[Thesa]

eCommerce (electronic commerce) is the buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet, especially the World Wide Web. In practice, this term and a newer term, eBusiness, are often used interchangeably.

Three things are basically required:

a) Internet Merchant Account: Account opened through a bank that is a member of the Visa, MasterCard, or other credit card network which allows merchants to accept credit cards from purchasers. The funds are then transferred electronically to the merchants’ bank account.

b) Payment Gateway / Credit Card Processor: Payment Gateway companies help other Processors conduct secure business on the internet using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology. They provide a system that passes credit card data, authorization requests, and authorization responses over the Internet using encryption technology

c) E-Commerce ready website (in most cases with shopping cart software): A shopping cart (or basket) is an ecommerce application that allows a user to collect items while browsing an online catalogue. When finished searching the user is then able to move to a check-out where the cost of purchases is totaled and payment details taken. More sophisticated systems establish customer accounts to reduce the amount of information a user has to enter to complete a transaction.