| eCommerce, Part 7: Merchant Account Alternatives by Crimson Star |
Luckily, there are many alternatives available that promise to get you up and running at a reasonable cost. Some of these services are targeted directly towards photographers. It Pays to Have Friends Thanks to all of you who took the time to tell Rohn or myself about your e-commerce providers. John Blair (www.jgblairphoto.com) was the first to point out that the Professional Photographers of America (PPA) and the Professional Photographers of California (PPC) both have a process in place to help members obtain a merchant account. The PPA Web site lacks details of their program, but David Mithofer, Member Services Manager, replied promptly to my e-mail. PPA members are eligible for a discounted program through Nova Information Services. With 12,000 members, the PPA can generally negotiate a better deal than an individual photographer can. This is not an alternative to e-commerce. You will still follow the guidelines that I presented in the last few issues. With luck, the process will be easier and less costly. You may contact Mr. Mithofer at 800-786-6277. Take It Easy Wouldn't it be nice to reap the benefits of e-commerce without needing a merchant account, putting up a bond, spending lots of money, or hiring a team of programmers to integrate your shopping cart? Good news -- there are thousands of companies out there offering this opportunity to you. Some offers are simply too good to be true. Most of the e-commerce Web sites that I visited were big on hype and short on details. Some of the sites were so poorly done that they might as well write "Fly by Night eCommerce" on them! As you explore your options, remember to be aware and beware. Steven Holt (www.stockpix.com) was anxious to recommend his e-commerce provider, ccNow (www.ccnow.com). They have a professional Web site that asks and answers important questions about their service. They even provide guidelines to help you check them out with the BBB, existing clients, etc. This site is a "must see" before you consider anybody's offerings. There's No Business Like No Business The actual services that these companies offer varies. In a full service package, they have their own Web site, merchant account, credit card processor, shopping carts, etc. You don't need anything. Open an account with them, log onto their server, create your store using their software, and then you are ready. When an order is completed at their Web site, your e-commerce vendor obtains credit card authorization. Orders are sent to you for fulfillment. After you ship the products, you notify your e-commerce vendor, who then settles the credit card transaction to his merchant account. On a periodic basis, you receive payment for your sales, less a fee charged by your vendor. In some cases, your e-commerce vendor "buys" the products from you and "resells" them to the customer. You still receive a copy of the order and drop-ship the goods on behalf of the vendor. This appears to be a tax dodge, so have a serious talk with your accountant and lawyer to determine if you can take advantage of it. Double Your Fun You can have it both ways. Many e-commerce vendors encourage you to have your own Web site, with your own store. This gives you complete control over the "look-and-feel" of your site. You simply link each product to a shopping cart located at the vendor's site. When your customers check out, they are redirected to the vendor's secure server to complete the financial side of the transaction. Question: How can you tell if the connection from your browser to an Internet server is secure. (This is a trick question.) Answer: In reality, it is impossible to prove that any connection over the Internet is not being monitored by a packet sniffer. When we talk about a secure server, we mean a server that uses the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol to communicate with your browser. There are only two ways to determine if you have a SSL connection. In all cases, the beginning of the URL will change from "http://" to "https://" to indicate that you have a secure connection. Most people do not notice this slight change and rely on the second method for confirmation. On most browsers, a padlock icon appears somewhere in the browser border to indicate the secure connection. Guess what? If your secure connection is established from a frame on your Web site, the padlock icon does not appear! The connection is still secure, but it may not appear so. Keep this in mind when designing your site. Most orders are abandoned when the client gets to the checkout stage. Don't make your customers nervous at this crucial point!
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