Comparing Online stores with Bricks and mortar stores

Online shopping is fast becoming the norm with people buying everything on internet from books to DVDs, and cosmetics to heavy machinery. You can purchase just about anything, anytime on internet. There is a tremendous growth in the numbers of dollars spent every year on online shopping, which is fast, far more convenient and economical, all at the same time. However, shopping from an online store is an entirely different experience and not everyone is at ease while buying from a website, especially those who are not on the ball and well-informed about new technologies.
Let’s compare online stores with conventional stores and look at its advantages or disadvantages.

Advantages:
Online shopping is all about expediency, ease for both buyers and sellers is the biggest plus point of online shopping. To start with the buyer, first of all you don’t need to store products in large quantities, instead you can place images of products at your website and purchase from manufacturer only when someone place an order (especially when you are acting as a dropshipper). The real advantage that online shopping brings to the customers is the option of carrying out research and price comparisons on internet. It’s a matter of minutes to get hold of the information about different products, including their features, reviews, customer experiences and price comparisons for any given requirement. Even those who don’t buy online, likes to surf around for some information regarding a particular product. Such extensive information and research is almost impossible in a traditional store where you are stuck with limited options. Also, online stores are open 24 hours, whole product selection and payment takes little time and the product is delivered to your doorstep.


Disadvantages:
Biggest disadvantage at the moment is probably the access factor, not everybody has the access or the knowledge required to use internet for shopping purpose. One needs to be adept in searching and surfing internet, because the nature of online shopping makes internet an ideal place for scammers. In case you’re caught in the trap of some scammer, it’s really hard to recover your money, once you’ve made the payment. Therefore, some people are always reluctant to buy online; there are very few laws and regulations to keep online businesses under check. Even if the supplier is not fraud, the actual product can turn out to be completely opposite to what you had conceived after looking at the image. If you are running an online store, you must consider these reservations.

Source:
Wholesale Suppliers

Why do you need to have a merchant account for your online business?

A question that haunts anyone who is planning to sell his/her products or services on internet is the mode of receiving payments from buyers sitting in another city, state or country. The best and the quickest option is to accept payment through credit or debit cards. There are other alternatives but none as quick and as convenient as this one. Online shopping is all about convenience and speediness, if the buyer has to wait for days before the payment arrives into seller’s account so that he might be able to dispatch the products. Such a lengthy turnaround time destroys the whole advantage of online shopping. In view of that, when you are setting up an online business, you must arrange for a merchant account to be able to accept payments through credit/debit cards. Asking your customers to send checks or money orders just doesn’t fits in.

Merchant Account is a type of bank account that makes it possible for account holder to accept credit card payments from his/her clients. In other words merchant account provider is a service that allows business owners to accept payment via credit/debit card. Though in most cases, you’ll not be dealing directly with merchant account providers, especially if you are a small or medium-sized business. However, the idea is to be able to accept credit card payments, be it through Merchant account providers, Independent Sales Organizations, Payment Processing Companies or Payment Gateways. Let’s take a look at how payment gateways or third party merchant accounts can help you in this regard.

Payment Gateway:

If you are an online business, you must sign up with a payment gateway service. Payment gateway allows you to offer an easy solution to your customers to make on the spot payments. The process starts from customers clicking on the “pay now” button and the whole transaction takes not more than 4 – 5 seconds (even though there’s a lot of data transfer taking place at the backend that includes various parties validating the process).

Third Party Merchant Account:

Third party merchant account is the most convenient and also the most commonly used medium by small businesses. Third party merchant account services serves the same as the traditional merchant account, however the prices differ. Third party merchant account typically cost less than the original merchant account when it comes to setting up an account; however the transaction fee is significantly higher. Some examples of third party payment processors are PayPal or 2co.

Source:
UK Wholesale