You have a flourishing business and you are looking to expand through the internet. What do you do next? If you are internet-savvy, you have visited many other online businesses. They offer a product, sell it online and get payments through credit cards or PayPal or ACH. How is it done?
First you need a website where you can display the products or services you have to offer. You need to get an account with a hosting site. A few popular sites are Go Daddy, Host Monster, Host Gator, Blue Host, Lunar Pages, and Vista Pages. With monthly/yearly payments you have a website address dedicated to you. www.myonlinebussiness.com or whatever name you choose will be the website people go to for buying what you have to sell.

The next step is to create or design a web page that displays the products you have. You then have a custom made web page running at the web address you chose. The web page has to have a form where your customers can enter their contact information and payment information, shipping address etc. after they chose the product to buy. You may also want to set up a separate business checking account, where you deposit the income from your online store.

Now, your website has to be integrated with a payment gateway that can process the payments with all the billing information you give them. There are many services available these days that process the payments and make it available to you in the checking account you specify. All you need is a merchant account with one of them. You then give them information as to where you want the payments to go. You probably have a separate account for your online business.

You can create an account with a payment gateway provider like Authorize.net, PayPal or goMerchant . There are many who provide services to merchants for accepting payments through credit card, bank accounts, and e-check. If you are a developer, you can attempt the integration with the help of sample codes and instructions you can get at their website. If you are not a developer, you can look for one or use a service for this purpose. Once your website is integrated to their gateway, you are all set.

After this, a customer enters your online store on the net, chooses the products, and enters payment information and shipping information. The money goes into your bank and you get notified. You send the specified products to the shipping address that the customer provided.

Once you have the basic infrastructure and good software at the back, you have the business running 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.