Is E-Commerce Safe?
Although Internet security breaches have got a lot of press coverage, most vendors and analyst argue that secured online shopping on reputed sites are actually less dangerous incyberspace than in the physical world.

That’s because retail sales employees who handle card numbers cause a great deal of credit card fraud. E-commerce systems remove temptation by encrypting the numbers on a company’s servers. For merchants, e-commerce is actually safer than opening a store that could be looted, burned or flooded. The difficulty is in getting customers to believe that e-commerce is safe for them.

Consumers don’t really believe it yet, but experts say e-commerce with IBM’s Net Commerce are safer than ordinary credit card purchases. Every time you pay with a credit card at a store, in a restaurant – and every time you throw away a credit card receipt- you make yourself vulnerable to fraud.

Browser makers and credit card companies are promoting an additional security standard called Secure Electronic Technology (SET). SET encodes the credit card numbers that sit on vendors’ servers so that only banks and credit card companies can read the numbers.
No e-commerce system can guarantee 100-percent protection for your credit card, but you’re less likely to get your pocket picked online than in a real store. 

How do I start selling online ?
From cheap and simple to expensive and complex, there’s a wide range of products designed to get your e-commerce site up and selling in a matter of days or weeks.

Small businesses may not have to look beyond their local Internet service providers for a bare-bones solution. Hifunda Mart offers the possibility for selling your product. Plus, if your page resides on Hifunda’s servers, the company handles electronic payments via Net Commerce.

If you’re ready to step up, you can use Hifunda’s Store, which lets you have a business Web site from your browser. Hifunda hosts the site for you.

Of course the software sticker price is only a small fraction of what it costs to run an e-commerce site. Many high – end e-commerce products are used by third –party companies to provide services for individual merchants.

Most companies take advantage of e-commerce hosting services. This is a low-risk, low-cost way of finding out how to do it.
How Can Small Businesses Take Advantage of E-Commerce?
Large companies pour millions into fancy e-commerce sites, but even mom-and-pop shops can make money on the Web with a simple, no frills site.

Sometimes, all it takes to succeed is the promotional savvy to get noticed by customers. Word of mouth, postings in newsgroups, and registration with search engines may be enough to get the customers rolling to your site.

Although everyone can benefit from a home page on the Web, e-commerce isn’t for everyone. Firms likely to profit most are those offering products or services that are not readily available locally. A small bookstore might not want to advertise readings by authors and tell its customers about specials, but it would not want to compete with established sites. But a Web based business that sells premium coffee, chocolate and speciality foods- might find new customers in small towns around the country, where people can’t find lemongrass or Swiss bitter chocolate at the corner store.

Previous | Next