Getting familiar with the terms of Ecommerce:

The term Ecommerce means purchasing or selling products or services electronically on the internet, this is also sometimes referred to as internet commerce. The technology of Ecommerce is wonderful and can be customized to the individual requirements of the seller. In the past few years the online transactions have gained a lot of acceptance and are now considered to be as safe as a face to face transaction.

And like any other trade Ecommerce has its own jargon, which can get very confusing for the newbie. Considering this here is a list of some terms that you would commonly come across along with short descriptions.

? C. S. P. (commerce service provider) These are business firms which provide Ecommerce solutions for webmasters.

? Digital cash some of the other names for this very term are electronic cash, E-Cash and digital money. These are basically numbers which are issued by banks and they represent real money, and this form of money is used to buy goods or services by submitting this number to the seller Website. The greatest advantage of using electronic cash as against credit cards is that the anonymity can be maintained by the customer.

? Electronic checks electronic checks can also be used for online purchases and are transmitted to the seller through e-mail, fax or phone. This type of check contains all the information that you would normally find in the paper check except that they are digitally signed and not manually signed. There are several encodings used in the transaction to prevent unauthorized use of the check.

? Electronic wallet it is a small software with which you can store the credit card details on your computer in an encrypted form. This method of payment can be used only for web sites which accept this particular type of wallet.

? Extranet An extranet is used by a company to connect its internal network with the intranet of its customer or supplier. This is done to facilitate easy order placing and payments for the business and for its customers or suppliers.

? Disintermediation this is the process by which a business sales its products directly to the customer without having to pass through the retail channels.

? Hard goods and soft goods hard goods are all the real world products while the soft goods are virtual goods or electronic goods with no physical existence. Software and e-books are some examples of soft goods.

? High risk processors these are financial institutions which provide merchant accounts to businesses with high risk factor. The risk is covered up by charging the higher transaction fee to such businesses. The traditional banks would normally require a larger initial deposit but the initial cash outlay with high risk processors is usually much lower. Some of these processors are brokers and they may also help you out with the other requirements of Ecommerce such as website design, shopping cart and secure ordering.

? Immerce this is a relatively new term which is being used for the commerce of soft goods where everything is being transacted over the internet right from placing the order, making the payment to the delivery of product by the seller. Like if you purchase an Ebook the seller will either e-mail you the book or will give you the link from where the book can be downloaded.

? Merchant account this is special type of account which is required by the seller in order to accept credit card payments. There are several banks and even some other financial institutions which can provide you with a merchant account, but you must remember that their requirements and regulations are usually very stringent regarding these accounts. To link the website to the merchant account held with a bank you need of software which can be procured either on rent or can be purchased outright. This software serves as a processing terminal and you will not need a physical processing terminal as you would find in the retail store.

? Micro payments These are also referred to as micro transactions and are usually for very small amounts of money such as a few cents or a few dollars. These kinds of payments are usually associated with orders related to download or access of certain kind of information, graphics or small games.

? Phone Cash This has come up as an alternative to using credit cards to purchase items online. Under this setup the purchase amount is transferred from the customers account to a different account within the internet banking system from where the payments are made.

? Tele billing system : this is also a somewhat new method of making payments under which the amount of the purchase is added to the telephone bill of the customer. This is usually popular with downloads and time measured services such as monthly subscription to a website.

? Internet merchant account : this is a merchant account which is required to accept online credit card payments. The transactions usually get processed in real time and the customer does not have to wait for too long while the credit card details are checked and authorized. The terms and conditions for these accounts are a bit stricter as compared to normal retail merchant accounts. This is so because in online transactions the cardholders signature is not available and thus the risk of fraud remains quite high.

? Merchant broker this is a person who specializes in getting credit card merchant accounts for all types of businesses. Quite often the applications which are turned down by the traditional banks can also get a merchant account with the help of these brokers. These brokers also have additional services to offer such as software to be installed on the web site for processing credit card transactions. Those were some of the commonly used terms in the field of Ecommerce to give you a better understanding of this new business field.