theInsanelyChic.com.sg the first to introduce the range of bags from Petunia Pickle Bottom in USA.

Petunia Pickle Bottom bags are a perennial exhibit of bold lines, daring colors and darling designer details, Petunia Pickle Bottom was created for the steadfast sophisticate inside every woman. Silk brocades, hand-woven tweeds, plush chenilles, intricate cut velvets, and exquisitely detailed embroidery—every one a Petunia hallmark, and every one an expression of motherhood’s myriad facets.

The merchant wanted something that can bring out the brand name, the light blue and bronze color scheme was requested by her.

Design concepts: Chic!, tasteful, classy
Technology: PHP, mySQL, HTML, CSS, FLASH
Shopping Cart: Standard with discount code support and extra product images

Jurong Town Concil (JRTC) now has a showcase for their wonderful residents and MPs on their new CMS (content management system) site, JRTC.ORG.SG. Efusion Technology helped JRTC, and their management team, create a site to launch their council news, latest updates, tender results. The website also features a few key functionality - namely a Constituency Locator, Cash For Trash programme, facilities booking system and best cleaner award.

An important component of the new site was that it have a simple design that let the photos speak for themselves.  Another big factor for JRTC.ORG.SG was that it should be easy for their team to maintain it. The easy to use CMS system will allow any of their non-IT personnel to easily insert new contents. Due to political reasons and some government regulations, some of the contents (especiallly images) took a while to get approved and uploaded. After 1 month plus of extensive work, JRTC.ORG.SG website was launched with approval even from the members of parliment and ministers.

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There is no doubt, Joomla and WordPress are very popular web platforms. Both are used for a wide variety of websites. Both have great support and huge collection of extensions and templates. Joomla and WordPress have a large community and numerous supporters. But there are some differences.

Drupal and Joomla are both open source CMS, so which is better?

What is it?

There are more than a million web design companies all over the planet that exist today. It is a very crucial task for a client when it comes to deciding on a company. The process of choosing and waiting on a company is sometime underestimated which is bad practice. It is a fact that a good website will bring in more business and a bad one will drive traffic away. A good website also talks about the personality of the company.

• It is important that the client is clear on what the website has to speak. The target audience, web content, ideas and suggestions and all the features should be finalized well in advance. Once that phase is done, good web design companies can be shortlisted.

Here are a few questions that should be made clear before you choose on a company and we have our replies below

1. Is their portfolio expressive, impressive and inviting?
   • Check out our portfolio here
2. Do they agree to let you get connected with their past clients for feedback?
   • No problem at Efusion
3. Do they have a standard methodology that they follow for each new project?
   • Yes of course, if not how can we create so many websites is such short time period? 
4. Can they start work on your project at the exact date you want them to?
   • We can start in 1 week time upon confirmation
5. Will they submit your website to all the performing search engines?
   • This is easy with Efusion
6. What is the mode of payment that needs to be followed and how much should be paid in advance.
   • 30% up-front by cheque or bank transfer - to your convenience
7. Is all the work done by the team in house or is there any outsourcing.
   • At Efusion, all work are done in house
8. Will the company maintain the website even after the initial design?
   • Our support is lifetime
9. Who retains the intellectual property rights of the website and the domain?
   • The client of course
10. Will the project be delivered at the exact date mentioned?
    • We've never failed our promises. Refer to point 2

Outstanding web design is a marriage of art and science. It occurs when behind-the-scenes technical programming is infused with aesthetic appeal. The end result is a visually engaging and profitable marketing tool that appeals to both human visitors and search engine spiders. While this convergence of technological and creative skill can manifest itself in many ways, there are a number of specific factors that go into making any web design project a success.

Business is doing a pretty good job of catching up to the technology created for it. One popular term you'll find within that arena is eCommerce. What is it all about and why should you care?

eCommerce is simply conducting business online. There are many ways to transact such business. Think of how you conduct business in the physical world. You go to the bank to make deposits; you visit the grocery store or retail shops to make purchases; you go to the gas station to fill up your car’s tank. Each of these activities represents a commercial transaction.

Businesses also conduct transactions between one another. They buy or lease equipment and exchange services. Businesses usually send invoices to be paid at a later date instead of asking for upfront payment.

In the virtual world, commerce is conducted in much the same way with the use of various technologies to meld it all together. eCommerce has become popular for a number of reasons:

• Convenience
• Speed of transactions
• Large numbers of businesses and consumers using eCommerce methods

A business is only as successful as the number of customers they attract. With more and more people using the Internet for more than just surfing, businesses have found a new avenue for increasing their sales. But, like anything else that is new, they have to gain their customer’s trust. The way to do that comprises the ins and outs of setting up an online business.

