Requirements for a functioning online business

By Mark Kimathi

Most people start an online business as affiliates, selling products and services for other companies e.g. eBay, Amazon and get paid a commission. They usually get a commission for what they sell, normally a percentage of the total sales.

In Kenya, the two most common forms of payment are cheques and direct deposit, with cheques being the preferred form.

On the other hand, one might have their own products they want to sell. In such a case you will need to accept card payments directly on your website.

There are generally four things you will need in order to accept card payments online:

First, you need a website. This is not a strict must-have, but it’s necessary if you want to educate your customer about what you are offering. A website also give you the opportunity to generate traffic. This could be through search engines optimization (SEO) and social media marketing (SMM), as well as multiple landing pages for Pay per Click (PPC).

Secondly, you need shopping-cart software. This is a technology script allows you to browse through products and pick what you like, just like the supermarket cart.

User-friendly

It also provides a user-friendly way to finally revise your shopping and pay for what you want. The online shopping cart can be also be integrated with inventory, accounting and email applications, which can be updated as customers shops in the site.

For example every time some one picks a product to put into their virtual cart, the cart can seamlessly deduct the same from inventory.

This is particularly handy if you ship physical products, as you do not want to sell stuff you do not have in stock.

Third, and most importantly, you will need an Internet merchant account.

This is the only type of merchant account that can accept online payments.

Merchant accounts are special bank accounts that allow a business or businessperson to accept payments by debit or credit card.

Fourth, you will need a payment processor. Once you have a merchant account, you are free to collect card details and charge them accordingly. However, with the sensitivity of card details, cards need to be processed in a digitally secure environment.

Because securely processing cards yourself involves so much legal, and compliance, issued, it is advisable to work with processing companies, which provide this service for a fee.