E Commerce:

It is very easy to make a web site that can take Credit Cards securely online. Most of the shops listed above use a simple shopping cart and take Payments through Paypal.

There are 3 ways of taking payments online:

1. Take Credit Cards securely online but put through your offline machine - frowned upon by banks but does work
2. Get a Paypal Account. Its free and money goes straight into your paypal account when a sale is made - no waiting for 60 days and shoppers do not need a Paypal Account to pay.
3. Ask your bank about getting a Merchant Account - this will cost you money, and choose a Payment Gateway for taking the money online.

Shopping Cart:

A shopping System takes details of the order and passes it on to the secure Credit Card Details page. Shopping carts allow for shoppers to Add items to their cart and allow shops to set discounts, postage and more.

Orders:

Depending on the system for each order an email is sent to notify the shop of the sale made, money taken and the delivery address (if that is needed) for the shop to be able to process the order.

These are just some of the areas to think about when setting up or developing a web site.