When you are making the leap to starting an online store or eCommerce website, one of the big decisions you will have to make is what shopping cart to use. A shopping cart is the aspect of your website that will perform as your online store’s catalog, process for ordering, and marketing tool. Usually it is a piece of software that can be plugged into your existing site or can be used as the main structure of your site. Finding the right cart should be a process that takes a bit of time and research. You don’t want to pick a cart that is too simple and restricting that you can’t grow with it, nor do you want one that is too complicated that you need to hire someone full time just to manage it when you are just starting out. Below we’ll outline a strategy to help you pick the right shopping cart for your business.

Figure out what you need

You’ll need to know which features your particular store will need beforehand. Making a list can greatly help this process. Your list could be things like: I need to have a gift-certificate function, needs to support my payment gateway, needs to have SEO friendly Urls, needs to support multiple product photos, etc. After you make your list pick the three top features. Those top three features will be the features that will make or break your choice in the beginning phase.

Cart options

After you have a good list and the top three features, you’ll be able to start narrowing down all your cart options from the hundreds out there. To start narrowing down your options the first place to start would be by building a list of the carts you’ll want to review. To build your list ask your webmaster, merchant account provider, and or any trusted advisor on which carts they would recommend. Once you have it ready start comparing each shopping cart with the features you’ll need from your feature list. Start with your top three features. If they don’t have those top three features then eliminate that cart from your cart list and move on to the next. After that you’ve narrowed down the list start seeing who fits the criteria or is closest with the additional features you need. To save time from searching all around the vendors site, it doesn’t hurt to go the old fashion way and call the shopping cart provider up on the phone. They should be able to answer your questions faster and more complete than trying to find all the answers on their websites.

View it in action

Once you have it down to 3 – 5 shopping carts, dig into each one. Read the customers reviews, visit their customers sites (if listed ), and see how the cart performs. Many shopping carts even offer demos or trial packages where you can test out the cart’s back-end and see how it works before deciding to purchase.

SEO and Marketing

To compete today in eCommerce you need to be able to get your site found in the search engines and shared via social media. You’ll want to make sure the cart does not get into the way of your SEO by either having SEO friendly URLs or secure links that will get ignored by search engine spiders. You’ll also want to see if they have an integrated email system as well as site reports and analytics.

Security

Your sites security is important. Hackers are getting more and more advanced each year. You’ll need to make sure you pick a shopping cart that is up to date and that offers support and updates to their software if needed. You’ll also want to make sure the shopping cart you decide to go with is PCI Compliant and if not, you’ll want to make sure to ask them how they will help you to make sure your site is PCI complaint using their software.

Design flexibility

It’s important that your shopping cart reflects the look and feel of your current website or direction you have planned for your future site. You’ll want to make sure that the Shopping cart offers either easy to use templates that can be modified or has the ability to let you or your webmaster access CSS style sheets so you can control the look of all the elements on your pages. Your check out pages should match your site design as much as possible so that the user experience is fluid throughout the checkout process.

With these tips you should be able to start narrowing down the right shopping cart for your online store. Please visit our partner and affiliate sections on our website to help you choose a shopping cart service that will help you grow your business.

Click here for a list of eMerchant shopping cart affiliates

For businesses that accept credit cards, chargebacks can pose a costly problem. There is no guaranteed way to completely eliminate them, but there are methods you can use to reduce them. There are two main areas that come into play when reducing chargebacks: reducing credit card fraud and providing a great customer experience.

With ecommerce businesses a lot of fraud can be taken care of with your Gateway. Many Gateways main priority is to prevent fraud. Be sure to check your Gateway’s fraud prevention center and incorporate any modules or tools they recommend.

For point of sales tips on reducing fraud please visit http://www.emerchant.com/resources/mastercard-avoiding-chargebacks.pdf. There we have a fact sheet with tips on point of sale and card not present transactions.

While fraud does count for a good deal of chargebacks, customer support and the way your business is setup for orders can also greatly reduce chargebacks from taking place. Here are some tips to consider incorporating into your business to keep your customers happy and away from calling their credit card companies to charge back orders.

• Have a clear, easy to follow easy to understand order process.

• Be sure not to any have hidden fees that your customer will be upset about after they order.

• Use product descriptions that are clear, with dimensions, weights, and any other applicable measurements.

• Use large clear accurate photographs of products on product pages.

• In the shopping cart include the use of product information.

• Provide great prompt customer service before and after the sale of products or services.

• Be clear how the charge will appear on your customer’s credit card statement. Don’t let them wonder who the charge is from when they look at their statement. If your business name is different from your website, look into having that changed so the website shows on the customer’s credit card statement.

