Most ecommerce platforms have an arsenal of built-in security features dedicated to mitigating electronic commerce threats. Here are some of the ways online merchants can bolster safer credit card processing and data security.

The best way to keep your ecommerce business safe from cybercriminal activity is to layer your security. Make sure your platform host has protections in place on an application-level like contact forms, search tools and login fields.

Ensure you compare hosting providers to ensure yours monitors all transactions for suspicious activity. Set up an alert system to flag potential threats like a billing address and shipping address not matching, or multiple orders being placed by a single user with different credit cards.

Your ecommerce platform should issue frequent updates and PCI scans to field for any potential threats that may be targeting your online store. Automatic updates should also be a standard practice in preventing new vulnerabilities to viruses and malware.

To facilitate safer credit card processing, use an Address Verification System to compare the billing address a customer has entered to what the credit card issuer has on file. An AVS will automatically separate legitimate transactions from fraudulent attempts.

Card Verification Value is the three- or four-digit code on the back of a credit card. Under PCI standards, retailers are not allowed to store this number, even if they record customers’ names, addresses and credit card numbers for future transactions. Additionally, many cybercriminals have a credit card number, but not the physical card. A CVV requirement makes it much more difficult for a fraudulent transaction to be processed.

Hackers use algorithms that generate customers’ passwords. These programs run through all the possible combinations for a four-digit password, with the ability to find the right alpha-numeric password quickly. Longer passwords with at least one special character and a capitalization are more secure. If implementing stricter password standards, let customers know it’s for their protection.

SSL certificates authenticate the identity of your business and secure the data in transit during checkout. This keeps your company and your customers protected from having financial or important information compromised by hackers.

In order to be PCI compliant, and ecommerce platform must adhere to a strict set of policies and procedures that guarantee the security of payment via credit or debit card. Some of those measures include encryption, anti-malware software, extensive monitoring, risk analysis and more.

Most websites simply don’t have the bandwidth to protect against a DoS/DDoS attack, however, the ecommerce platform you choose should have the security in place to counter this threat.

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But there’s a catch. Or, a couple of catches, rather.

WordPress is a piece of software = you can get it for free, but then you have to install it on a web host yourself, configure it, and ultimately launch a website with it.

Out of the box, WordPress is mainly a blogging platform. It provides no e-commerce features at all. Those you can obtain via plugins. Such as the popular WooCommerce.

Apart from the e-commerce plugin, you need a bunch of other plugins to handle some standard options like SEO and social media. You also need a good-looking and brandable theme (design) – to make your e-commerce store look unique and original.

What it all means is that WordPress is perhaps a solution for a bit more savvy user. You need to feel comfortable editing PHP files by hand, connecting to your server via FTP, and spending the afternoon in some settings panel.

That being said, the aforementioned WooCommerce is a great e-commerce plugin. It gives you all the features you might ask for, e.g shopping carts, product catalogs, online payments, coupons, and so on. Most importantly, the plugin is free!

You can find alternative WordPress shopping carts here. woocommerce

Option a): Use it if you already have a WordPress site and you’re familiar with the interface. For instance, WooCommerce uses the same admin panel organization for your products and orders, so there’s no additional learning curve.

Option b): Use it if you already have a WordPress site and you want to minimize costs by not having to invest any more funds in a new e-commerce platform.

Option c): Use it if you’re comfortable experimenting with source code occasionally.

Option d): Use it if you can cope without any fast-reacting customer support.

About that last part: Right now, you might feel that customer support is not such a big deal. But keep in mind that it’s your business we’re talking about here. For example, if something happens that causes your site to go down, not having it online for the whole day can and will mean a serious hit to your business income. Also, a lot of stress while we’re at it.

It’s those times when we tend to value customer support that’s operating 24/7!

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You’re probably asking now what’s so special about WooCommerce and why is it the first in the world. Well, WooCommerce is the ecommerce extension of WordPress, the most popular content management system, powering 25% of all the websites worldwide.

