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e-commerce
is the buying and selling of goods and services directly over the
Internet. Retail e-commerce is forecasted to reach $39 billion in
2000, and according to Forrester Research, 40 million households will be
shopping online by 2003, spending more than $108 billion. These
figures don't even include the business-to-business market, which, also
according to Forrester, will reach $2.7 trillion by 2004.
What Level of e-commerce Is Right for My Business and My Web Site?
You must examine your business to determine what level of e-commerce is
right for you and what features and functions will be important to your
site.
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What
do you sell?
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How
many products?
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Do
your items change frequently?
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Do
you run short-term specials?
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Is
product shipping a significant issue?
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Do
you have repeat customers or are they new each time?
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Do
your products support repeat purchases?
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How
much time can you and/or your staff devote to your Web site?
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Can
your business fulfill the higher sales volume that could be generated
by your successful e-commerce site?
Getting Started with CBCInet
Once you decide to set up an e-commerce enabled web site, the process can
be as easy as setting up any other web site. In keeping with our
practice of offering Professional Web Hosting services CBCInet's
e-commerce solutions feature Mercantec
SoftCart®, the world's leading provider of e-commerce software and
services to small and medium sized businesses.
1) Select and register your domain name.
Keep it simple making sure it represents your company and business
goals. CBCInet can egister your domain name at the same time you
sign up for hosting services. CBCInet does not charge a fee for this
service. You will however be billed from InterNIC/NSI directly.
2) Determine the site creation process that's best for you.
If you want to build your Web site yourself, CBCInet supports several site
creation tools such as Trellix Web™ and Microsoft® FrontPage®, to
which you can easily imbed a link to your SoftCart™ store using the
StoreBuilder™ Wizard.
If you would like to have the site built for you, CBCInet has alliances
with some of the best Web Design Services in the industry which you
receive a customized web site that can include a SoftCart enabled store.
Look through our Site Developer Directory to have a truly custom created
e-commerce site using SoftCart.
3) Select the e-commerce solution that fits your business needs.
Our hosting plans compliment any e-commerce soltuion with generous
allocations of disk space, data transfer and email capabilities.
All of our servers can be securely encrypted using Secure Sockets
Layer (SSL) protocol. That means while shopping at your online store, your
customers' personal information, including credit card numbers, are
indecipherable while being sent through the Internet.
Your
E-commerce Site's Payment Options.
CBCInet's e-commerce solutions support both offline and online credit card
processing.
If
you choose not to add on-line real time credit card processing all of our
plans allow you to capture the customer's order and credit card
information from an online form, then process the credit card transaction
manually.
Using our payment gateway, online credit card processing
capability may be added to any hosting plan. The payment gateway is required to accept credit cards over the Internet.
Many existing businesses may already have a merchant account.
However, this is not sufficient for conducting transactions over the
Internet. A separate Internet merchant account is required.
Sound complicated? It's really not. When you select CBCInet as your
hosting provider we help simplify and streamline the process for you. With
one stop service at CBCInet you get all you need to get your e-commerce
capabilities up and running.
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