E-Commerce

Online shopping is the process whereby consumers directly buy goods or services from a seller in real-time, without an intermediary service, over the Internet. If an intermediary service is present the process is called electronic commerce.

An online shop, e-shop, e-store, internet shop, web shop, web store, online store, or virtual store evokes the physical analogy of buying products or services at a bricks-and-mortar retailer or in a shopping mall. The process is called Business-to-Consumer (B2C) online shopping. When a business buys from another business it is called Business-to-Business (B2B) online shopping. Both B2C and B2B online shopping are forms of e-commerce.

Shopping Carts

Is software used in e-commerce to assist people making purchases online, analogous to the American English term 'shopping cart'. In British English it is generally known as a shopping basket, almost exclusively shortened on websites to 'basket'.

Payment Gateway

Is an e-commerce application service provider service that authorizes payments for e-businesses, online retailers, bricks and clicks, or traditional brick and mortar? It is the equivalent of a physical point of sale terminal located in most retail outlets.

Payment gateways protect credit card details by encrypting sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, to ensure that information is passed securely between the customer and the merchant and also between merchant and the payment processor.

Online sales processing using credit card based transactions may not be quite as straightforward as you may think. Many web site owners new to ecommerce are under the impression that they just plug a shopping cart into their site; but a cart is only a part of the whole ecommerce process. When was the last time you called customer support because you were having problems checking out online? Probably never! Cart abandonment rate is at around 60%, and most of it happens before the user even begins the checkout process. Sometimes, convincing your customers to trust you is your biggest challenge. Ecommerce-Guide provides ecommerce business owners with e-commerce news, software reviews and tutorials, technology solutions and information-commerce allows people to create completely new business models, Drupal e-Commerce is a package of modules to let you create your own online store. It is totally free, open source, rich featured and flexible.