The less than promising outlook for the economy coupled with the gloomy jobs outlook makes starting a small business one of the best ways to weather the gloomy economic outlook that seem to be one of the few things most top economist agree on. Echoing a similar line, the Universities minister David Willetts advice students leaving university to to cast off “old-fashioned” ideas about what constitutes a graduate job and instead consider starting a business.

Knowing you want to start a small business or being urged to start a small business by a government minister and the reality on the ground when you think of the whys and the wherefores of starting a small business is quite different. First you need to identify a gap in the market that you business can fill, you have to convince the banks (which at present are not lending that much to small businesses) to finance you business idea which in an uphill struggle at the prevailing economic climate. Given the impossible huddles you must jump through to establish a traditional small business, starting an online business is a much better and far easier alternative.

The Basics of Selling Online

One of the easiest and the cheapest ways to start a small business is by giving the traditional start up model a wide berth, you cut out the long winded business proposals and endless meeting with bank officials and the routine rejection application for start-up loan tends to get by starting an online business.
Ecommerce based business tends to be easy and much cheap to setup. This article is not an exhaustive guide to starting an ecommerce website but it lists the basics of starting an ecommerce website including everything you need to start making money online.

Starting an online business can be divided into three parts:

1. Choosing an ecommerce shopping cart
2. Choosing a payment processing company
3. Search engine marketing for your business

Choosing a shopping cart
There are hundreds of shopping cart ranging from the cheap and cheerful to deluxe shopping cart that will set you back several thousands, you can also have a bespoke shopping cart created for you, bespoke shopping carts do not come cheap. It will be assumed that capital is tight hence you want to get the best shopping cart possible for as little cash outlay as possible.
The first shopping cart that comes to mind are the free one but given that free shopping carts tends not to have technical support you can call on when you need help, and aspiring small business owner who is not a techie should steer well clear of free shopping cart.
One of the best shopping cart you can start you online shop with is Boss Cart.

Choosing a payment gateway

Giving all the anti-fraud mechanism put in place by banks and credit card companies, you would think online fraud and credit card fraud will be a thing of the past. Card fraud seem to behave like a badly laid carpet underlay, you push the air out in one end and it pops up at another end. At least on the credit card front, a new Hi-tech card by Visa seem set to dramatically reduce credit card fraud if not eliminate it outright.

The new Visa card comes with a built in keypad and LCD screen, the new card is called Visa CodeSure. CodeSure is exactly the same size as a standard credit card but it features a tiny screen above the signature strip and 10 pressure keypads which card owners can use to input pin number.

Visa CodeSure has undergo extensive trials in Europe, Visa is not confident enough that the it is giving the banks the go ahead to start rolling it out to their customers very soon. Visa CodeSure will replace the cumbersome card reader that is in current use, instead of carrying a card and a card reader, you have it all rolled into one small credit card. The main security feature of the new card is the fact that it generates random authorisation code for each transaction instead of inserting preprepared password which is the way the current Verified by Visa system works. Visa CodeSure is expected to replace verified by Visa system once the roll out of the new card is completed.

Verified by Visa is said to have help online card fraud continue to fall, last year, £266 million was lot to card fraud which was a reduction of 19% over loses due to fraud the previous year.

This service provider in the payment card processing domain claims to be the largest of its kind within Europe and boasts of being able to cater to all types of businesses irrespective of the size. They are a member of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group.

Since this company is also one of the premier providers of merchant accounts, it has the flexibility of accepting both debit and credit card payments by different modes such as by phone or through the website.

With card transactions on the increase, you as a merchant need the support of a company which makes your business dealings easier and more customer friendly. Streamline is the company which makes that possible through their different service offerings.

Services offered

a) Cardholder preferred currency service

This is made possible through the many point of sale terminals provided by the company and the transaction is easily processed due to the terminal duly recognizing the card in question and making available the required currency.

b) Card payment on the move service

This service is for those who are always mobile as the company provides mobile payment terminals through which the card payments can be processed.

c) Streamline online service

This is another management type of service which allows you to view the various card transactions that you have done for the business and since they are up dated daily, you can have real time information on all your card transactions.

d) PAN truncation service

The primary account number truncation is a service wherein the card number is disguised and is not made visible to avoid any fraudsters taking advantage of accessibility to such numbers.

e) Internet trading service

With the growing popularity and access to internet, many businesses are able to now conduct a lot of their business activities through the internet. So ecommerce and online trading activities are very much a part and requirement of many customers. Streamline is able to offer internet retailing opportunities and also provides general guidelines on how to get started on this activity.

Strengths

1. Handle a huge number of transactions within the UK
2. Can process most major card payments and as a merchant you can cater to diverse customers.
3. State of art technology which ensures that transactions are quickly done and there is no waiting time for customers.
4. Great back up systems to ensure total reliability at all times

Support Provided

They provide support services to help customers manage their account much better by helping out in areas like easy authorization, ensuring fraud free sales, reconciling statements to reflect the up dated information and so on.

They place great emphasis on getting proper feedback from customers and encourage it through the online feedback form. Customers can also use the email and visit the website to place complaints or offer suggestions.

They offer both call back as well as Text phone services to enable customers to get through to them.Your browser may not support display of this image. Your browser may not support display of this image. Your browser may not support display of this image. Your browser may not support display of this image.

If you have an ecommerce website, you cannot do without a shopping cart. It is the shopping cart program that enables your customers to select the products and place them appropriately for payment. Without the shopping cart, your customers will face problems completing their transaction and that will impact your ecommerce initiative severely.

The question is whether you would want to buy one or take one on rent. This article examines the advantages and disadvantages of buying versus renting out a shopping cart.

Buying a shopping cart

When you purchase the shopping cart, you have total ownership, control over how you wish to customize the software to suit your requirements. You can tweak the software to include or delete features. This is of course assuming that you possess the necessary knowledge and expertise to do so.

However, the flip side is that when you buy such software, you need to keep paying for any upgrades that the software may undergo. If you wish to do the upgrade your self, it may not be possible and in the process if you end up making changes to the software, you will stop getting the after sales support from the company you bought the software from.

Renting the shopping cart

When it comes to renting, there are limitations as well. You will not be able to do any customization since you do not own the software and have to make do with the features it already possesses. The only solace is that you are not making a bulk one time payment but paying it over several months and this may come back to haunt you as time passes. The advantage is that you can get started with your business and contribute to the rent per month from the profits you start making in your ecommerce business. If the business starts doing well, you always have the option of buying out the software with the additional cash it has generated for you over time.

The positive aspect of renting the shopping cart is the fact that you can get free upgrades and avail of the benefit of any improvements made to the software without paying anything. You need to check this out when you do rent out the shopping cart with your host. Also make sure that you will have access to regular service help when required so that you are not left high and dry when there is a problem.

Your decision to buy a shopping cart or rent it out thus depends on how technically savvy you are or whether you have access to such a person and what is the importance you wish to accord to customization. If you cannot provide for your own support system and do not attach much importance to customization, then renting out the shopping cart software would be ideal for you. If you are one of those who does not wish to pay a bulk amount upfront, then renting is the right option.

Many web hosting companies do offer such shopping cart software in their monthly hosting package and that is one way you can start using the software without making a huge payment upfront.

However if you wish to buy it outright, you need to always remember that the cost will increase depending on the features you decide to have on it.

Ultimately as mentioned, it is your business requirements that will decide whether to rent or buy the shopping cart software.

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