Magento Shopping Cart and Ecommerce

Just about any online store involves the use of a shopping cart system - this is the software application that allows you as the merchant to administer the shop inventory and process orders, and the customer to add items to a basket (the shopping cart) and proceed through the checkout process and finally to payment processing.

There is a large variety of shopping cart solutions available - we recommend Magento.

Magento Ecommerce

Magentocommerce (www.magentocommerce.com) is a brand new professional open-source eCommerce solution offering total flexibility and control over your online shop. A production version is due for release by April 2008 and we look forward to developing many online ecommerce shops for clients using this amazing new system.

View all the features of Magento

4W Web Design previously recommended deploying the entry-level shopping cart system Cubecart and still supports this system if required or preferred.

Payment Processing

Online card payments are processed by an online Payment Service Provider using ultra-secure 128-bit servers, and the funds then deposited into a Merchant Account.

This process can be handled by a single supplier, or the payment processing and the merchant account can be separated.

For secure, fast and reliable e-payments we recommend integrating e-commerce customers' sites with Secure Trading to process the payment - the client then opens a merchant account with either their own local bank or any bank listed here.

Secure Trading are the UKs leading Payment Service Provider and costs £195 per year plus 1%-1.5% of all transaction values.

Internet Merchant Accounts

In the UK, merchant accounts typically cost £200-£300 to set-up (no annual fees) plus 2% on credit cards and 20-30 pence on debit card transactions, plus they hold onto your money for a period of time (24hrs - 10 days). They may also impose other restrictions based on your trading history.

Single supplier (payment service provider plus merchant account in one) costs vary in terms of set-up fees, annual fees, transaction fees and payment delays. A selection include Worldpay.com, Paypal.com, 2Checkout.com, Authorize.net and Chronopay.com but there are many others. Typically on top of any account fees the rate you pay per transaction is between 3% and 5%.

If your turnover increases you should always ask for a rate review from suppliers.