question #1. can all 3 (SSL certificate, payment gateway and merchant account) of these things be provided by the webhosting company? If so from the responses i have gotten so far are not clear, they say SSL would cost 30-75 a year? what about payment gateway and merchant account? Do i need to seperately hire these vendors for there services? if so how much does that cost? What is the easiest way to do this?

Questions #2. Are there any good begginer documents/downloads/website out there which goes into all these steps of setting up an online business.

For full details please read below.

Hi All, I am novice, trying to start to put our brick and mortar business online. even If we are able to sell one item a month it would be a success.

I dont have a web hosting company yet but narrowed down the list to downtownhosting, crucialwebhost and hostgator. Currently corresponding with all three of them trying to get enough information on shopping cart functionalitly and cost.

Above two questions i would like to get answered by someone who has been doing online business and know about how shopping cart works.

As you can tell i am newbee so please be kind in answering these question. Your help would be appreciated.

I have a background in technology (electrical engineering) just not ebusiness savvy ;)just mentioning this so that you know your responses wouldnt go futile, i will try my best to comprehend them.

Chakde.

The answers to your questions can be very lengthy so I will try answer in brief. There are hundreds of sources online so the best will be to research separately by SSL, Payment Gateway and Merchant Account.

I do not know any web hosting company that provides a merchant account. They may refer you to an ISO. SSL is a security encryption and there is an annual fee. Payment Gateway is an ecom application that authorizes payments.

You need to purchase SSL separately. Payment Gateway and Merchant Account can be provided to you by an ISO or representative of an ISO. Some payment processors (ISO’s) have their own payment gateway and does not cost anything, others charge a monthly fee. Some ISO’s use 3rd party payment gateway and there is monthly fee.

Try a few keywords in Google and you will have tons of resources for setting up online business. Is this something easy? The answer is no. You need some basic knowledge. If you expect to sell online, your website has to be appealing enough to attract consumers. You need to apply some SEO so people find your website.

Shopping Carts: Google this and you will find many resources. It depends on the functionality you are looking for; you may find free shopping cart software.

You will find companies who will be able to facilitate you with all three of your requirements even though the final product/service may be fulfilled through 3 different channels.

Hope that helps!

You might want to check out www.zencart.com. This is a free (open-source) shopping cart with a busy forum where you can ask questions, plus lots of online documentation on various subjects. There is also a book you can buy to help you get set up.

I have a zencart with a few transactions per month and the shared Linux webhosting costs me $6.95/month on a monthly basis, my SSL works out to about $6/month (based on a 3-year purchase) plus $2/month for a dedicated IP address for the SSL. Domain name costs about a dollar a month based on a 5-year purchase.

The merchant account/payment gateway stuff is somewhat complicated and depends on your own situation and volume for pricing so I won't say anything about that, there are plenty of threads on here. If you are doing a low volume of transactions it probably isn't worth getting the merchant account at first.

Paypal payment system is very easy to set up with a zencart and doesn't cost anything except their usual fees (.35 cents per transaction plus 2.9% if I'm remembering correctly). So you can get a basic store set up and running for not too much, and then get into the merchant account later if you need it.

Thank for your response Tim. i will start off with Paypal for sure but not everyone one has paypal setup and specially the customers i am expecting wouldn't know what paypal is ;) so i have to have the full credit card system setup even though its going to be only one or two credit card transactions. Appreciate the breakdown on pricing in particular. thats exactly what i wanted to find out.

Alex, thanks for the response. To reduce the work may be i will try to find a merchant that has payment gateway capabilities or the other way around. Any recommendations(low cost)? I am not sure SEO is but i will try to google is ;)

Payment processors can be hard on start-up online businesses in their approval process. I suggest you apply when your site is fully functional. First Data has their own payment gateway and they provide to you at no cost as long as you process with them. Look for fine prints in fees. If you have good credit, you have good chances of getting approved for low monthly volumes. Majority of payment processors I know have monthly fee for their or 3rd party payment gateway. Google Pay Per Click is good but take caution on using most popular keywords (money can disappear in an hour). PayPal business account has option of credit cards so explore that option as well. It is good option for start-up online business. Feel free to post any questions and I will do my best to answer.

Forgot to mention, the paypal plugin for zencart will allow you to accept credit card payments. Paypal acts as the gateway. The free paypal gateway whisks the client off to paypal where they do the payment either through paypal or by credit card, and paypal signals the zencart that the deal is done and returns the customer to your site. You can pay for a paypal gateway where they stay on your zencart, just like with the regular merchant accounts. The documentation on the zencart site explains the differences. I just use the basic one. You would be surprised how many people use paypal, it is becoming a standard international bank. Also, zencart handles all the major gateways if you decide to go that way, its usually just a matter of activating a plugin module.

And, finally, on the zencart site you can find zencart certified hosts that will set everything up for you for a fee.

By the way, I don't work for zencart! I've just found it very useful for my basic ecommerce store.

Thanks guys. Zencart seems like it would be a good option paypal / google. I dont understand google payper click thing yet but i will try to read up on it a little bit more.

For regular credit, Alex i will check out fees on Frist data. Below is one of merchant/payment gateway fees: Is this deal bad, or good? your thoughts.

One time fee :$75 (setup)

Transaction based fee:
discount rate : 2.19%
per transaction : $0.25

Monthly Fees
Gateway Fee:$15
Statement Fee:$7.50

The fees seem pretty much industry average. You may request them for the waiver of set-up fee. The key is not always the rates but the service you will receive in a long run. Check this forum and other resources to make sure they have good reputation. Read the fine prints on the contract. Contracts vary from processor to processor. I didn't have a clue about Google PPC but learned slowly. Made silly mistakes but isn't it the best way to learn.

Looks like you are all set - Good Luck in your online adventure!