We remove the worry from your credit card transactions.

E-commerce websites display a list of products for sale, allow customers to place their selections in a virtual shopping cart, and offer a secure way to accept credit cards on-line. We arrange the payment process so that you, the merchant, are never in possession of the customer's credit card number.

Certain elements must be in place for an e-commerce website to operate properly.
See: Requirements for an e-commerce website

A typical e-commerce transaction works like this:
STEP 1: Pages display products for sale.
STEP 2: When a user selects an item, more detailed information about that item is displayed.
STEP 3: After placing an item in the shopping cart user's can change quantities and sizes— among other things. The cart can be customized to fit your business.
Step 4: To complete the financial portion of the transaction, user's are automatically redirected to the payment gateway's secure website. Here they fill in credit card information and money is transferred to your checking account.

Step 5: You receive an email that a transaction has occurred. You then use a private admin website to retrieve the order details.
 

Requirements for an E-commerce Website:

  1. Internet Merchant Account
    This can be set up through your own bank or the company that is providing the payment gateway. It allows you to accept credit card payments over the internet.

    You need a business checking account in order to establish an Internet Merchant Account. Otherwise the money paid to you has no place to go.

    The Internet Merchant Account can include some or all of the following costs:

    • Set-up fee
    • Discount Rate: A percentage of each transaction— sometimes with a monthly minimum.
    • Monthly Maintenance Fee

  2. Payment Gateway
    The payment gateway accepts customer information (credit card information etc.) and acts as the hub through which money changes hands. The gateway costs $19.95 per month for up to 500 transactions per month.

  3. Web Hosting and Domain Name
    You need a web host that supports a popular database and scripting technology. If you already have hosting you do not need to make additional arrangements to support your on-line store, unless your current host does not support a popular database or scripting technology.

  4. Website Construction, Project Management and Training
    This is the Black Lab Designs portion of the project. We design the product display pages, customize the cart if necessary, design and construct the database, build the merchant's admin section, connect the shopping cart to the payment gateway, configure the gateway pages, help you to understand and establish the gateway and merchant account, and train you so that you are comfortable using your new on-line store. In short, we build your new on-line store and act as the project manager responsible for seeing that all of the pieces are in place.
    Prices start at $1,950