eCommerce Website Hosting

Opening up an online shop and accepting credit card payments online is one of the most efficient ways to atttract new business and sell products and services.

Low overheads for the business owner will generally mean products and services can be obtained usually cheaper on the internet than in the physical world. And during tough economic times everyone wants to save money, so the internet is a made to measure solution for the budget conscious consumer.

Starting Out

Establishing an e-commerce website, shopping cart or setting up to sell products or services online is usually thought of as a complicated and expensive task. This does not have to be the case.

With Netports, e-Commerce functionaily is built-in to all our hosting services. From normal website hosting, reseller hosting right up to VPS and Hybrid dedicated servers you will have available to you a range of industry leading shopping carts that provide complete online shoping sites and store management functions and each can be installed with nothing more than a few clicks of a mouse!

Understanding Your Responsibilities

An online business owner today must become aware of responsibilities and obligations in regards to transacting credit cards online. There is now the prospect of heavy penalities and fines for those that engage in e-commerce activity on the net without due regards for the appropriate level of security needed.

When you are a Netports hosting customer you have the benefit of dealing with a company that understands security requirements. We provide the secure hosting for two of Australia's leading payment gateways, hosting that passes security audits conforming to both the Visa International AIS standard and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS).

Our representatives are available to guide you through establishing the right e-commerce solution that not only best suits your particular requirements but also one that will ensure you are in compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCi DSS).

Accetping Credit Card Payments Online

While setting up a shopping cart is an easy and free process with Netports, to accept credit card payments online you will need two components, a payment gateway that handles the online credit card details from your customers and a merchant account from a bank that actually settles the finds against the card and into your account.

The two main payment gateway systems are:
  • Real Time Payment Gateway
    A real time credit card payment gateway communicates directly with your merchant account at your bank to process the credit card payment made on your website in real time (live). Its fast, convenient and doesn't require any involvement from you.

    A real time payment gateway requires you to have a specific type of merchant account facility from a bank, called a 'internet based merchant account'. 'Real time' payment gateways themselves are a reasonably expensive system.

    'Real time' payment gateways are ideal for businesses that transact large numbers of credit card payments per month but may not be a viable option for small to medium businesses because of cost considerations and to a point, because of security concerns.

    The singular advantage of a 'real time' or 'live' credit card payment gateway is automation. Amongst the disadvantages is you have no control over what credit cards are accepted as the transaction occurs online without you knowing and your customers credit card details will usually be stored online somewhere by the gateway and this may be without it being properly disclosed to the cardholder.

  • Manual Payment Gateway
    The new manual gateway alternative is quickly becoming the system of choice for small to medium sized businesses on a limited budget. Online credit card payments are performed in exactly the same way as a real time gateway except the actual credit card charge is performed by you, manually into your merchant account facility. Hence the name "manual" payment gateway.

    Not only is the manual payment gateway a cheaper system but the merchant account at the bank, called a manual merchant account, is usually a slightly cheaper type or merchant account facility. Those that have existing EFTPOS terminals approved to allow card-not-present traasnactions may already have all they need.

    There are quite a number of 'new era' security advantages for the online business owner and cardholder.

    For the online business you will have total control over what you charge into your merchant account and what you don't charge. Also, your merchant account is not sitting open on the internet like it is with a 'real time' payment gateway.

    On the customer side the distinct security advantage is that no sensitive credit card details are permanently stored on the internet by the gateway - a brand new concept and a very attractive idea for security conscious cardholders.

    We ourselves utilise the e-Path PCI DSS compliant manual payment gateway.