• Try to implement a post-order follow up email with a reminder of how the charge will appear on your customer’s credit card statement.

• Make sure to have your business telephone number or an 800 number show up by the charges on your customer’s credit card statements.

• Be clear about your return and shipping policies before an order is placed preferably.

• Watch out for exaggerated claims in any marketing or on your website. Be sure that your products and services deliver on what you promise.

• Try to send automated confirmation emails to your customers that include the invoice and small details about the sale. You should also try to send confirmation emails when items have been shipped along with the tracking number if applicable.

• Try to always respond promptly to any requests from your customers. Many customers only need to hear back from someone in a timely manner to put them at ease that they are being taken care of. Disgruntled customers are more likely to call their credit card company if they feel merchants have ignored them or don’t provide prompt support.

By following these points and learning more about fraud protection you can reduce and discourage the number of chargebacks you and your business need to handle and get back to doing the things that make your business money.

Here is that link again for reducing fraud tips: http://www.emerchant.com/resources/mastercard-avoiding-chargebacks.pdf

When choosing a webmaster or web developer for your business there are many factors that you’ll need to decide on. Taking your time, asking questions, and doing research can be the difference between a site that brings you more business or one that drives your prospects away. It’s never an easy task but by understanding who to look for and what to expect, the process and decisions can be a lot easier.

You need to first decide who you are looking for. You can select someone that is an individual or you could select a company. You can select someone that does custom design work or someone that uses templates. You could select someone local that you can meet in person or you could work with someone over the phone or from email. All the choices have their positives and negatives and can come down to personal preference, but it’s important to ask and get an idea of how your potential webmaster works.

Your webmaster could be an individual or a team. Web development usually consist of multiple players and there is usually a division of labor in current web design which happens between graphic design and programming/implementation. It’s hard and very rare to find someone that can design graphics and can also do the backend scripting and programming. For that reason the modern day webmaster usually consists of a team or an individual skilled at subcontracting. Another important trait to look for is their marketing experience. Your website not only needs a way to get visitors to it, but it also needs to keep visitors there and needs to motivate potential customers to buy or what marketers call conversions. They don’t need to be a full blown expert is traffic, SEO, and conversion – that in itself is a whole other service, but they should understand its importance and know why a site needs to be optimized and be willing or experienced to work with an SEO/marketing firm if or when needed.

After you have narrowed down some choices, some of the most important and overlooked qualities to look for are dependability, availability, and professionalism. Your webmaster is going to be vital to your business and so you’ll need to be assured he or she will be there when you need him or her. Sometimes you’ll need things changed quickly or have sever issue and your webmaster should be there for you as their client. A definition of client is one that depends on the protection of another. That is how you want your webmaster to see your relationship and behave accordingly by being dependable, available, and professional to you and your business. So be sure to ask them questions, read their reviews, and even ask them if you can talk to a previous or current client. Be sure you like this person and that they are the type of person you are going to want to do business with in the long haul.

If you are about to start an ecommerce site selling products or services, you are going to need to pick an ecommerce platform. You’ll want to find a webmaster that has experience in this field and who has current and past ecommerce sites and clients. There are webmasters who specialize in ecommerce site design and maintenance, and they should be able explain the benefits and drawbacks between various platforms and solutions and help you pick the correct one for your business model. We have a great list of designers and developers we trust and have relationships with. Be sure to visit our partners page here or http://www.emerchant.com/partners to see our design partners/webmasters whether you are starting a new website or are looking to redesign your current website.

With the growing number of smartphones both merchants and consumers are getting accustomed and excited with the idea of using a hand held phone as a method for payment of goods and services. Research is starting to a show a major shift in consumer sentiment over mobile payments. As more and more merchants are using handheld smartphones for processing, more and more consumers are getting comfortable with the idea of fast payments with a merchant swiping their card by phone. Merchants using the technology appear ahead of the pack providing their customers with a fast, easy, and optimized checkout experience that builds customer satisfaction and loyalty.

According to Forbes, Mobile Processing is one of the top 5 merchant processing services for small business owners. Stating that processing payments through a mobile device is one way to keep one step ahead of your competitors.

Besides the competitive advantage there are many benefits for using Mobile Processing:

• Lower “swiped” or retail processing rates
• Reduced collection efforts by getting approvals while onsite
• Real-time payment processing
• Easy online management
• Features like email and text message receipts. (Paysaber even has a printer)
• Signature capturing
• Improved transaction efficiency
• Portable – Use anywhere you have an internet connection (pretty much everywhere now with smartphones)
• Increased customer satisfaction
• Credit card never leaves customers sight
• Ease of use for both merchant and customer

To get started all you need is a merchant account, payment gateway, phone or pad (iPhone, iPad, Android, Palm, Blackberry), and a card reader.

