Understanding an Ecommerce Gateway

An Ecommerce gateway is necessary to make online financial transactions. To close an online deal one has to forward a bill to the client and receive payment from the client. The client pays by keying in his credit card number, which is verified by the bank who issued the credit card. The website of the bank is connected and the client's credit card number is verified. Then the payment amount is debited from the client's account to the seller's account, which may be in a different bank. Therefore, the seller's bank website opens and the money is transferred to the seller's account. Thereafter, the seller's bank website and the buyer's bank website both close.

The buyer's gets a confirmation saying that the transaction was successful. The buyer may reside in another country than the seller and so the transaction comprises of transfer of foreign exchange, which is subject to the rules and regulations of the seller's country. All this takes place in a 128-bit encrypted, and password protected secured environment within few seconds.

This is possible because there is another website which acts as an intermediary and connects all the sites together, coordinates them, converts the foreign exchange and does it as per rules and very fast. This other site, which connects all the sites, is known as a payment gateway or an ecommerce gateway, by which online monetary transactions take place.

An ecommerce gateway

Many of those who surf the Internet will have come across the term, "ecommerce gateway". Have you stopped to find out what it means? Most of you probably have not because you were busy doing something else over the net during that time and did not want to stop your work. Ecommerce gateway is actually the ?gateway? from your site to the merchant account. This is the ?gate? through which processing of your payments is done, whether it is by credit card or any other form of payment. Ecommerce gateway is better known as the payment gateway, because it is closely related to payment.

Features of an ecommerce gateway

The ecommerce gateway will basically cover sale facilitating features like shopping carts, merchant accounts, web hosting and so on. Other less known services are also offered which depend upon the type of ecommerce done by the site:

* Virtual terminal - this is the place where a customer can place an order after using the ?help? or ?contact us? button to enquire about your product. Many people dislike the fact that they need to go back to the home page and again navigate to the item they are interested to buy. They would rather just place the order after their questions and/or concerns have been clarified.

* Fraud alert - this is something that most payment gateways have build within, just like a bank has an inbuilt alarm. Sometime this alarm gives false alarms, but most of the time, it is accurate. By using a good fraud prevention system, you save yourself and others from many problems. Many will include special features such as AVS or address verification system where the details given by a customer at registration time is checked for accuracy, matching the name mentioned on the credit card with that who received the goods, as well as the three digit number that the credit cards have on their backside for additional safety, etc.

* Recurring billing - this is something most gateways do for regular customers. By this process, you will need to key in your payment information only once on the site. After that every time you make another purchase, the site will recover your information and before checking it out with the customer for any change, it is processed. This saves the customer time and effort.

* Other types of payment- some gateways provide processing of e-checks though this method is really not very popular as it is slow and difficult to process.

An ecommerce gateway is essential for online survival.

Comment on this Article

Ecommerce Advertising
Your website can feature advertisements of other websites in order to g...
ecommerce_advertising.php

Ecommerce Fulfillment Services
Customer needs and wants have to be fulfilled, and your pro...
ecommerce_fulfillment_services.php

Ecommerce Consultant
Many a times it seems that your idea of selling online was a waste of money and effort. This is so because adequate t...
ecommerce_consultant.php

Ecommerce Development
Ecommerce development is an ongoing process...
ecommerce_development.php

Business To Business Ecommerce
B2B or Business to Business is online business transacted between two businesses. It is effective in the s...
business_to_business_ecommerce.php

Ecommerce Fulfillment
Ecommerce fulfillment is the successful compl...
ecommerce_fulfillment.php

Ecommerce Business Solution
Selling online is an art where product identification and pricing is high art. You ...
ecommerce_business_solution.php

Ecommerce
Ecommerce, or electronic commerce, or e-commerce is simply ...
ecommerce.php

Ecommerce Fraud
Ecommerce fraud is a very vital issue which has to be tackled and uprooted...
ecommerce_fraud.php

Ecommerce Definition
...
ecommerce_definition.php

Custom Ecommerce Software
Businesses have varied needs and readymade ecommerce software may not be able to fulfill all the needs. Besides re...
custom_ecommerce_software.php

Best Ecommerce Site
Among the choices available today, choosing the bes...
best_ecommerce_site.php

Ecommerce Application
What is hosted ecommerce application? Hosted ecommerce application is a specially designed software p...
ecommerce_application.php

Ecommerce And Smallbusiness
The Internet boom has given rise to numerous online ven...
ecommerce_and_smallbusiness.php

B2c Ecommerce
The term B2C E-commerce stands for Business to Consumer Ele...
b2c_ecommerce.php

Best Ecommerce Software
Ecommerce software is software used to enable electronic commerce via the Internet...
best_ecommerce_software.php

Ecommerce Hosting
To have your presence felt on the Internet and its offshoot the World Wide Web (www), you should ha...
ecommerce_hosting.php

Affordable Ecommerce Web Hosting
...
affordable_ecommerce_web_hosting.php

Ecommerce Billing
Revenue inflows come with billing the customers. In the virtual world of ecommerce, the billing syste...
ecommerce_billing.php

Ecommerce Database
When you have an online store, you need to keep track of the items being purchased, ...
ecommerce_database.php

Ecommerce Webhosting Plan
In order to have a good ecommerce web hosting plan you must consider some specific criteria before fina...
ecommerce_webhosting_plan.php

Cheap Ecommerce Hosting Web
The best bargain is got where there is most competition. The Internet provides...
cheap_ecommerce_hosting_web.php

Business Ecommerce
Launching your business ecommerce is a viable option, only if you fulfill certain basic needs and wants of customers. S...
business_ecommerce.php

Ecommerce Credit Card Processing
Monetary transactions form the backbone of ecommerce. Over the Internet, due to its electronic nature and geo...
ecommerce_credit_card_processing.php

Ecommerce Course
Knowledge is always enlightening. An ecommerce course for...
ecommerce_course.php

Ecommerce Webhosting Provider
An ecommerce web hosting provider is an essential part of any online commercia...
ecommerce_webhosting_provider.php

Ecommercehost
Without a proper plan, Internet survival is difficult. Just having a website does not ensure traffic and sales...
ecommercehost.php

Ecommercebusinessplan
For online success, a predetermined plan has to be charted consideri...
ecommercebusinessplan.php

Cheap Ecommerce Hosting
Cheap bargains are always sought after and in the Internet mar...
cheap_ecommerce_hosting.php

Build An Ecommerce Site
Building an ecommerce site is a bit different fro...
build_an_ecommerce_site.php

Ecommerce Degree
If you need yourself to be educated about ecommerce and its various functionalities, you can undergo an ecommerce degre...
ecommerce_degree.php

Build An Ecommerce Website
To build an ecommerce website , you must have web design knowledge and a lot of patience. The basi...
build_an_ecommerce_website.php

Ecommerce Hosting Company
Businesses, whether small or large, never h...
ecommerce_hosting_company.php

Ecommerce Consulting
Ecommerce consulting can also be done on the int...
ecommerce_consulting.php