Accepting credit cards online

Selling goods and service over the web shouldn’t be the proverbial equivalent of dark magic — it should be easy enough that you can focus on your offerings, not on the technology.

While the open source initiatives like OSCommerce can help shop owners toy around with PHP and MySQL to create an expansive e-commerce storefront, lots of merchants prefer to use an outsourced “everything included” alternative.

While open source costs nothing to download and deploy on your own servers, the cost is hidden in the time it takes to set it up and keep it running. Over time, it can add up to scary figures.

SecureNetShop, on the other hand, costs money but fortunately, it’s not enough of it to be of any concern (a few hundred bucks a year, depending on your use of the service). The merchant can be operational quickly and no technical skills are required (other than basic web knowledge).

Here’s what’s included in SecureNetShop’s no up-front fee, no application fee, no annual fee and no paperwork e-commerce service:

• Toll free support, 7 days a week;
• Accept up to 9 methods of payment;
• Easy integration with your web site;
• Automatic sales tax calculations;
• UPS, USPS and FedEx shipping rates;
• Accept payments for eBay auctions;
• Sell products, digital goods or services;
• Compatible with Google Checkout.

While this kind of e-commerce service benefits to the merchant, it’s also appreciated by potential customers who will feel comfortable with the overall interface -and- the countless extensive “online shopping” features.

Bringing your future customers to your store is one thing, making sure they use it is another so it’s nice to know SecureNetShop provides a higher level of upfront credibility. The design can be customized by the merchant, mainly to fit his own colors and style but overall, the user experience will feel right.

From a merchant’s standpoint, this SecureNetShop’s service reduces operating costs, saves time while being fast, reliable and highly secure. Furthermore, merchants can control all the aspects of their online store from anywhere, over the web.

So, for all the merchants out there who are scratching their head about how to get paid for their products and services online, SecureNetShop offers a fast-track path towards higher revenues (for doing what they do best) while leaving the heavy tech lifting to the e-commerce pros.

Tags: securenetshop, e-commerce, credit cards, online payments, secure shopping

Investigation on domain tasting

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), as the global internet regulator, is currently investigating domain tasting, a controversial process where users register domains to test (and validate) their effectiveness in collecting certain levels of traffic and then cancel the registration before fees become due.

The call for this investigation by the ICANN came after it was found that less than one percent of all “.org” domain names are registered.

For business owners, from all over the world, this is a much needed initiative since peoplewho intend to use the internet to promote their business will welcome the increase in available domain names.

The investigated domain tasting practice has been unnecessarily tying up millions of available domain names -and- adversely impacting the average domainer.

In the past seven years alone, the number of domain name inquiries has risen from 1 billion to 30 billion per day, according to VeriSign, the US company controlling the “.com” and “.net” gTLDs.

In fact, VeriSign was set to raise the registry fees for these domains next month to account for the upgrading to registration systems that was much needed to cope with the overwhelming flood of automated applications and scripts operated by speculators.

As if domain tasting, in and of itself, wasn’t enough of a problem already, criminal practices such as phishing and pharming (related to domain tasting) pose even greater threats for businesses and individuals using the internet.

For instance, anonymous parties often register domains to estblish lookalike sites to obtain confidential information from unsuspecting customers. They’re able to gather private data without the usual risk of being identified (or traced) because they’re “in the process” of registering the domain name, thanks to the lax “domain tasting delay” handling.

Riskwise, the domain tasting loophole is unacceptable to both businesses and their customers. Furthermor, other unwanted commercial side-effect of this shady practice include consumer confusion and increased costs incurred to all businesses that need to register domain names “defensively” while allocating the necessary resources to keep an eye on the situation.

The ICANN’s investigation will also consider ways to counteract unnecessary costs for domainers. In the event domain tasting were to be rendered illegal (and technically impossible), the domain name business would gain credibilty while reducing its operating costs.

Fighting domain tasting is the right thing to do.

Tags: domain tasting, phishing, pharming, icann, investigation, domainers