All businesses, especially small business can benefit from being able to accept card payments from anywhere and turning their smartphones into portable payment processing terminals. As the processing industry grows and shifts with new emerging technologies in Mobile, eMerchant will be shifting too and adding new mobile products and solutions to help expand your business. We have a great offering of mobile solutions right now to get you started. For more information give call us a call at 866-979-0260 or click here to visit our Mobile Solutions Page.

Bill and Tamara Dumont attended the 5th Annual CASA Charity Event for abused and neglected children in Jackson County . Bill and Tamara pictured top right.

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1. Know the risks and train the troops

Your exposure to e-commerce risk depends on your business policies, operational practices, fraud prevention and detection tools, security controls, and the type of goods or services you provide. Your entire organization should have a thorough understanding of the risks associated with any Internet transaction and should be well-versed in your unique risk management approach.

2. Select the right acquirer and service provider(s)

If you have not launched an electronic storefront, you need to partner with a Visa acquirer that can provide effective risk management support and demonstrate a thorough understanding of Internet fraud risk and liability. You also want to take a good, hard look at any service provider before you sign a contract. Bottom line? Does the service provider have what it takes to keep your cardholder data safe and minimize fraud losses?

3. Develop essential website content

When designing your website, keep operational needs and risk factors foremost in your mind. Key areas to consider are privacy, reliability, refund policies, and customer service access.

4. Focus on risk reduction

Your sales order function can help you efficiently and securely address a number of risk concerns. You can capture essential Visa card and cardholder details by highlighting required transaction data fields and verifying the Visa card and customer data that you receive through the internet.

5. Build internal fraud prevention

By understanding the purchasing habits of your website visitors, you can protect your business from high-risk transactions. The profitability of your virtual storefront depends on the internal strategies and controls you use to minimize fraud. To avoid losses, you need to build a risk management infrastructure, robust internal fraud avoidance files, and intelligent transaction controls.

6. Use Visa tools

To reduce your exposure to e-commerce risk, you need to select the use the right combination of fraud prevention tools. Today, there are a number of options available to help you differentiate between a good customer and an online thief.  Key Visa tools include Address Verification Service (AVS), Card Verification Value 2 (CVV2), and Verified by Visa.

7. Apply fraud screening

Fraud-screening methods can help you minimize fraud for large-purchase amounts and for high-risk transactions. By screening online Visa card transactions carefully, you can avoid fraud activity before it results in a loss for your business.

8. Implement Verified by Visa

The tool Verified by Visa can create the most significant reduction in merchant risk exposure by increasing transaction security through cardholder authentication and by providing chargeback protection against fraud. E-commerce merchants who work with their acquirers to implement Verified by Visa are protected from certain fraud-related chargebacks on all personal Visa cards with limited exceptions. If applicable, E-commerce merchants may receive a reduced interchange rate.

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9. Protect your merchant account from intrusion

Using sophisticated computers and high-tech smarts, criminals are gaining access to shopping card and payment gateway processor systems, attacking vulnerable e-commerce merchant accounts, and making fraudulent merchant deposits. By taking proactive measures, you can effectively minimize the kind of cyber attack and its associated fraud risks.

10. Create a secure process for routing authorizations

Before you accept Visa cards for online payment, you must ensure that you have a secure and efficient process in place to submit authorization requests through the Internet.

11. Be prepared to handle transactions post-authorization

There are a number of steps you can take to deal effectively with approved and declined authorizations before you fulfill and order. The idea here is to apply appropriate actions that best serve your business and the customer.

12. Safeguard cardholder data through CISP compliance

Visa’s Cardholder Information Security Program (CISP) provides e-commerce merchant with standards, procedures, and tools for data protection. For maximum security, you need reliable encryption capabilities for transaction data transmissions, effective internal controls to safeguard stored card and cardholder information, and a rigorous review of your security measures on a regular basis. CISP compliance can help you protect the integrity of your operations and earn the trust of your customers.

13. Avoid unnecessary chargebacks and processing costs

For your business, a chargeback translates into extra processing time and cost, a narrower profit margin for the sale, and possibly a loss of revenue. It is important to carefully track and manage the chargebacks that you receive, take steps to avoid future chargebacks, and know your rights.

14. Use collection efforts to recover losses

Merchant with chargeback monitoring mechanisms are in a better position to spot excessive chargeback activity, identify the causes, and proactively bring chargeback rates down by applying appropriate remedial actions.

15. Monitor chargebacks

You can often recover unwarranted chargeback losses through a well-thought through collections system.

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