Traditionally the big corporations with deep pockets dominated almost every market. If a new market emerged it wasn’t very long before the big boys made their presence known. But ecommerce is turning things upside down and small businesses are not only competing with big corporations but they are winning!

Doing business on the internet is unlike doing business anywhere else. It doesn’t require a huge amount of start up cash and with some know-how an entrepreneur can make a substantial profit and build a lucrative enterprise. The cost of building a modest website on the internet to sell goods and services ranges from $200 to $20,000 depending on how many bells and whistles your want for the website.

The internet economy reached over 33 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2008 and is expected to exceed over 90 billion by year end. Taking into consideration the size of the internet economy a modest website can reach an audience unheard of in terms of traditional retail markets. Businesses have invested fortunes in an attempt to reach such a large market and failed to do so. With the right mix of website design, search engine optimization and product placement a small business can make a profit online.

Credit card payment processing in the internet economy plays an important element in operating a successful business. Business owners that have established an ecommerce merchant account and adopted a credit card payment processing system to meet their customer’s purchasing needs have increased their potential for growing sales and revenues. Thanks to electronic processing of orders and payments web-based businesses have smaller staffs and lower costs.

An ecommerce merchant account is the center of activity where your business credits, refunds, fees and debits are transacted and reported. Reports reflecting data on daily, monthly and annual activity of your business are produced and sent to you. Profits resulting from your sales transactions can be transferred from the ecommerce merchant account to another account of your choosing. Depending on your ecommerce merchant account agreement you may have to maintain a set balance each month in the account.

An ecommerce merchant account is the financial relationship between a business, a bank and a credit card payment processing service. This relationship is what enables you to accept credit card payments from customers. The business is the merchant that provides the products or services (that’s you) to be purchased by the customer. The bank is where the customer’s money and where your ecommerce merchant account is located. A credit card payment processing service handles the transaction details for your credit card companies and they finalize the transaction. All three entities are important to complete credit card payment processing and have the money deposited in your ecommerce merchant account.

Because of competition many credit card payment processing services do not charge a set up fee to establish an ecommerce merchant account but do charge a fee that is a percentage of each transaction. Some elements that may also affect credit card payment processing service fees are: average transaction dollar amount or transaction volume per month. The fees associated with credit card payment processing vary from service to service but are competitive so do some price comparisons for rates and only accept the best offer.

Internet storefronts are not dependent on schedules; they are open 24-7 and 365 days a year; even holidays. The website business owner enjoys continued sales activity even while asleep or on vacation. Customers can purchase products from the internet website and complete their orders electronically with the credit card payment processing program integrated into the shopping cart. Revenues generated from sales are automatically deposited in the owner’s ecommerce merchant account.

Websites have the unique ability to automatically record the habits of visitors to the site. Programming will also allow the compiling of customer purchase information from credit card payment processing for the web owner to use in marketing campaigns, inventory control and special promotions. The owner doesn’t have to carry inventory customers don’t want and are not buying. Traditional business would have to unload the inventory cheaply or hang on to it until the market improved. A vast majority of websites carry no inventory of their own and act merely as a go between for warehouses and distributors.

So let’s explore how you can take your traditional business, bring it online and share in some of the wealth.

To classify websites for a moment there are two types: informational and ecommerce. The difference between the two is one allows the visitor to purchase goods or services through a payment gateway or credit card payment processing system and the other doesn’t. Pretty simple stuff-no? Now what if you would like to start up an ecommerce website what exactly are the steps?

Select and register a domain name: this is the name visitors will type into the browser to access your web pages. An example would be www.janesflowers.com. Spend some time selecting your domain name as you will own it once it is paid for.

Find a web host: A web host is the server where you will park your website. Your website has to be located somewhere on the internet and the web host is the specific location.

Decide what product or service you will market: Your website is going to be an ecommerce website so you will have to decide what you will be selling.

Select Shopping Cart Software: If you will be offering tangible products for sale shopping cart software will allow your customers to purchase with ease. The software will allow you to integrate links from your product pages to your payment page. The shopping cart will be linked with your credit card processing service to complete purchasing transactions.

Begin building your website: There are a lot of ways you can do this but the simplest I will present here. Find a web hosting company that provides design templates and pages that you can customize to your liking. You can search the internet for website designs that appeal to you and incorporate the ideas into your website.

The next steps involve the money generated by the sales on your website and should be given the most consideration.

Sign up for a merchant account: To begin selling products on your website is your capability to accept credit cards from customers. Credit card payment processing of your customer orders requires the setting up an ecommerce merchant account because you’ll need a place to put all your money.

Launch your website: It’s time for the big step; launching your website and going live! All the files you have created will now have to be uploaded from your computer to your webhost server. If you have followed the webhost’s instructions for design, layout and uploading your site should be accessible in less then a day. You’re now ready to compete with the big boys!