On the web, prospective customers will come from the world over. To make their life easier, make sure that on every page of your website you disclose where you are located, including the country. On every page that includes a price, explain which currency that price is shown in (or, prefix the price with the currency format, e.g. $AU320, A$320 or AU$320 — depending on your preference.)

If you only ship to your own country, make this clear. If you ship to other countries, explain which countries, be upfront about shipping costs, and include an indicative currency converter (a free tool is available on xe.com.)

Not only does all this give your visitors essential pre-purchase information, but it demonstrates respect that you are not assuming your visitors are of a particular geographic region.

If you need to accept payments for goods or services through your website, the easiest way for your customer is to accept credit cards.

Some options to accept credit cards through your website are:

• Implement a third-party merchant facility, such as PayPal. Integration is very cheap, because you link to PayPay’s website where your customer enters their credit card details. This solution is not as professional, but is quick and cheap to implement.
• Ask for credit card details using a secure form, and have these encrypted and stored in an area where you can view them. You then process the credit cards manually through your EFTPOS terminal or virtual terminal provided by your bank. This option is relatively inexpensive to implement, but requires you to manually process the payment each time.
• Integrate directly with your bank’s credit card gateway (most will have this service.) It will involve more programming than the other options, but allows you to both offer instant payment and keep the customer entirely on your website. It is also generally the cheapest option as you only pay the fees charged by your bank.

Choosing the most appropriate option depends on the nature of your business, sales volume and budget.

As your website becomes more visible on search engines, you will soon become the recipient of various techniques designed to scam your business.

One common scam involves a booking or order placed through the website (or by email) for an unusually large dollar amount. The scammer typically insists on paying very quickly using a credit card. The order is later cancelled, and the scammer demands a refund; of course, the original credit card was stolen and the targeted business will suffer a chargeback after they have have refunded the money.

Be very wary of orders that come in which pass several of these tests:

• The order is “urgent”
• The order is unusually large
• The buyer wishes to pay quickly with a credit card or by cheque
• The buyer is from a country with which you do not frequently do business
• The buyer has a poor command of the English language

If you are unsure, telephone the buyer, and ask for some form of identification that can be cross-checked with the form of payment being used (for example, a driver’s licence that matches the name on the credit card.)

Make sure that when a customer does business with you through your website, you keep them informed about what’s going on. For example:

• If they fill out an enquiry form, let them know how long it will take for someone to get back to them
• If they make a booking, let them know if this can be considered confirmed or not, and advise what communication they should expect from you next and when
• If they made a purchase, send them an email when it has been confirmed, despatched, if there have been delays, etc.
• If they sign up for your newsletter, tell them when to expect the next issue

An informed customer is a happy customer!

If you allow customers to enter credit card details through your website — whether or not you actually process it on-the-spot — you need to have an SSL certificate.

Your web hosting company might allow you to use a “shared” certificate, which will exist on their domain, but this is not as professional as having your own SSL certificate on your own domain.

When you secure your booking or order page, also make sure the page that is displayed afterwards is secured, as well as any pages that allow you to view a customer’s credit card details.

And remember, your SSL certificate is not only for encryption, but also trust. Ensure your SSL certificate is purchased from an established and well-known provider, as this plays a part in how customers perceive your trustworthiness.