Talk to me about online business and merchant accounts

[bicentennial_baby]

Ok, my fiancee's parents own a 140 acre farm here in MA, where they make NOFA/MA Certified Organic Maple Syrup. They sell it in stores all around the Western MA area, and want to start selling it online throught the farm's website. I am proficient in shipping and receiving, but know nothing about the online sales aspect of it. Can anyone point me to some good info that I can print out for them? They are clueless about this type of thing, so what they really need is the basics about how it works, general associated costs, dangers, etc.

Anyone? Thanks in advance, I'll check back in a while to see if I get any responses!

Oh, here's the farm website if anyone's interested, it's a beautiful place to spend your vacation (hint, hint :-) ):

http://www.blueheronfarm.com/welcome.htm

[JM]

1. Depends on what you want

If you only have a few products and only need a shopping cart accessible from your own site, PayPal is doable. If you need your own store with departments etc., you need more of an online stre type website. These typically allow you to manage more aspects like discounts, tax and shipping structures, etc.

I would look at PayPal first. They clear the purchases for you using their merchant accounts and arepretty easy to set up.

Later,
JM

[flaminlib]

2. Just went through it

Youll need a site that offers, online transaction support, secured server access, and some type of security certificate support. Thawte, and Verisign I believe are the 2 biggies. We went with thawte.

You will also need to setup a bank account for the actual transfer of funds. BofA is what we chose. The will provide you will the gateway, which actually connects your site to the bank, and all the necessary support you need. Its not overly difficult, but you will need to know some basic programming and database skills. Mysql and php etc.

I think we spent, 200 on the security certificate, about 300 for the bank account processing setup, plus monthly fees of about 40, and then the hosting account add ons, secured server, database and a few other non related incidentals came to about 75 setup, plus a few more bucks a month, total about 50.

Does that help>?

[flaminlib]

3. Oh, and...

If you dont have a designer/programmer, someone to help you through it, Id be happy to refer you to my guy. Im not sure if he will be available but I can ask. He's got quite a portfolio.

Im assuming you want a professional site designed? You probably would be able to put something together with limited computer experience using a web host's site building program though. Just depends on what you want to spend and how professional you want it to look.

Also, the backend programming and gateway integration is usually available through hosting companies but you pay for it. Too much in some cases but shop around.

[Magical]

4. Cheapest Start in On-Line Sales

I setup my online sales by using 2checkout.com.
It was a one-time fee of $50.
NO monthly fee.
NO other fees.

Here's my site...
http://www.utopianmetalworks.com/

They charge more for each sale (5.5%) plus $.45 , but if you are just getting started and don't know how sales will be, it beats paying a monthly fee. Basically, you'd need to be doing about a $1000/month in sales, before a more elaborate site makes sense.

Read all about it.
http://www.2checkout.com/

Note that funds go into their account and are dispersed to you within a couple of weeks.

Also, this approach is best for a limited number of products, which it sounds like in your case.