Over the last 7 years we  helped thousands of online businesses to start and expand.  We worked to crate internet businesses with very unique business models and the once with simplest business models. We have noticed some these businesses flourish and grow like wildfire, while others never amounted to anything other than waste of time for us and the promoters. We have learned from the successes and failures of clients. We learned how to start an online business that has a high chance of making it big. And also figured how fast your business grow depends only on how much you know and how innovative and creative you are. It has not much to do with your marketing budget.

We have put these lessons into a free email course on how to create an online business. It is for you to learn from what we have with thousands of online businesses so far. Go here to subscribe to the free course on how to start an internet business and grow it.

You may have noticed that most iScripts products allow you to accept online payments from your customers. If you’re offering goods or services online, it is imperative that you are able to accept online payments. In case you have made any online payment processing before, you should at least have an idea on how easy and straight forward it is. All you need to do is to plug in your payment gateway information in your website’s administrative panel and you are in business. However, we understand that it may look like a daunting task if you have never setup a real online business before.

This article should give you some idea about the different options available to accept online payments. As my experience is generally U.S. based, some of the topics are U.S. centric. If you find things different in your location, just let us know.

How do I start accepting credit cards online? This is a very common question everyone asks. The answer actually depends on a few factors.

1. Where are you based?

If you’re in the USA, you have a lot of options. If you are in Canada, you may have a few less options to consider. And for the rest of the world, sad to say, very limited options. If you are outside the United States or Canada, PayPal seems to be the safest bet. It’s relatively easy to open a Paypal account and start accepting online payments immediately.

2. Do you already have a merchant account?

A merchant account is basically a bank account that handles your funds received via credit card. They normally charge a certain percentage off for every transaction. This is called a “discount rate.” If you have a storefront or a retail business and you are swiping people’s cards, then you already have a merchant account.

If you want to start accepting payments online, you’ll need to give your merchant provider a call and ask for an Internet merchant account—this is different from a regular merchant account, because it allows your customers to pay you online by entering their credit card information directly into your website. This enables you to accept credit card orders without your customers having to fax, phone or mail in their orders.

3. If you do have a merchant account, do you already have an account with a payment gateway like Authorize.net or PayPal?

If so, chances are you already know what you’re doing and you aren’t even reading this article. If you don’t, then you can read on and we will give some more details on what a payment gateway is and what your options are.

A payment gateway is an e-commerce service that authorizes payments for e-businesses and online retailers. It is kind of like the middleman between your customer and you or your merchant account. It is the equivalent of a physical POS (point-of-sale) terminal located in most retail outlets. They normally have a merchant login where you can manage your account, run reports, submit refunds, and even send invoices.

Payment gateways typically charge a monthly fee (PayPal is an exception) and sometimes a setup fee. Many of them also require an online merchant account, but will usually help you get one.

There are two main options for accepting payments online. These include merchant account solutions and third party gateways. For most merchant gateway solutions, credit card is entered on your site, while for third party processors credit card info is entered on their site.

Merchant Account Solutions

If you already have an established offline business, chances are you already accept credit cards and you have a merchant account from your bank and have some kind of electronic terminal in your shop/workplace for swiping credit cards. Bear in mind that if you do have a merchant account, you will need to apply for a separate Internet merchant account. If you don’t have a merchant account, the system works like this – you have to apply for a merchant account from a bank; it doesn’t have to be the bank you currently bank with, but that is of course the more practical approach. The bank will provide you an ID or account number, and without it you can’t accept credit cards.

Moreover, you will need a credit card processor which will actually look after the transaction details. No worries, your bank will handle this or will recommend partner companies. They normally charge a fee which usually includes a setup fee, a monthly minimum and then a percentage for each transaction. You will need a merchant account to take Visa, Mastercard, etc and a separate merchant account to take American Express.

Here are brief reviews of major merchant account solutions:

Auhorize.net has earned a very good reputation as the leader in online payment gateways for small businesses. They have great features with a no-nonsense gateway that just works. They provide a more direct solution than PayPal Standard and offer a completely branded payment experience for your customers. Their services are superb and reasonably priced. In general, Authorize.net has received positive feedback from new customers getting going with their service while existing customers are still using it. For integrating with most iScripts software you just need the account name and teh transaction key you get from Authorize.net to plugged in the admin panel.

PSiGate provides the essential tools to facilitate the processing of secure electronic transactions, and makes your e-commerce business accessible to clients worldwide. PSiGate can provide merchant accounts and gateway services for North American clients. In addition, they provide several free tools that are part of each account. They provide each merchant an eTerminal for phone and fax orders, real-time online reports of customer transactions and a Fraud Shield module.

