Ecommerce is the term used to describe the selling of goods and services over the Internet. In the most general sense, simply creating a Web site that advertises and promotes your products can be considered “ecommerce.” In recent years, however, ecommerce has become much more sophisticated.

Ecommerce businesses now offer elaborate online stores where customers can browse thousands of products, place an order, select the desired shipping method and pay for their purchases using their credit cards.

You can sell any number of products on your site, from just a few items to thousands. Once you decide how many products you want to sell, you can pick the hosting plan that best meets your needs. CAZ Commerce Basic, Advanced or Extreme.

When you chose a plan, be sure to consider how your site and your product offerings may grow in the future, as well as what advanced features and functionalities you want to offer your customers. For example, you may want to provide a search feature that lets your customers search for a specific product. You want to be sure that the plan you choose will be able to accommodate your growth and your changing needs as your customer base expands and your traffic increases.

Yes. All CAZ Commerce plans use osCommerce which handles media sales/downloads very efficiently.

What you need depends upon a number of factors, such as how you want to handle transactions and what types of security you want to provide.

For example, if you don’t need to accept credit cards or process transactions online, all you need is a Web site that lists your products, provides some sort of order form and lists the address where your customers should send their payments.

However, if you want a full-featured online store that can process credit card transactions in “real time” in a secure environment you will need a shopping cart, an Internet-ready merchant account, a payment gateway and an SSL certificate.

Ecommerce plans may range anywhere from $24.95 a month to $59.95 a month, depending upon the number of products you want to sell, the traffic you anticipate and the features and functionalities you want to provide to your customers.

There are other costs associated with an online store, too. For example, you will need a shopping cart and, if you want to be able to accept credit cards and process those transactions online, you will need a merchant account and a payment gateway service. Typically, there are initial setup fees as well as on-going costs for these services that will be in addition to your hosting costs.

Yes. CAZ Creations makes it easy for you to add ecommerce to your site. Simply order a CAZ Commerce plan which has osCommerce installed!
Once you have built your online store, you can easily integrate it into your existing site by either providing a link to your new store front or incorporating your products into your existing site’s pages. The flexibility of osCommerce will even allow you to completely wrap your existing design around it. Take a look at some of our custom integrations ...
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For more information, contact our eCommerce support at support@cazabra.com.

osCommerce is one of the most powerful and flexible eCommerce storefront solutions available today!
If you can send an email, you can use osCommerce !
There are no license fees, and add-ons are also free !
eMail support@cazabra.com if you have any questions.

Yes. osCommerce enables you to quickly and easily customize the appearance of your store. You design the layout of your pages, select the colors and fonts you want to use and add graphics and text as you like. Plus, you can use HTML to enhance the text on any of your Web pages.

You have a number of options for handling transactions. The most basic approach is to handle all of your transactions offline. For example, you could publish your address and have your customers send their orders along with a check or money order directly to you. You could also collect your customers’ credit card information via email or phone and then process the credit card transactions offline using your retail merchant account.

These are probably not the best approaches, though, because one the main reasons customers shop at an online store is for the speed and convenience it provides.

To increase the chances that customers will want to shop at your online store, it should be able to accept and process credit card transactions online and in “real time.” You can handle your own online transactions or outsource them to a third-party credit card processor.

If you want to be able to accept credit cards but do not want to handle these yourself, you can use a third-party online credit card processor. When your customers want to purchase a product, they click a link that takes them to the third-party’s Web site. There, they will submit their order and credit card information, which is then processed by the third-party processor. Essentially, these processors act as resellers. They may charge you a variety of fees for this service, including an initial set up fee, monthly fees and/or per-transaction fees.

While outsourcing your online transactions may seem appealing, you should consider the fact that it will be obvious to your customers that their transactions are being handled not by your company but by a third-party.

If you want to handle online credit card transactions yourself, you will need an Internet-ready merchant account, a payment gateway service and an SSL certificate.

A merchant account enables you to accept credit cards as payment for the purchase of goods and services. There are different types of merchant accounts. For example, if you have a traditional “brick and mortar” store, you can get a retail merchant account. If you want to accept credit cards on your Web site, however, you need a specialized type of merchant account known as an “Internet-ready” merchant account.

Internet-ready merchant accounts enable you to handle Internet transactions in "real time" without any human intervention. Because the risk of credit card fraud is greater when you are accepting credit cards over the Internet, these specialized merchant accounts also provide additional checks that can significantly reduce the chance of credit card fraud. Once the transactions are processed, the merchant account provider transfers the funds received from the credit card transactions from your merchant account to your bank account.

A number of companies offer Internet-ready merchant accounts. CAZ Creations has selected AuthorizeNET/Nova as its preferred merchant account provider. When you sign up for an ecommerce plan with CAZ Creations, you can sign up for an account with AuthorizeNET at the same time.
Or, Click here to download the Authorize.NET gateway application now.
Of course, you are free to choose another merchant account provider, as long as they support one of the following payment methods:

•	CyberSource
•	Authorize.Net
•	LinkPoint/Cardservice
•	VeriSign (PaymentNet)

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I already have a merchant account. Can I use it with the CAZ Commerce plans?

•	Authorize.Net
•	LinkPoint/Cardservice
•	VeriSign (PaymentNet)

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What is a payment gateway? How do I find one?

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How can I assure my customers that their transactions are secure?

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What is SSL?

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What is an SSL Certificate? How do I get one?

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