How secure is a secure online payment?

Remember the dotcom failures of the '90s? Everybody does! A great business idea can fail miserably when the time and timing are not right, people aren't ready, or the fundamental rules of business are ignored. Instant payment, like instant success, can be a costly business illusion! The dotcoms and thousands of investors, learned that lesson the hard way. Many of the dotcom business failures were the result of incorrect assumptions. People don't trust a business automatically! Trust, like respect, must be earned. To expect every new customer to blindly give you their personal and financial information, trust you to protect the information, provide the product or service you offer and ignore all the fundamental risks involved in every business transaction, is completely delusional! Most dotcoms failed, because the people behind them didn't understand people! Identifying your customer, what they want and need, how you can be the best source of information, is a fundamental rule of business. You do it everyday for your real world customers. The same rules apply to an online business. Real money and financial transactions are not simply information, they are a fundamental part of a REAL WORLD BUSINESS and not part of the cyber-world at all. As a business owner, secure data storage, to protect customer privacy, must be the most important component of your online business model.

All business websites are not automatically ecommerce websites!

Frequently, one of the first questions a client asks is: How do we set up a shopping cart? They assume web customers will want to use a direct payment system for all their transactions. This is a common misunderstanding or myth among new business web site owners, that can destroy their chances of having a successful business web site. Our answer is always, the same question: Do you really need an ecommerce website?

Please read: What is a website and What customers want on a web site, before you waste a lot of money building one that won't find new customers. Our customers want to know, how to find new customers online, or they would have no reason to find our web site the first time!

[Content]

How secure is digital information?

Although each business website is unique, some general questions to consider are:

Can your customer receive your product or service "instantly?" (i.e. via download)
How many online transactions per day do you (realistically) expect?
What will be your "average sale" per online transaction?
How will you protect your customer's privacy and security?

If the answer to the first question is "No," you probably don't need a shopping cart.
If the answer to the second question is "less than 20," you probably don't need a shopping cart.
If the answer to the third question is "more than $100," you probably don't need a shopping cart.
If the answer to the final question is "I don't know," you definitely don't want a shopping cart!

The liability risks and additional expenses are simply too great to warrant a "shopping cart" system for your small business website. Your business credibility is on the line whenever you describe a company website as an Ebusiness or Ecommerce website.

[ Content ]

Making a payment online should be completely secure, but few are!

NEVER ask your customers to provide personal or financial information over a unsecured ( http ) connection. You are legally responsible for securely protecting that information. Providing your customers with a secure connection (see https) does not guarantee complete security and privacy protection either. The additional minimum requirements for an online business website include:

A secure sockets layer connection from your website's server.
A security certificate authentication provider.
A strictly enforced security policy for handling and storing customer information.
continuous monitoring of your visitor statistics for hack attempts.

ANY INFORMATION that is accessible via the internet, is not completely secure. We don't even leave email messages on our mail server! Our email is downloaded several times each day. The mail server is usually empty. Once received, these messages are immediately transferred to a (manually switched) computer that is NOT otherwise connected to our office network. The only time our email data is vulnerable, is during the transfer (a few seconds of the connection) or if we retrieve it! Firewalls, encryption and password protected files are no match for determined cyber-criminals! Identity theft and online scams are a growth industry. If the major Banks have been hacked, federal government databases and even the FBI and CIA computer networks have been hacked, how secure do you think your office network is? Unless you really need a direct online payment system, avoid the risks, costs and customer suspicion. Use a third party payment service.

The goal for any business transaction, is to ensure that both parties get exactly what they expect. Your customer needs to know that they will receive your product or service. You need to know you will be paid. There is a safe and simple way to make this happen. A Third Party payment service. Several well known payment service providers are available for use on any business website. They include:

[ Interac email payment ] [ Hyperwallet ] [ PayPal ]

[ Content ]

Secure online payment providers help protect both parties

These providers use the same security and transfer system that financial institutions employ and anyone with access to email can use them. They deal directly with the customer, securely accept and store their personal and financial information, the payment details and who is to be paid. Once they have control of the funds, they send a simple email message advising you that they are holding funds and how to collect them. Following their instructions, you can have the money securely transferred directly into your bank account. You never have access to, or the responsibility for protecting, a customer's financial information. The small fee (usually less than $5) is well worth the additional security features.

Low tech payment solutions can be the most secure. Cheques and money orders may be slow, but they provide a secure payment and a paper trail to follow if either party fails to perform. We prefer to accept them and you can too.

If you need to have a direct payment system, please research your risks and the uncertain results. A casual survey of the people in our SEO Designers Team, asked the question: Have you ever given your credit card or bank information directly to an online company? The answer was a unanimous and resounding NEVER! Although we may be a little more aware of the risks, we probably represent most online shoppers. We use and recommend pre-loaded, [ disposable credit cards ] for use on websites which accept credit card payment.

If you wish to have our business designers build you an ebusiness website, please know that we will insist that you do it right. Our credibility and your financial future are at stake. A common business myth about the World Wide Web, is that it's about business. It's not. It was invented, designed and continues to be developed to be about Free Information. E-commerce is simply an extension of that free information. Handle with care, or it can be dangerous. We check our server status daily, to look for hack attempts as well as to ensure our site is performing properly. Each day, we usually find several attempts at hacking our site. All we can do is deny access from the offending IP address. So far, there has been no damage to our website or the web server. Understanding the security issues of running a business website, will help you protect your customers too.

[ Content ]

What do customers want to find, an award winning web site or simply a good website?

Should you find our online payment security information useful and wish to link to this web page, simply copy and paste the following link text onto any of your site's pages:

<a href="http://www.seowebsitesdesigners.com/designing_websites/secure_online_payment_systems.html">A secure payment?</a>

[Content]

A web search for more information about online payment security

Please note: Google does not permit direct link searches from non-exclusive business web sites and so they are not included on the search engine list. Please search Google directly at www.google.com

Search multiple search engines: yahoo . yahoo.ca . msn . msn.ca . alta vista . ask by pressing each search engine name.