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Alternative E-Commerce Solutions
By: Janice D. Byer, CCVA, MVA, Mon Feb 6th, 2006
Over the past several years, the Internet has emerged as a
breakthrough technology that has and will continue to transform
the way we live and communicate, and especially the way we do
business.
No matter if you are selling a product or a service, the
Internet is a means of reaching markets that had otherwise been
unreachable in the past. And, it also provides ease of
purchasing and selling almost anything online…also known as
E-Commerce.
But, for many businesses, especially start up and small to mid
size businesses, having a website that includes the usual
E-commerce capabilities is just not in their budgets. Setting up
merchant accounts and secure servers can get quite costly.
So, if you are really wanting or needing to have e-commerce
capabilities on your website to sell your products, but your
budget just won’t allow it, there are a variety of alternatives
to the expensive online route that you can consider.
Your first choice allows you to accept credit card payments but
without a secure server. Some financial institutions, which
offer credit cards, also offer Traditional Merchant Accounts.
This allows you to manually verify credit card information from
those that want to purchase from you. But, you should be aware,
if you ask for credit card information from your website without
the guarantee of a secure server, you may run into hesitation
from potential customers.
Another alternative to the expensive merchant account is to
accept cheque payments online. For this you will need to acquire
software or a program that will allow you to print MicroPrint
(the small numbers and characters at the bottom of a cheque… ie.
routing #, account #, etc.). There are several cheque writing
programs available, including those found at Checker.net and
Checkman.com.
The procedures involved to use this payment method are to first
set up a form on your website. You then send an invoice to your
customer with direction to the cheque-form page, which they must
fill out and submit, via your cgi program. You then verify the
funds and information and then the software prints the cheque on
special cheque paper, which you can purchase at most business
supply stores.
You can also have the above type service online, via such sites
as Paybycheck.com.
Another alternative, which is rapidly becoming the choice of
many online product and service providers, is Online Payment
Systems. There are several of these systems available but I have
only found one that has features available to Canadians. Called
PayPal.com, this service allows you to set up an account with
them and they verify the credit information of those buying from
you. Now, many features that this system has to offer are still
limited for Canadian retailers but you are still able to set up
an account, bill your clients, and receive payments into your
Canadian bank account or credit card account with only minor
service charges being applied.
Taking advantage of the expansive market of the World Wide Web
does not mean that you have to go bankrupt. You can still get on
the E-Commerce bandwagon and accept payments with the above
listed services and other alternative payment systems that may
be available. Actually, most of these services are all that the
average small business, especially those in the service
industry, really need. And they don’t cost a fortune.
About the author:
Janice Byer (CCVA, MVA) of Docu-Type Administrative & Web
Services, provides professional & creative Virtual Assistance
and Website Design. For more helpful small business and
marketing information, view her NEW Information Ebooklets; read
her ebook, Surfin' the Net - Docu-Type's Virtual Collection of
Links; sign up for her free newsletter, Virtual TidBits; and
read all of her published Articles, at http://www.docutype.net