LinkPoint will enable you to accept credit cards in real-time on your website. They provide a cheap and simple solution for accepting credit cards for phone and mail orders. The LinkPoint gateway supports most major shopping cart software. In case you are using one of these shopping cart applications (like most iScripts products), most of the work has already been done for you. Set-up is as easy as entering your Merchant ID number and they offer the lowest rates and fees in the industry.

WorldPay is ideal for U.K. businesses and is part of the Royal Bank of Scotland. It’s an excellent payment processor and the fees you paid in startup can be quickly recovered. As a reputable name in online payment processing, your customers would feel comfortable using Worldpay. It is fully customizable, however, this is reflected in the signup cost.

Verisign offers a lot of solid features such as recurring billing and fraud prevention. The recurring billing feature is standard, but does offer an API from which a recurring billing profile can be created. The Verisign Payflow Pro gateway is capable of sending custom emails. You can send email receipts for customer records or send them a notice that their card was declined. Verisign’s fraud prevention services are broken into two separate packages; each having its own add-on features that enhance the level of protection. Finally, Verisign offers a Buyer Authentication program for customers who want to use Visa’s Verified or Master Card’s Secure Code features.

Other Merchant Gateways are being introduced to the marketplace with different value added services. Most of them offers a Authorize.net emulator due to the acceptance of Authorize.net. You can integrate any gateway which supports a Authorize.net emulator with single line of code change.

Third Party Processors

On the other side of the coin are the third party processors. Payment processors basically allow you to use their merchant account for a fee and in most cases you can be set up in a matter of hours and start accepting credit cards right away. This by far the best option if you are just starting out in e-commerce.

Paypal is known for its rapid growth and use on Ebay, it is also the simplest and fastest payment processor to setup and use. The system includes a handy “button maker” so you don’t have to know or learn any of the intricate ins and outs of how to use it. For the more techy savvy, it does have all the powerful back end systems to communicate with your database through the IPN system. Recently Paypal junked their system of only allowing customers to make credit card payments after they had authorized their account. This means that customers have to wait till their credit card statements have been received before they could purchase anything. Now that this has been scrapped, Paypal is the ideal choice for e-commerce users and most of all their rates are comparably cheaper.

2checkout or 2Co is ideal for those who are not ready for a merchant account, but need a way to process online payments from customers. With 2Co, you don’t have to sign a contract nor do you need a software to get started, everything you need is provided right from their website. You will receive free technical support online, a free shopping cart, and free website codes as well. There are a couple of fees, but not as much as with other payment processing services. You have to pay a one time fee of $49 for signup as well as fees per sale which are currently $0.45 and 5.5% of each sale you make and payment processed.

PayLeap simplifies the electronic payment process by combining payment systems into one platform. They offer fast and reliable installation process in order to maximize the efficiency of your company. Merchants using PayLeap can process electronic payments in real time in any method utilized by most businesses. Their single service enables your company to manage payments made by wireless or online through an e-commerce web software.

BluePay is a premier credit card processing service that utilizes cutting-edge technology and encryption security throughout the transaction. In just three easy steps, you can be receiving credit cards at your business within hours of finishing the online application. You can then access your account online to check transactions, manage your account, and organize your records. BluePay provides a wide variety of merchant accounts for you to choose from, each designed to fit and grow with your business needs.

Google Checkout is an online payment processing service wherein users store their credit card and shipping information in their Google Account. It also offers fraud protection and a unified page for tracking purchases and their status. With Google Checkout you can easily make online purchases and track all your orders and shipping in one place. Their fraud protection feature covers you against unauthorized purchases made through Google Checkout, and you are assured that your purchase history or full credit card number is not shared with sellers. You can also keep your email address confidential, and block unwanted emails from stores where you previously used Google Checkout.

If you are looking to create a social networking website, either for you or your employer you have noticed there are number of options. Even if you had created websites or online businesses in the past you might have noticed creating social networking sites are challenging. We have polled a number of people contacted us for creating their social networking sites, why they have not finished anything yet. Some of these people had some really killer ideas. But they still fail to create a social networking websites. One thing we realized from their responses was that you get overwhelmed with information and the tasks.

So we have created a small email course How to create a social networking website . It’s a free email course, anybody who wants to create and grow their social networking site can join. We have helped thousands of our customers to create and grow their rock solid communities. We put our lessons learned from those experiences to your use.

So if you want to create and grow your own social networking website, this is for you.

If you want to create your online store the typical path is to use a shopping cart software. Then assemble different components like payment gateway, shipping trackers etc.. Usually it’s a daunting task for a novice to handle. So most often than not, a web developer is hired to develop the store front. Recently a number of hosted shopping cart providers have started offering their services. This means small businesses or mom and pop operators can create their storefront by just filling few forms online. This makes the entire process of selling online very easy. This is along the same lines of online site builders appeared in the past. Many shopping cart providers jumped on the SaaS (software as a service) bandwagon. Here are the main hosted shopping cart services. If you are looking to create a storefront these sites might be a good option. But if you want to offer services similar to them checkout iScripts GoStores. It is an opensource online store builder software.

