Ecommerce - How does it work?

1. Customer visits the web site and adds product to the Shopping Cart. The shopping cart adds the total of the products, applies tax and shipping rates as well as any discounts.

2. The checkout process continues when a customer decides to enter payment. They are taken to a secure area of the web site that is protected by a SSL Certificate. They enter their credit card and billing information.

3. The shopping cart sends the information to the Payment Gateway Provider. The payment gateway sends the information to the Merchant Account and receives back either an authorization code or a "transaction declined" message.

4. The Payment Gateway Provider passes the authorization code (or declined message) back to Shopping Cart. The shopping cart displays a receipt to the customer, or a "problem" message if the transaction was declined. At this point the credit card has been “captured” but the customer has not been billed. All of this information is encrypted with the SSL Certificate.

5. Merchant receives an email that an order has been authorized and is waiting to be filled. Merchant fills the order and then logs into the Shopping Cart and authorizes the billing of the captured orders.

6. The Shopping Cart sends the capture request to the Payment Gateway Provider. The payment gateway sends the capture request to the Merchant Account. The banks that issued the customer’s credit cards transfer funds to the merchant account. The merchant account transfers the funds to the merchant's Commercial Bank Account.

7. The merchant can access the funds at the Commercial Bank Account within a few business days.