they’ll see this transaction as approved and will temporarily hold (“reserve”) this money until the payment processor claims the money (which will never do as it declined the transaction), or a specific time elapses with no action from the payment processor which then releases the reserve. The time it will take to release the fund varies from banks to banks, and it could take anywhere from 2-7 business days.

The reason for multiple “approved” transactions on your bank account may be due to multiple attempts on your part to submit the order when the payment processor declined the previous transaction.

Why would payment gateway company scan a security check and decline the transaction when the issuing bank already approved the transaction? Credit card fraud is one of the fastest growing crimes as more and more people are buying products and services online. When fraud occurs, the banks get their money back from the merchant and the customers get their money back from the banks (with a bit of hassle). It is the merchant who will lose money on fraudulent transactions. To protect merchants and buyers, payment gateway providers implemented additional security check to prevent “possible” fraud.

Note: You may reproduce and distribute contents of this article provided that you give a full credit to the author (“Scott Seong”), and provide a backlink to this page from your webpage. The content shown below is borrowed from Authorize.Net, and we do not have an authority to grant permission to redistribute it’s content.

Credit Card Transaction Workflow Diagram
Source: Authorize.Net

1. The merchant submits a credit card transaction to the Authorize.Net Payment Gateway on behalf of a customer via secure Web site connection, retail store, MOTO center or wireless device.

2. Authorize.Net receives the secure transaction information and passes it via a secure connection to the Merchant Bank’s Processor.

3. The Merchant Bank’s Processor submits the transaction to the Credit Card Network (a system of financial entities that communicate to manage the processing, clearing, and settlement of credit card transactions).

4. The Credit Card Network routes the transaction to the Customer’s Credit Card Issuing Bank.

5. The Customer’s Credit Card Issuing Bank approves or declines the transaction based on the customer’s available funds and passes the transaction results back to the Credit Card Network.

6. The Credit Card Network relays the transaction results to the Merchant Bank’s Processor.

7. The Merchant Bank’s Processor relays the transaction results to Authorize.Net.

8. Authorize.Net stores the transaction results and sends them to the customer and/or the merchant. This step completes the authorization process – all in about three seconds or less!

9. The Customer’s Credit Card Issuing Bank sends the appropriate funds for the transaction to the Credit Card Network, which passes the funds to the Merchant’s Bank. The bank then deposits the funds into the merchant’s bank account. This step is known as the settlement process and typically the transaction funds are deposited into your primary bank account within two to four business days.

If you wish to sell products online, you’ll have to source demanding products from reliable suppliers at the best possible prices. One of the requirements for becoming a successful retailer is product sourcing.  Product sourcing involves two tasks: (1) identifying the “right” products to sell, and (2) finding one or more reliable sources (“suppliers”) at affordable prices. Without “right” products, your effort to launch successful marketing campaigns will fail as not-so-demanding products will not convert well and a lot of your time and money will be wasted.

If you are new to ecommerce and haven’t chosen an industry yet, start out with something that you know well. Knowing the industry and category of products that you would like to source will significantly save your time identifying the “right” products. Attend trade shows and subscribe trade magazines to identify the products, manufacturers and distributors.

Trade shows offer great opportunities to meet with multiple suppliers and also help identify upcoming trends. Attending trade show demonstrates that you are a serious buyer, and by being there you’ll be able to “see” and “touch” the products and spot potential “hot” items. Looking at the award winners, you’ll be able to spot a dozen or more trendy products. Many exhibitors run special promotions in the trade shows, which you can take advantage of. The New York Toy Fair, for example, attracts thousands of exhibitors and tens of thousands of buyers. Trade show is one of the best place to meet with suppliers, and learn more about the products and industry.

· Successful Product Sourcing: How to find REAL Wholeslae Products YOU Can Sell Online by Worldwide Brands.