Purely online businesses rely on eCommerce for their livelihood. Physical businesses have discovered that eCommerce expands their markets globally (depending on their product line). The Internet opens up an entirely new audience of consumers with infinite niche possibilities.

All of this can result in a head rush but before you look through the crystal ball and predict dollar signs in your future, selling online is simple in concept but not necessarily in production. Knowing the nuances can make the difference between a successful enterprise and on that barely scrapes the bottom of the barrel.

There are many decisions to be made before embarking on the eCommerce ship. Planning and strategy are important here. But, to your advantage, there are many resources available to get you going in the right direction.

Use the resources at your disposal. They can help you do everything from marketing to setting up the type of site that you need to conduct your business to choosing the right product line to market online.

If your eCommerce site will be used to run a virtual store, your customers will need to be able to select the items they want as they continue to shop. In other words, they need a shopping cart. Learn about buying shopping cart software to enhance your online business.

What is shopping cart software? It is represented by the icon of a basket or shopping cart at the top of your product pages. It lets customers know that they can select as many items as they want to buy and put them someplace until they are ready to checkout.

The shopping cart online is similar to your shopping cart in the grocery store. You can place whatever you want into it, remove items you decide you don’t want and keep a running tally on the untaxed cost of the items before hitting the checkout.

But, to incorporate a shopping cart into your store, you’ll need the software that enables you to do so. Until you look, you’ll never know how many shopping cart software packages there are out there.

Features of Shopping Cart Software

When it comes to buying software, you want to get what you pay for. There is more to setting up shop online than just displaying the icon. Many people are frightened by software especially when the instructions use long words.

• Choose a software package that is easy to install. The use of wizards guides you through each step with help menus available in case you get stuck or have a question. Shopping carts can be integrated into websites where no store existed before. 
• Choose a package that is search-engine friendly. You want customers to be able to find your learn about your products. Use optimized keywords throughout product descriptions. Images that have the option of being viewed as thumbnails and as larger images are great for attracting customers. 
• All shopping carts don’t have to look the same. Software that allows you to customize your shopping cart and your store let you field your own style. This includes types of buttons to navigate your way through the store and pull down menus.

There is a price to buy the software. Depending on your needs, this price can run from a little over $100 to over $1,000. For small businesses with few products, the most expensive shopping cart on the market is not feasible.

Shopping cart software programs are designed to meet the various needs to the merchant. In addition to what the features discussed above, it helps you to:

• Create and input coupon codes
• Manage inventory
• Track shipments
• Keep a customer address book
• Web hosting
• Set up a merchant account/gateway
• Create reports
• Establish secure payment network

There are many considerations for shopping cart software. Choose the one that works best for the lowest fee.

When customers see your virtual storefront, you want them to be inspired to buy. When they choose to buy, they need a way to make their payments. That is where payment gateways come into play.

A gateway represents a conduit to get from one place to another. With eCommerce, a gateway allows for the verification and transaction of business via credit cards. A payment gateway is needed if your online business plans to accept payments.

A merchant account is needed whenever you deal with credit cards. A merchant account can be opened at the bank of your choice. This is where money will be transferred once a credit transaction has been verified through the gateway.

There are companies online that operate as payment gateways for merchants to accept credit card payments. You can choose a payment gateway independently. Another option is companies that offer more than one service. Some shopping cart software packages include merchant account and gateway options.

First Things First

You need a merchant bank account and a payment gateway account to get you started. When choosing a bank for the merchant account it is helpful to make sure that they accept payments from the gateway account you will be using. The payment gateway account is a service account that allows you to set up these payments between your site and your merchant account.

Business owners selling online and accepting credit cards also have an Internet merchant account. The funds are transferred here from the payment gateway but they don’t stay here. The funds are transferred, sometimes on a daily basis to another bank account that you, the merchant, designate for business.

The Nuts and Bolts of how it Works

Here is a basic representation of how this process works. While the steps may seem lengthy, everything happens in the space of several seconds.