So, I think it’s kind of obvious why WooCommerce is leading the ecommerce market. There are lots of WordPress users who have online shops, so WooCommerce is the most suitable solution for them.

But it’s not just that. WooCommerce provides great services, powerful features, it’s very easy to manage by everyone, and… it’s free. So, if you’re already on WordPress, you’re a winner, so to speak.

WooCommerce is at the top for its great and easy services, but it also comes with a couple of downsides. Well, nothing’s perfect. So, let’s talk a bit about both WooCommerce’s good and less good features.

It’s free.
Lets you add unlimited products and product attributes.
Works on all devices.
Once installed, it’s all yours. It comes with a large variety of customization options that are easy to use. You can control everything the way you want.
It’s very easy to install and to use. Provides an intuitive interface and you don’t need any coding skills to manage it.
It comes with user reviews and ratings, which means that you can give your customers the freedom to rate your products.

It doesn’t come with free hosting and you need to pay for it. In fact, WooCommerce is a plugin that works only on WordPress.
For a non-WordPress user, creating an online store can be a bit difficult because you need to take a host, install WordPress on it, choose a theme that is compatible with WooCommerce, and then install WooCommerce plugin.
Even if the plugin is free, it can get a bit expensive to set the store eventually.

You could say that WooCommerce is not that efficient if it doesn’t come with a fully-featured package, such as hosting and everything integrated. WooCommerce is not a stand-alone platform, it is a WordPress extension. WooCommerce is a plugin, whilst OpenCart, Shopify, and Magento are ecommerce-only platforms.

Shopify is the only platform amongst the most popular ones that comes with hosting integration. But, in the same time, it comes with a few limitations and doesn’t give you full control over your site. For instance, it provides only 3 product attributes: size, color, and material. Also, you won’t be able to make all the customizations that you need and you have to stick with what the platform has to offer. You can’t come with something from the outside. Shopify doesn’t offer a free plan either. But considering the fact that it’s bringing free hosting, it seems somehow legit. Plans start at $9 and end up at $179.

The other 2 platforms are free and you need to play for hosting too. But, the most important of all, you have a better control over your entire site. You can customize and modify every single detail about how your site looks, works, and the functionalities it should have.

Magento has a paid plan for the enterprises as well, which also comes with more complex features for big, international online shops such as Amazon.

WordPress is the best content management system out here and is far ahead of its competitors, Joomla and Drupal. It is leading the market with 67% of the total number of sites that use a CMS. Joomla ranks second with a 11% percentage, followed by Drupal, with 7%.

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Now you just have to attract shoppers to your store. For most businesses, a mix of search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) will offer some of the best return on investment.

But why, exactly, are SEO and PPC important for e-commerce? Let’s take a look:

SEO is the process of organically improving the rankings of your website in search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Search engines look at a very wide range of constantly evolving factors when deciding which websites to rank, such as:

Your content being original, high quality, and relevant to a topic.

Your site having healthy backlinks and buzz on other relevant sites, suggesting that it’s important.

Your site being well built and following technical standards to enhance the user experience, as well as the abilities of search engines to review your site.

Why is SEO Important For Your Brand

With the digital revolution in full swing, consumers turn to search engines like Google to help them through the shopping process. Being on the first page of results for your goods and services allows shoppers to connect with you when they’re actively looking to shop. As opposed to more traditional marketing, like TV, Radio, Billboards, and Print Media, you’re connecting with them when they’re sitting down to shop; these are considered hot leads.

Because search engine optimization campaigns are not about instant gratification. It’s rare that you can move your rankings in the search engines from obscurity to the top of the results very quickly. SEO is a time-consuming and resource-intensive process, and so not all businesses are prepared to invest into it, even though for many it can produce the very best return on investment in the long run.

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Programs like Google AdWords, Bing Ads, AdRoll, SteelHouse, Facebook Ads, and others, offer ways for merchants to promote their websites quickly and obtain a wealth of data that can be used to make campaigns more cost effective at generating sales.

