Simple ecommerce explanation

From Webpipe Wiki

Starting a web-based store can be confusing because of all of the different parties involved and everybody always assumes that you know how everything works. This is a simple explanation of how the process generaly works.

Shopping Cart <-> Payment Gateway <-> Merchant Account <-> Your Bank

Your bank is fairly simple - Its the bank that your business checking account is through.

The merchant account is responsible for processing transactions and depositing the funds to your bank account. You already have a merchant account if you accept credit cards. If this is the case, you may ask your current provider what payment gateways they support.

The payment gateway provides the same functionality as a credit card machine in a retail store does. It provides a way for the user (in this case your shopping cart software) to securely communicate transactions to your merchant account. Common payment gateways are Authorize.net and 2checkout.com

Shopping Cart - This is the software that runs on your web server. It must support the payment gateway that you are using.