1. The customer will go to your website and choose a product(s) to buy. When they are ready to checkout, they are taken to the payment page to verify their order and the type of payment. 
2. When payment is made, the transaction (according to your setup instructions) is sent to the payment gateway of your choice. Through the payment gateway, the transaction is forwarded to your bank’s processor.
3. The transaction then proceeds on to the credit card network. That network forwards the transaction to the bank issuing the customer the credit card being used.
4. If there is a sufficient amount of credit to make the purchase, the transaction is approved. Then, it moves back through the system, the same way it came.
5. Once the notification of approval reaches the payment gateway again, the information is sent to the customer on the site and also to you, the merchant.

Payment gateways take the work out of processing credit card payments. Now, you can focus on other aspects of your eCommerce business.

Online businesses use their sites as information destinations and also to sell their products. When it comes to making the sale, customers need to know which forms of payments you accept. In eCommerce, there are several choices for you.

When you walk into a store, you want to know if they will accept your currency. Most places in the United States accept credit cards, in particular, Visa, MasterCard and American Express. Local businesses accept checks, credit or the almighty dollar.

Answer this question: Where will your business be conducted? Anyone whose business is open to international buyers will want to consider their payments closely so that no customers are alienated. To that end, here are some popular forms of payment.

Credit Card Payments

As we said, many people accept plastic. If you want to, display it prominently on your checkout page. One thing to remember with credit cards is that fraud does occur. You could wind up with charge backs because of fraudulent or unsatisfied customer situations.

When accepting credit card payments, the business owner needs to create a merchant account with a bank. The bank processes payments between the merchant’s business and the customer’s bank for a fee. Compare bank policies on transaction fees and charge backs before choosing where to open your merchant account.

Using credit cards is considered a B2C transaction. This means that the transaction occurs between the business and the customer.

Third Party Payments

Payments that use a third party to complete the transaction are typically P2P, meaning person to person. This is how it works. When the transaction is made, a third party takes the money from the buyer’s account and deposits it into the merchant’s account. A popular example of this is PayPal.

Anyone can set up a PayPal account for free. All you need is an email address associated with the account and an actual bank account to link to it in case of low funds in the PayPal account. Most customers doing business in marketplace-type settings have this type of account.

Money is transferred without any personal financial information changing hands. The transaction takes place in real time so the business owner knows that the funds are there and the products sold are paid for. Merchants have options when using PayPal to set up their merchant account. Currency exchange is offered so international buyers or business owners receive payment into their account in their native currency.

Payment type is a consideration when doing business online. Accept payment forms that are widely used but provide you with the greatest confidence and least hassle. Everyone doesn’t believe that the check is in the mail.

Are you interested in eCommerce? It is the wave of the now and the future. Technology allows businesses to conduct their transactions online as another way of doing business.

What can you do on an eCommerce site you ask? It is not just for sales. Depending on the base of operations for your business, the site can be used for a variety of purposes which you will find out about in just a few minutes.

Virtual Storefronts – These are the sites you see when you are looking to shop online. With a transactional site like this, you can do everything in one place. It gives new meaning to “one-stop shopping.” Shoppers can shop a virtual store much like they would a physical one.

Menus allow them to choose product categories and narrow their searches. Once items have been selected, they can be placed in a virtual basket or cart. When shopping is complete, they can checkout with the cashier and get confirmation of their purchase.

Many types of products are sold on virtual storefronts. You are only limited by what you can practically deliver to your clients and still make a profit for your business.

Information Sites – Here, the goal is making the sale but not on the website. Companies with physical stores can use this type of site to advertise for their products. Large corporations utilize this type of site to gain interest in their product.

One of the main reasons that people surf the Internet is to find information. Let’s say that you wanted to buy a car but didn’t want to spend the entire day and half a tank of gas driving to dealerships. Instead, visiting informational sites for cars can assist you in your car purchasing decisions.

These sites provide content on the products, like cars, that they sell. Visitors can see pictures and/or videos of the products as well as descriptions, pricing and location information.

Marketplaces – Have you heard of eBay? Unless you are a hermit, you probably have. In a marketplace eCommerce setting, a middleman brings sellers and buyers together to transact business. Items for sale can be purchased directly or through a bidding process as with eBay.

In this arena, there are several businesses working in one area at the same time. Because it is the virtual world, there is room for expansion into bigger spaces as your business grows. The beauty here is that much of what you will need to do to get prepared for eCommerce is laid out for you.

Food for thought: Know what type of site you want to begin with. Online businesses can use one or more of these types of sites to flesh out their business and be visible to the maximum amount of consumers.

Don't you hate looking for a product to buy and getting routed through several web pages before you even see a picture of the product? Everyone else does too. If you want visitors to turn into customers, creating an eCommerce site that is easy to navigate is paramount.

