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Security & Assurance in eCommerce
Is security & assurance a key factor in your success in Online stores? Absolutely! Not only for you as a vendor but for your customers who will look for this before making any purchases. Simply, they need to feel safe in buying from you would be valid and secure before typing in your credit details. SSL certificates, credible payment gateways are all valuable things to look for when you are considering having a website with eCommerce functionality.
SSL (Secure Socket Layer)
SSL Certificates
What this is literally a certificate issued by 3rd-party companies who specialize in encrypting webpages which are containing sensitive private data such as credit card information, personal details etc. Typically when you enter into a such a webpage, you'll see that the web address has https:// in front of the web address. Just like any certificates, in order to get it, a thorough check is done by the company who issues it to you of your website to validate that the it is safe for people to buy from. Once this is done, a digital certificate can be issued to you put on your homepage which is recommended to show the public.
Good examples of popular 3rd-party companies who sells these certificates are Verisign, Godaddy and authorize.net. They range from $14 to $300 per year. Crease Media have much experience with such companies and can undertake this important step for you without hassles.
TPV (Terminal Payment Virtual) Payment Gateway
Payment gateways are essential to have when you have an online store. It works in the same way as EFPOS or ATM machines where it collaborates with banks to check the buyers' available funds and transfers money into your merchant account. Usually each major bank will have a preferred type of payment gateway software for you use. La Caixa or Caixa catalunya for example, uses TPV, a very secure and popular choice for banks in the world.
To get a TPV or its type set up you first need to open a merchant account with your bank. This is needed in order to receive money from your customers electronically. It's worthwhile asking the bank of which payment gateway software they use to see if it's compatible with the programming language used in your website. Crease Media's websites are mostly built with TPV and have produced excellent results for its clients.
Methods of payment on the Internet:
There are many ways to get paid by your customers, it's the same with an online store. Below are the main methods eCommerce websites use to receive payments for products they sell:
Credit Cards: a secure way to receive money electronically where a customer chooses the products from your website and purchases them via inserting their details of the card themselves. Mastercard and VISA are usually the types used. In Spain, VISA electron or debit cards are also used and accepted. The approval of purchase and the sale is made within seconds. Some processes like the one for La Caixa bank (Spain) takes an extra step of validating the customer by text messaging validation. On average each bank charges the vendor between 2-4% transaction fee of the sale of the item per transaction.
Bank transfer: Another widely popular mode of payment. It is a done via the customer selects products to purchase just like he would for a credit card while the sale is not instantaneous since the vendor would need to wait until the bank transfer has completed (depending on the bank it can take up to 1-5 working days). Some vendors prefer this mode of payment since it would save them of the 2-4% of transaction fees paid to the bank if it was a credit card payment. If a customer is from overseas, there may be bank transfer fees the vendor needs to take account for each transaction.
Telephone: The most simplest form of e-commece---customers find you on the web and call you to finalize the purchase. This is recommended if you're not quite ready to take on a full ecommerce process but have confidence in converting visiting customers to paying customers over the phone. No costs required to set this up other than promote your phone number on your web pages.
Paypal: How PayPal works is simple. It's electronic money---instead of using Credit cards or money transfers, you can top up the funds into a Paypal account (Paypal.com) and use it to buy items online. This means vendors can get paid with paypal as well from anyone in the world in whichever currency. The receiving party at anytime decide to convert the PayPal money into real money by sending it into a chosen bank account just like a money transfer. The benefit here is that the paypal payment is instantaneous and safe for the buyers as it insures payments made with it automatically. There's a 3-4% for each transaction if you are on the receiving end of the payment as a merchant. Other types of electronic money is Money-bookers and WorldPay.
General Tips / Points to Consider
* manage security from the inside! When you own a eCommerce site you should have several tiers or level of security access:
- Super-Administrator being the top user who can enter and change anything;
- Administrator who has access to limited areas of the website such as the blog or articles;
- User level: these are people who have only access to the front-end (the public side) and not the back-end (the adminstration side). Typically these are people who have registered to the site to enjoy eNewsletters of past customers to access their contact details for billing or shipping.
Whatever you do, do not give Super-administrator access to someone you don't trust your business with as a super-adminsitrator is 'god' and can do as much damage as good;
Back-up! Backing-up your whole website should be a simple task and you should do it frequently, at the bare minimum on a weekly basis. It should be a chore of only a few button clicks and if you wish you should be able to restore to a previous back-up whenever at anytime. If this is not so simple for you or you don't see it available, you need to talk to you hosting company to get you one. Direct Admin, the hosting management software Crease media recommends and uses is a great example of having all the powerful tools and easy to use.
Change your passwords to your website's CMS & web hosting space frequently enough and definitely do so when you feel that there's been a security breach. Alpha-numeric words are ideal for this, for example: kyns8635
These are simple fundamental security tasks you should exercise and should be in front of your mind when choosing the right ISP (internet Service provider) to host your website.
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