Shopping Ads – Showing your products in search results on sites like Google and Bing.
Text Ads – Running text-based ads in search engine results, email browsers, and other placements.
Display Ads – Serving banner advertisements on other relevant sites, like Blogs and News sites.
Re-Marketing Ads – Displaying ads on other websites, especially banner ads, for people that have been to your website or taken a similar positive action.
Video Ads – On sites like YouTube, you can show your own video commercials, have ads next to videos, and take similar actions to connect shoppers to your website.

Social Media Ads – Using the very advanced demographic and interest targeting of platforms like Facebook and Instagram, you can get your ads in front of the right audience.

Why PPC? You can launch a campaign relatively quickly, measure the success of various keywords and targets, and build winning campaigns faster than you can with SEO. You’re also getting in front of a different audience. Keep in mind that some shoppers are more likely to interact with Ads, and others are more likely to look at organic search results. One traffic source doesn’t necessarily replace the other.

Why doesn’t everyone focus on PPC? Simply stated, you’re always paying for clicks. The day that you stop paying to run ads, you stop getting new traffic. While PPC may help you to earn long-term customers and referrals by growing your customer list in general, in the long run, it’s often cheaper to get traffic through SEO rather than PPC.

Additionally, since PPC is typically priced in an auction style system, many very competitive industries can lead to expensive ads thanks to bidding wars between rival businesses. Depending on your average profits from an order, or a customer over the lifetime of their relationship with your business, PPC may or may not make sense.

SEO and PPC work well together. Organic rankings in search engines, and running ads in unique places like Instagram, have a unique value and don’t negate each other. At the end of the day, it’s all about driving targeted shoppers to your store. Businesses of scale that have marketing budgets for both will typically focus on both among other campaigns.

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As an eCommerce business owner, you can choose your business model as per your requirement. Either you can sell only through your online store, or, can sell your products on marketplaces like Amazon, FlipKart, eBay, etc. You can also sell your products on both the platforms at a time.

Once you have decided on your range of items and business model, the next step would be to choose a business name and create a domain. A business name should be relevant to your products and easy to remember for your target audience. A domain gives an identity and makes it easier for online buyers to recognize you. However, for companies with limited financial resources, it would be desirable to get a shared domain. Sharing a domain with an established name makes it easier for reaching out to your target buyers. As the business grows it would be wise to have a dedicated domain as it helps in search engine optimization and easier recognition.

Nowadays, it’s very simple to build your online store with the help of eCommerce website builders like 99Codings. These DIY online software create websites in few seconds where you can start selling products instantly.

Your eCommerce website is your store, and it needs to be designed for the convenience of your buyers. As in a store, your website should contain details about your saleable products and services. Images, descriptions, prices, users’ comments, ratings should all be included in your web page for guiding prospective buyers. You must make it certain, that your web page showcases your products perfectly so that buyers are never misled. You must make your web pages and website attractive as that is your representation to buyers online.

As an online business, one must have multiple payment options available for the customers. The eStore builders like 99Codings come with tools that can set up these functionalities to your website automatically. The customer should be able to make payments via credit card, debit card, online wallets, net banking, COD, etc.

For all the websites that transfer data online, one must make sure that their connection is protected by a secured security layer (SSL). The SSL certificate keeps your website secure and builds the trust among your customers. Nowadays, even Google recommends having an SSL certificate for every single website.

Once you start selling products through your eCommerce website, you need to ship those products to your customers with the help of courier services. eCommerce logistics aggregator services like ShipRocket are the best option to go for. They give you multiple courier agency options to ship your product with the lowest available shipping charges, so you may have maximum profit value in your share.

These are the basic steps in creating an eCommerce website for your product or service and start selling instantly.

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Choose a domain for your eCommerce website.

Choose the Right Platform.

Design Your Store.

Set Up Payments.

Add Products.

Test the Checkout.

Look After SEO, Marketing and Analytics

Start Selling online.