Navigation?

Think of navigation on an airplane or on a ship. The navigational system lets you know that you are heading where you want to go. It also signals you when you are off-course.

You can use site maps for navigating your website. A site map lists the breakdown of where you can find useful information on the site. It includes topic headings and links to those pages. Visiting a site map can take the customer to the general area or the specific place that they want to go.

There is a rule that many website owners follow: Take fewer than three clicks to reach any destination. A customer who has to click more than that will find a site that does work with this rule. Poorly navigated sites lose plenty of business before their product is even seen.

From the homepage to the product page needs to be a short trip. Customizing your site with pull down menus, easy to read and click buttons and other design features will assist you in creating a visitor friendly website. When any cursor runs over a clickable link it will turn into a hand or even change color. Testing your links and pages before going live avoids any faulty links that lead to products.

Landing Pages

When you advertise on other sites, you include links to your site. If you are showcasing your products, you will want to link not to the homepage but to a landing page. The landing page can take the potential customer straight to where that product is located on your site. For a category of products, the landing page would take the customer to the location (aisle, if you will) in your virtual storefront where those products are viewed. The customer can click and read a description or click and buy.

Your landing page can be an informational page. It can contain content that talks about that particular type of product with a button at the bottom to click and view it in the virtual store. For eCommerce businesses that want to use customer interest to create email lists, the landing page can include a form for capturing that information before proceeding to the actual product.

Products that are easy to find have a better chance of generating sales. Create a design of your website pages to make it easier to link them together.

When you think of selling products online, most people envision getting a big box delivered by the postman to their door. Physical products are not the only ones sold by online businesses. Digital products are a hot commodity in the eCommerce market.

Selling physical products requires a lot of preparation on your website. You want to make the products visible via photos, create landing pages, market them elsewhere and create a reliable shopping cart process meets the customer’s needs. This process is different when it comes to digital products.

Digital products can be received in either of two ways: in the mail or downloaded directly to the customer’s computer. Most online businesses opt to offer downloads since they are easy to receive and require no inventory other than the initial files containing the products.

But, how do you get the products to the customers securely without being scammed yourself? Here are some thoughts on that.

Payment Methods

The issue of e-payments is still an issue with digital products. Customers pay at the time of purchase just like for any other product. If you want to accept credit card payments, you will need:

• Internet Merchant Account
• Merchant Bank Account
• Payment Gateway Account

A payment receipt still needs to be generated for your records and also for the customer if something should go wrong with the download. Credit card purchases of digital products are still subject to charge backs from the credit card company.

Using a third party P2P (Person to Person) payment method is popular for digital products. PayPal functions in this way. To create an account, a customer or business owner just needs an email address to associate with the account and a bank account for verification. On your site, payments are transacted by entering an email address. The customer is directed to their PayPal account where they securely sign in. Once there, they verify that they want to make the transaction. When this is complete they are sent back to the product website for confirmation.

Getting Digital Products to Customers

Your digital products can be stored in a password-protected directory on your site. This is to keep just anyone from accessing it. When the customer pays, they will receive the login and password and the link to that particular digital product. Ask your customers not to share the link with anyone else.

If you don’t want to organize it this way, you can use digital download systems that offer you everything you need to conduct your digital product business for a monthly fee. Examples of this include PayLoadz (www.payloadz.com) and ClickBank (www.clickbank.com).

Digital products are hot right now. Setting up a digital product eCommerce business means low overhead and more profit. Use a system that allows you to easily get your products to customers and their payments to you.

Do you have a bank account? Most people do. It is where you keep your money instead of a mattress. For business owners, certain accounts are designed to hold the revenue that you generate from credit card sales.

There is no shortage of people looking for ways to defraud others. The credit card industry recognizes that and requires merchant accounts for any business that processes credit cards. It can be offline or online. Through a physical store, credit cards are run through a machine and manually processed. For the purpose of this article, we will be dealing with merchant accounts for eCommerce businesses.

With eCommerce, any merchant that accepts credit cards uses the services of a payment gateway to facilitate their transactions. They are handled automatically through this service account and each transaction logged.

A merchant account is not like your typical savings or checking account. The account is just used for credit card payments. There are options for choosing a merchant account. Choose according to fee schedules and additional services provided to you for using their bank.

Internet businesses have another account that they have to use called an Internet merchant account. This is an account that is set up to temporarily hold funds from credit card transactions. On a schedule that you agree upon, the money is then transferred from this account to your merchant bank account.

