Merchant accounts for Internet Businesses &
Online shopping carts

According to the "Generations Online 2009" study conducted by PEW / Internet, Fully 80% of Generation X internet users buy products online, compared with 71% of internet users ages 18-32. Interest in online shopping is significantly lower among the youngest and oldest groups; 38% of online teens buy products online, as do 56% of internet users ages 64-72 and 47% of internet users age 73 and older. Even with the discrepancy between age groups, the total number of online shoppers represented in this study is staggering.

There are a wide variety of shopping cart software available online, as well as many eCommerce webhosting solutions that include a shopping cart and secure certificate. Some of the hosted solutions can be expensive and difficult to customize, however, as you may be locked into a template.

osCommerce is a great option for anyone considering setting up an online e-commerce store. osCommerce is an Open Source based online e-commerce store solution - which simply means it is free! Many webhosting companies offer osCommerce as part of their standard package, and even provide a setup wizard and access to the host's shared secure server. (An online store must be set up on a secure server in order to process sales securely).

osCommerce offers a large range of features and can be set up quickly. It comes with a template containing all the standard features for an online store, but can be further tweaked and customized by installing "contributions".

Contributions are basically add-ons, updates and store enhancements that have been developed by other osCommerce enthusiasts to further develop the shopping cart or meet their specific store needs. Since contributions also fall under the GNU General Public License they are offered at no charge. You can find osCommerce contribution at: www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions.

Should you run into problems, you can always visit the osCommerce Community Support Forum. There you will find answers to most any question about the shopping cart, including installation and customization.

Once you have your shopping cart set up, you will need two other components in order to process credit card payments over the internet. This includes an internet merchant account and payment gateway.

Money Tree Merchant Services works with Authorize.net, one of the most popular payment gateways in the industry. Authorize.net makes setting up a payment gateway simple and integrates perfectly with the osCommerce shopping cart. In fact, osCommerce has a payment module for Authorize.net built right into their standard shopping cart template, which makes installation easy.

Finally, the number of online stores has grown dramatically in the past couple of years. In order to compete, it is important to prove to a customer to that your business is not only legitimate, but holds itself accountable to a high standard of security, privacy and customer service. We recommend that any new online store join and become a member of the Better Business Bureau Online Reliability Program.

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