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Independent Navigation Links
Independent Page Titles
Independent Page URLs
Independent Meta Descriptions
Independent Image ALT Tags
Independent H1 Headings
Canonical URLs
Integrated Blogging Platform
Social Sharing buttons
Auto XML Sitemap
Use of own Domain Name
Your Own IP address
301 redirects
Robots Noindex Capabilities
Each factor was then assigned a weighting based on its correlation to an increased Google ranking in the Moz Search Engine Ranking Factors study.

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These are sometimes referred as “SaaS based marketplaces” meaning that these startups offer a product which the customer uses to run its business (available as a normal SaaS) plus some marketplace features which enable them to connect and transact with suppliers / on-demand workers / freelancers.

SaaS on AWS Marketplace. Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides a low cost, reliable and secure foundation for you to use as you build and deliver Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions to customers.

Multi Vendor Marketplace enables you to convert your Magento store to a perfect marketplace with multiple sellers (vendors/merchants). This module is a great tool to convert your shop into a fully functioning marketplace. It facilitates the process of adding sellers and keep track of their sales.

Shopify is designed to help you build a store. It is not designed as a market place. A marketplace is a site where a lot of people add their products, and others look for them by searching : Amazon, Etsy, EBay ect

Step 1: Sign Up for Shopify. Navigate to the Shopify website, and click on the Get Started button. …
Step 2: Add a Product to Your Shopify Store. …
Step 3: Customize the Look of Your Site. …
Step 4: Setup Your Domain. …
Step 5: Activate Your Payment Processor.

Hosting is included in every level of the Shopify payment plans; you do not need to pay for an external host. We can help you setup your existing domain name, if you have one, or you can buy a new one through Shopify. Thankfully that’s never an issue with Shopify’s as it is included in your subscription plan price.

To start selling on Shopify, you’ll need a Shopify plan and products to sell. Get started by signing up for Shopify. Then set up your store and add your products. If you don’t have products to sell yet, dropshipping might be a good option for you.

Basic Shopify Plan – $29 per month + 2.9% and 30¢ per transaction. Shopify Plan– $79 per month + 2.6% and 30¢ per transaction. Advanced Shopify Plan – $299 per month + 2.4% and 30¢ per transaction

It is online marketplace that allows multiple vendors to sell their products; it is called multi-vendor marketplace. Amazon, ebay, etsy are the examples of multi-vendor ecommerce platform. … Magento, Prestashop, woo commerce etc. are the platforms to build such marketplaces.

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There are several problems with the traditional system of education. First of all, you need to pay thousands of rupess per term to attend a prestigious school. With all those budget cuts, busy classrooms, and course shortages, you won’t always get the chance to study exactly what you want.

It’s no wonder why millions of students from all around the world opt for online degree programs or take at least one college course through an online platform. Online learning has to be the greatest revolution in contemporary education. It made a huge change in the system and opened great opportunities for everyone who wants to learn something.

You can pick the program of your dreams in traditional education, too, but that would involve traveling away from home, living in a completely unknown city, and struggling in an extremely competitive learning environment. With online education, you can take any program or course present in traditional four-year universities.

Forget about attending classes for hours, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, and suffering from back pain by the end of the day. You will not be bound to physical class session when you opt for online education. All lectures and needed materials are provided via online platforms, so you’ll easily access them from the comfort of your home. You will not take public transport to get to campus, you won’t have to spend money on gas for your car, you won’t have to get up early to get dressed for class… the list of conveniences goes on and on.

A degree is a degree. If you obtain an online degree from a prestigious university, you’ll boost your career with the speed of light. You will certainly become a better candidate for a job promotion, and your resume will look much better when you apply for new positions.

A self-paced system enables them to make progress with rhythm that suits them. This type of system does not require attending live sessions; you can access the materials at any time that works for you. If you have to work or take care of your home and children during the day, you can study at night. That’s an advantage the traditional educational system cannot beat.

We saved the best part for last: many online courses are completely free of charge. MIT, for example, offers all course materials online without any charges. Free courses don’t usually come with certificate of completion, but they are still more than useful for anyone who wants to learn from prestigious educators.

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