You probably already guessed but there is a trail of fees along the way that you are subject to pay. For one, there are fees for holding a merchant bank account just like any other account. You will have one time fees and monthly maintenance fees. For each transaction that they process, there is a per transaction fee. With the addition of the Internet merchant account for eCommerce, fees apply there.

The payment gateway service account is also subject to fees. To subscribe you will have one time fees and monthly maintenance fees. The gateway will also set transaction fees.

When choosing any of these services for your eCommerce business, be prudent. Do your homework and don’t be afraid to ask questions. Fee schedules need to be clearly listed and broken down by the banks and service providers so that you know exactly what you are paying and if it is worth it. Any financial institution that withholds this information could be hiding something and you may want to pass on them.

There is a cost to doing business online and offline. Know where your money is going and be able to track all your transactions through reliable merchant accounts and payment gateway services.

The Internet has opened up a new chapter in business commerce. It has also opened up a new way for criminals to steal your information and your life. Customers are more aware of the sites they visit and where they input their information.

Protecting Yourself

To build a client base, you will want to build a list of some sort. List building is a marketing strategy to connect with more potential customers. You can create email and direct marketing campaigns. Creating your own list will yield a more focused group of potential customers than buying one.

Business owners like you use opt-ins to help generate that list. Ask visitors to provide email addresses and other information to receive newsletters, coupons or other freebies. At the bottom of your opt-in pages, be sure to use a disclaimer statement. This statement assures your customers that their information will not be shared with a third party. If it will be shared, you specify which information and for what purpose.

Types of Security

There are different types of security measures that you can take to protect your virtual storefront. The information given by the customer has to be private to the rest of the world, not able to be tampered with or altered in any way, authenticated and received properly. Whatever types you use, place a digital representation of that authentication on your storefront checkout page. It’s like hanging a certificate behind the counter in a physical store.

Digital signatures are a way of authenticating the sender and receiver of information. When making a transaction you can ask for a password as a digital signature. Have you seen those boxes with jumbled letters and numbers they ask you to copy in the box? That can be used to verify who you are.

Remember the digital certificate on the storefront? Customers can verify that you are who you claim to be using that certificate. This prevents you from being “had” by bogus merchants wanting your money.

SSL stands for secure socket layer. You may have seen those initials or seen the closed or open lock on a website page. You can click on the lock to view certificates and find out if the site is encrypted. Behind the scenes, information is encrypted using a public key and a private key. The public key is used for encryption and the private key is used for decryption. From the customer to the server, to your server to the payment gateway and the credit card issuer, several layers of security come into play.

Firewalls are used to block unwanted intrusions. You may have one on your personal computer. A firewall for your website will block others from tampering with any customer information that you save on your server.

Security is a part of keeping your business information in your hands and providing good customer service. You have the technology at your disposal to keep your customer data safe from predators.

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Once you decide that doing business online is right for you then the job of creating your online presence begins. Creating an eCommerce website has much in common with creating a website in general. So let's get back to basics.

Before you do anything else, a decision has to be made about what type of website you are creating. Will you have a virtual storefront? Will this strictly be an informational content site? Are you combining the two? What about a marketplace kind of structure?

The Basics

A domain name represents who you are online and says something about your business. For already established offline brands, the domain name is usually the same as that enterprise. For a strictly online business it can be anything you choose. Doing an Internet search will reveal if any of your name choices are already in use.

Once you have a name, people need to find you. Registering your site with search engines gives your content and web pages a chance to be ranked in search engine results. Use keywords that are common in search parameters within your content and throughout the website.

Who will host your website? Choose a web host that offers other services like site maintenance, easy-to-use templates and other perks. For the price, get as much space as you can for creating pages and information storage.

Setting up a Virtual Storefront

For eCommerce sites that will sell products, there is a process to getting ready for business. You will need to set up your virtual storefront. This is where your products will be located for customers to browse. The key here is to provide as much information as you can to satisfy potential buyers.

Customers are reluctant to go on description alone. Use your own images of products on the site instead of stock photos. For rapid viewing, you will need to compress the photos so anyone even someone using a dial-up connection can see them fast.

Storefronts not only need products but also a way to “carry” your items around with you. That is where shopping baskets and carts come into play.

And, just like in a regular store, payment types have to be specified as well as verified. There is software and web-based help available to make all of this happen online for your eCommerce business.

Creating the website is just the tip of the iceberg. Once you get underway, there are other features you can add to your sites as you need them to fashion a place where everyone will want to do business.