Whether you need a payment system to accommodate a few orders a day or one that processes thousands of orders a day, there are various payment systems available to suit your needs. Also, it is important to note that with Secure Socket Layer technology, e-commerce is extremely safe. A few examples of popular payment methods are: Digital Cash Secure Payments-SSL Automated Credit Card Authorizations Digital Cash A system that allows a person to pay for goods or services by transmitting a number from one computer to another. Like the serial numbers on real dollar bills, the digital cash numbers are unique. Each one is issued by a bank and represents a specified sum of real money. One of the key features of digital cash is that, like real cash, it is anonymous and reusable. That is, when a digital cash amount is sent from a buyer to a vendor, there is no way to obtain information about the buyer. This is one of the key differences between digital cash and credit card systems. Another key difference is that a digital cash certificate can be reused. Digital cash transactions are expected to become commonplace by the year 2000. However, there a number of competing protocols, and it is unclear which ones will become dominant. Most digital cash systems start with a participating bank that issues cash numbers or other unique identifiers that carry a given value, such as five dollars. To obtain such a certificate, you must have an account at the bank; when you purchase digital cash certificates, the money is withdrawn from your account. You transfer the certificate to the vendor to pay for a product or service, and the vendor deposits the cash number in any participating bank or retransmits it to another vendor. For large purchases, the vendor can check the validity of a cash number by contacting the issuing bank. SSL: (Secure Payments) Short for Secure Sockets Layer, a protocol developed by Netscape for transmitting private documents via the Internet. SSL works by using a private key to encrypt data that's transferred over the SSL connection. Both Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer support SSL, and many Web sites use the protocol to obtain confidential user information, such as credit card numbers. By convention, Web pages that require an SSL connection start with https: instead of http:. Another protocol for transmitting data securely over the World Wide Web is Secure HTTP (S-HTTP). Whereas SSL creates a secure connection between a client and a server, over which any amount of data can be sent securely, S-HTTP is designed to transmit individual messages securely. SSL and S-HTTP, therefore, can be seen as complementary rather than competing technologies. Both protocols have been approved by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as a standard. TIP: The ShopZone system seems to handle all the popular ones. We recommend applying for your account well in advance if there are no charges in doing so. Some companies charge up front, some monthly, and some are free until you use them. Before using the automated authorization however, if you anticipate volume may be low until the system gets promoted properly, you can have them enter the account details over a secure site for no cost. Then when volume starts to increase, you simply switch the payment processing element in your shopping cart, and the new automated method is underway. The Payment Types ShopZone supports are: ShopZone Secure CCN Payment Processing Services: AuthorizeNet - Offers three levels of service which include, WebLink, which is used to process and authorize credit-card transactions, Virtual Terminal, and eCheck.Net ClearCommerce - ensures that online transactions are processed in real-time. The ClearCommerce Engine works with a wide variety of popular storefronts and is compatible with more than 90% of credit card processors and merchant banks. ICVerify - payment processing for brick and mortar merchants. Owned by Cybercash. VeriFoneVPOS - Their Internet payment solutions already accept credit cards as well as some debit and smart cards. Future versions of the software will include electronic check and electronic cash transactions. All of their products continue to incorporate the latest technology for secure Internet payment. Payment Processing Services Product Rating Price Platforms Authorize.Net Depends on service: license fees and setup fees are quoted by resellers. Any Web browser. CS-VPOS Two pricing plans offered. See article for details. N/A Cash Register 3 n/a Win NT, AIX (PowerPC), BSDI, Digital Unix, FreeBSD, Irix, Red Hat Linux, SCO, Solaris (SPARC and Intel) ComBill Transaction Gateway Depends on service; specific fees are quoted by ComBill. N/A CustomCart by US Nexus Price: $79 per month for up to 100 transactions; past that, 2 percent of the total for each additional transaction. No setup fee. N/A PrivacyBank.com Free Any Web browser. ProCart $99-$249 per month, not including set-up fees. Any Web browser. QuickBuy Shopper Pricing varies. Any Web browser for QuickBuy Builder; Windows 98/NT for QuickBuy Server. QuickCommerce Payment Solutions Merchant account, monthly minimum charge of $15, $10 monthly statement fee, $.30 per transaction, with a discount rate of 2.49 percent. QuickCommerce license: $49.95 per month. Any Web browser. Signio Payflow Link, $19.95 per month and a $149 setup fee, with an unlimited amount of monthly transactions. Payflow Pro, $39.95 per month and a $199 setup fee, with a limit of 5,000 monthly transactions. Payflow Link can run on any system. Payflow Pro SDK is Windows 95/98/NT, Linux, FreeBSD, BSDI, SGI IRIX, and Digital UNIX, as well as in Perl and Java implementations. Skipjack Merchant Services $29.95 for the first 500 transactions per month; $79.95 set-up and integration fee; transaction fee $.12 per transaction on those in excess of the first 500 covered by the monthly service fee. Platform and browser independent. The service itself runs on NT and is supported by the Compaq DistributedInternet Server Array (DISA) Architecture, but since service provided via the Web, the end-user may be on any Pentium Grade PC or newerMac with Internet access. TradeSafe $ Seller: $.50+3.5% of sale price. Applies only if the seller (or other market agency) hosts Tradesafe and incorporates its software in their program. WebCharge $34.95 per month and $.25 per transaction, with $279.95 in initial set-up fees. Any Web server iAuthorizer Price: $.09 per transaction, with various minimum fees and setup expenses. Any Web Browser iBill Fees range from $.25 to $1 per transaction, depending on the service plan. Any Web browser. iEscrow Between $2.95 and $130 and a percentage of the transaction. N/A iTransact Registration fee varies; $.10 per transaction for credit-card transactions. iTransact registration can be either purchased or leased. N/A vPOS Prices vary. See Verifone's Web site for details. Windows NT Server.

Review done by ecommerce-guide.com