Recession is one of the business cycles; it is the excessive slow down of the economic activity of a country in a specific period. In recession times, certain places and businesses are affected much more than others. If your business belongs to one of those that are greatly affected by the recession, you may very well lose a large base of your clients which forces you into finding new markets & creating new products/services in order to stay afloat.

In the recession period, e-commerce is one of the business methods that were not affected by the recession. The advantage of e-commerce over regular local business is that your audience is greatly expanded from a certain distance around your area to the world. The web sales could also greatly help boost the local sales by providing profits and a budget to work with. E-commerce is one of the best ways of selling products because it eliminates a lot of expenses such as employees, etc. and only adds a select few such as shipping, warehousing & hosting fees.

As businesses continue to fall down because of the recession, people keep on losing their jobs, factories are closed & companies go bankrupt. The best you can do is go online and start selling all your products and services online, this will open your market to the global world and greatly increase your profits because of the increased audience. However, the start is not as easy, because it can be done in an either expensive way yet fast or a cheap but slow method. You can either hire a web developer that will take care of all this for you or start learning using scripts and designing your site online using the available tools on the web.

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As a work at home Mom, I don’t have a lot of time to go shopping. Fortunately for me and anyone else in a similar situation, we live in a time where just about anything can be purchased with a click of the mouse on our computer. Holiday shopping, or any shopping for that matter, can easily be done in pajamas at anytime in the day or night in the convenience of our own homes. As wonderful as this is, it is important to remember that online shopping is not always as straight forward as shopping in a store. If you are not careful, there is an increased risk of being taken advantage of. The key to safe online shopping is simply to be aware. I have written a list of the top things to keep in mind to ensure you have a smooth and safe online shopping experience.

Make Sure The Website Has A Secure Connection When Checking Out: Don’t ever enter your credit card number into a webpage without checking to make sure you have a secure connection. A secure connection provides a reasonable defense against someone trying to intercept your credit card number or personal information. To make sure you have a secure connection simply look at the URL bar. The web address should start with https instead of http.

Read the Website’s Privacy Policy: Web retailers are not required to keep your personal information private. Some will make money selling your email address to other online companies. To make sure that they will not share any of your personal information with a third party, make sure to read their privacy policy (usually at the bottom of the web page). It should document how they handle your personal information. If the website does not have a privacy policy or you do not agree with their policy, you may decide not to do business with that particular online retailer.

Insure a Safe Delivery of your Goods: One simple thing you can do to make sure your goods are delivered safely is to check that you have provided the retailer with the correct address. I know this sounds silly but I’ve actually failed to do this on one or two occasions. Some online retailers will keep the most recently used shipping address on file and, if you forget to change this in the event that you move or if the last thing you purchased was a gift shipped to someone else, you may have delays getting the delivery on time. If these things happen, you can usually call or email the retailer prior to it being shipped.

Another thing you may want to consider is how valuable the item is that you are having shipped. If you just purchased a book or a pair of festive socks you may not care that UPS left the item on your doorstep when you are not home. However, if you purchased a laptop computer or a flat screen TV, you may want to make sure that the item is not delivered unless someone is there to receive it. Many retailers selling higher end items will provide a box for you to put shipping instructions. If you want them to only deliver the package when you are home you can write something like “Signature Required” though in my experience the delivery service will not always acknowledged this request. If you are concerned, it’s recommended that you track the shipment and make sure someone is home to receive the package.

Make Sure Your Antivirus Software is Up To Date: While shopping online you may end up browsing all kinds of new websites. A few are likely to share a few viruses with you if you aren’t careful so make sure your computer is well protected. You may also get an influx of spam emails, some of which may appear to be from a reputable website. NEVER open any attachment unless it’s from someone you know. Retailers typically won’t send you attachments unless you have requested something from them. Also NEVER open any attachment with the extension.exe no matter who it’s from, this is almost always a virus. The file extension.exe indicates that the file is a program that will execute itself on to your computer. This extension is fine if you are purposefully installing software, however if you open an email attachment with this extension it is very likely to be virus.

Make Sure That You Only Get Charged For What You Want: Make sure to double check your shopping cart before checking out to confirm that you are only paying for the goods and services you requested. Unfortunately, some retailers will try and tack on products or charges. It is also easy to make a mistake and accidentally add a product to your shopping cart that you don’t actually want. If this does happens, make sure to call or email the seller. They should be able to help you, if not stop doing business with the retailer and read the next tip.

What Do I Do if I Am Unhappy with the Product? If you are unsatisfied with the product or service you should first try to contact the retailer. If you cannot get in touch with them or you are unhappy with the way they handled your situation, you can file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

Milly Welsh is the owner of Zebralove Graphics a graphic design and web development company. She feels that it is important to use both art and technology to create a unique “Organizational Identity.” This means having a creative yet consistent look to your business, and using a marketing strategy that complements this look. She is working with Priority Learning on creating an online marketing strategy and web presence.

To see more articles by Milly go to Priority Learning

If you’re planning on opening a merchant account Internet, you will definitely have to consider hiring a payment gateway service as well. This is a service provides an avenue for a sales transaction to occur. This simply means that through this service, a customer is able to pay you by transferring a certain amount from his credit account to yours. To a merchant, this is the most useful way that the service can be but it actually comes with other benefits. For example, through a payment gateway, you can transfer funds, send invoices and send payments.

Payment gateways currently offer the best methods for online financial transactions. And they are the most affordable, too. With this gateway, you will be able to make use of your debit cards or credit cards when purchasing through the Internet. Another advantage they have is the security that they can offer as you let your money travel online. Right now, there are many companies offering this service and most of them can guarantee fast and secure transactions worldwide. However, as you pick which payment gateway to use, it remains of utmost importance that you review your options.

The first thing you must look for when choosing a service is the level of security that they can provide you. Go for a company that is continually updating its security measures since everyday, new security problems come up. Therefore, on this aspect, efforts by the payment gateway to secure their clients’ money should be unceasing. There should be a constant monitoring of possible risks that could arise and prompt response to such risk. Check for the company’s compliance with the Visa Cardholder Information Security Program or MasterCard Site Data Protection which are two of many sites that provide security standards for payment gateways.

Another thing you should pay attention to is compatibility of the company’s system with those of others. If you have a gateway that only works with few other systems, then that’s going to be a problem. You need to find a service that will be compatible with the system that most online shoppers use.

So when you choose, choose the one that you can be most secure with but without sacrificing compatibility with other companies’ systems that you will be transacting with as part of your day-to-day operations.

The purpose of having payment gateways is for you to provide a bridge between your customer’s money and your merchants account. Unless this bridge is sturdy and usable enough, it will not be of much use to yo