1. Volusion. You can use their templates and design tools to create your own look or you can have one of their designers do it for you. There are several pricing packages to choose from, based on your needs. If you have a good selection of products and you want a truly professional looking storefront, Volusion should be your choice.

2. ProStores. Like Volusion, ProStores lets you design your own storefront or have one of their designers do it for you. And it offers several different tiers, depending on your needs. Unlike Volusion, in addition to the monthly subscription fee, there is also a transaction fee for each successful transaction. While the subscription fee is less than Volusion’s, the transaction fee could add up quickly if your business takes off

3. Yahoo Merchant Solutions. Yahoo offers most of the same features as Volusion and ProStores. The biggest drawback is the 1.5% transaction fee in addition to the monthly subscription fee. If you are at all successful in building your online business, 1.5% can add up to a lot of money fast! Other than that, it brings all the experience and marketing clout of Yahoo to your efforts. Not a bad choice if you can swallow that transaction fee.

4. Shopify. Shopify’s biggest asset is it’s design flexibility. You can have a professional looking store up and running in no time. It doesn’t have all of the features of Volusion or ProStores, but it is easy to work with. Once again, there are several pricing options to choose from and like the others, Shopify offers a free trial.

Where does iScripts come in the picture? We have recently released new version of iScripts GoStores. It is a hosted shopping cart software. It means you can create a hosted storefront business using iScripts GoStores. You just install the software on your server , do the branding and you are ready to offer the same services as Volusion, ProStores Yahoo Stores and Shopify. This open source software from iScripts clone the business model by other hosted store vendors. It took them years to create their SaaS business. You can do it in couple of hours. How is that for a competitive advantage? This is your opportunity to get into the red hot SaaS business model.

Your customers select a store package, register a domain name, create a storefront and host it on your server. All your customer needs to create their store front is fill in the forms just like Shopify, Volusion etc..Once completed it will be hosted on your server. You get monthly recurring revenue from each of the store hosted in your server. Once a customer creates their store they normally stick with you as the pain of moving everything into a new setup very difficult. You can host unlimited store fronts, customers using iScripts GoStores. Its limited only by your hardware limitations.

You can generate additional revenue by partnering with payment gateways and offering related design, SEO services to your store customers. iScripts can work with you to offer custom designs to your clients if you do not have designers on staff ( our designers will be in the background). This software is ideal for virtual communities, hosting providers, web developers, marketing agencies and entrepreneurs.

We get a number of enquiries from potential customers asking us to compare the inherent business model of iScripts MultiCart to that of existing marketplaces. Customers used to ask how its similar to Amazon market place model. Recently we are getting questions on how it’s comparable to Dawdle.com and Etsy.com.

Our Chicago neighbors Dawdle.com is a new online marketplace specifically for gamers. Main point of the site is to make it “moronically easy” for gamers to list, buy or sell games. The site caters to both individual sellers and professional sellers. The site does not charge any listing fees. Dawdle charges a commission (12% for public) when a transaction is completed. Dawdle charges  buyers and sends the money less commission to the sellers by direct deposit. This  is similar to the business model of iScripts MultiCart. Additionally, Dawdle has a Priceline like name your price method.  This is not part of iScripts MultiCart, as the idea behind iScripts MultiCart is to create storefronts and not auction sites.

Etsy is a peer to peer marketplace for handmade items. Brooklyn based Etsy describes their site as a crafty cross between Amazon and Ebay and Your Grandmas basement. Here users list the items for sale. There is a $0.20 listing fee per item. Once its sold, similar to eBay buyers pay directly to seller through paypal. Seller ships the item to buyer. When the transaction is successful Etsy charges a small commission (3.5%) to the seller’s credit card on file. There are few differences from this model and iScripts Multicart model. First of all in MultiCart buyer pays to the main store not the seller. This is to provide the security of paying to a well known merchant instead of some stranger somewhere. I would be very skeptical to pay to stranger compared to an established business. Another reason for not having a peer to peer payment is that, it limits you to buy from one seller during a transaction. With iScripts MultiCart model a single transaction can include items from multiple sellers. However if you choose to follow Etsy model, it can be achieved by MultiCart with some simple customizations. Also Etsy has a listing fee and iScripts MultiCart does not.

Another business with a similar business model to that of iScripts MultiCart is Amazon marketplace. There seller lists an item at Amazon.com. Buyer buys it. Buyer pays Amazon.com. Seller recieves the order and ships the item to buyer. Seller gets a check from Amazon, after deducting the commission. Some of the advantages with Amazon Model is that I, as buyer am paying to a Amazon. Not to some schmuck in a basement somewhere. That’s huge confidence booster. For the seller Amazon does the marketing, payment processing etc.. for a small fees. This allows the seller to focus on what they do best making widgets as fast as they can and make them well. For Amazon they transfer the product manufacturing, fulfillment etc.. to the seller. They utilize their brand name and powerful online store technology to earn revenue. This is a win-win-win situation. This is the same model iScripts MultiCart follows. As I mentioned earlier in another post, we created this model before Amazon adopted it. No, I am not going to ask for royalty from Amazon.

DaWanda.com is the European version of etsy.com. This marketplace sells unique handmade items and tailor-made items. DaWanda charge a commission of 5% when an item is sold. They payment is going from buyer to seller just like eBay.com or Etsy.com. There is no listing fees for sellers. iScripts Multicart software would require only some minor changes to clone the DaWanda business model.

If you want to create an online marketplace with multiple vendors support take a look at iScripts MultiCart script. If we are close to what you are looking for, we can customize the software to cater your specific needs.

Its always difficult to useful and aggregate customer feedback on products and services. Yes, we do get our share of feedback from customers, some more vocal than others. But translating it into actionable and viable ideas are mostly a trial and error method. Recently we have added an idea lab, where we add a laundry list of things in our to-do list and let customers vote for it.  The iScripts Idea Lab ( we copied the concept from Google shamelessly). Goal is to keep it as an informal venue to get ideas to fuel our future growth. So lets know what you want us to work on. We have limited resources, like everybody else. so we want to spend it in areas that can have maximum impact to our customers profitability. So lets know what you want to see from iScripts , let it be a new applications, new features to existing ones or other services. Speak your mind. and be heard.

By the way, thanks to the folks at user voice who created this app, its awesome.

Aji Abraham

Aaahh hard drive backup. It is up there with flossing, balancing your checkbook. You know you should. But you don’t. There are number of excuses. And one day it happens. It always happens when it’s most inappropriate. You stare at the computer for some time at the blue screen. Try rebooting it. Twice. Now you start panicking. Then you are into denial. No, this cannot happen to me.. You kick yourself and the reality slowly sink in.. your hard drive is fried. AND YOU DON’T HAVE A BACKUP

What is the probability a hard drive will fail? It is one hundred percent. All hard drives will fail. No matter how important data you have on it. Only question is it fails on you. But you know that already. Don’t you?

If its so damn important to back up why people don’t do it? I will agree it is really difficult. Everyday or every week to remember doing the backup. And wait doing nothing your computer is actually backing up. We all have lives. Who has time to do it?

Well its changed. Now spend 5 minutes to set up automated backup with Backup2Net, you don’t have to remember it ever again. This new automated powerful software will keep doing it for you. How do you want to set up the backup? You can backup your hard drive to the same drive, another drive, a network drive or an online server. The security of the backup is in the order of same drive, another drive, a network drive or an online server. Which method you want to do depends what if you loose the data? What’s it worth to you?

Backing up on the same drive has some protection. If you delete something by accident you will have a backup to go back. If you only one drive on your computer that’s one way. But if your hard drive fried you loose your data and backup. But its better than nothing.

You can download the software from Backup2net.com and set up to do a backup every day, every night, once in two days, once a week, month whatever.

If you have only one drive, Go buy one. Hard drives are pretty cheap nowadays. So if you have 2 drives use one as the primary drive and other one as the secondary drive. Download backUP2Net from HERE and select the folders you want to back up. Then select the backup drive as the destination. Select a when you want to do the backup automatically. It would be fine if you select to do the backup every day say 2 am. If you are a night owl lets make it say 5 am. Point select is a time when you are not using the computer.

Backing up to another drive offers more protection than backing up to same drove. If one drive is hosed you have the other one to protect your data. Still there are some situations when you can loose both drives. If operating decides, its time, you are in trouble. So you need to protect some of your valuable data in another location. Information that must want to retain. Things like financial info, home works, creative works, emails etc..

For that added security you need an online backup solution. Surprise… surprise.. Backup2Net can help out here too. If you don’t have much of the junk you can select the free backup plan, which gives you 100MB server space. You can sign up for the free plan HERE. If you need more space you can select from different plans and choose enough space.

In the same Backup2Net client you can set up online backup also. If the previous example you set up daily backup at 2 am to the backup drive. Now lets set up an online backup. Select a new backup job in the software. Select the folders you must protect as the source. For the destination select online backup. Now select to do the backup say every Wednesday at 3am or 4 am .

That’s it you are all set. The automated software will take backup of your precious data every day to the secondary drive and every week to online server. If something backup happens you can restore selected files with a click of a button. Happy backing Up!

Digg

Comments (0)