Before relations with China were normalized in the early part of the 70s there was very little business being done between our country and the Chinese. But several businesses were chomping at the bit for that country to open up. The hundreds of millions o...

I got a great piece of advice from a retired businessman who has become my mentor and is helping me get my online business going. He told me that many businesses fail because while the impetus may be the owner’s passion, they still have to make their...

There are some people who have an online business and have heard what a great asset being able to accept credit cards can be. And there are several good reasons to do so, and they will be spelled out briefly later in this post, but the overarching reason ...

In many ways the world of online shopping is not that different from shopping at the mall or your local strip shopping center. Most of the time when we leave home to shop we know what we want, we have a pretty idea of what we’re prepared to spend for it...

For anyone who has ever worked in retail – even an online retailer -- they have no doubt heard the phrase: “The customer is always right.” That is a short way of saying that having one’s own store tacitly says you are interested in delivering good...

There are people operating online businesses that have not added credit card processing but when I think of them the image of a dinosaur comes to mind. Especially those that could not adapt to the changes in the world and simply faded into the background ...

The other day I saw something that I haven’t seen in quite a while, and I’m not talking about black and television. I found a new online shopping site and their checkout page had directions on how to send in a check for payment. I had two immediat...

Having an online business is relatively easy compared to those in the real world. You pay for a domain name and hosting but that pales compared to monthly rent and inventory, not to mention utilities, etc. Indeed, the economy and ease of setting up a ...

If you own a business online and you’re looking to make the leap into credit card processing there will be several factors to consider. Among them are how much experience the merchant accounts provider has with businesses like yours, what their pricing ...

Assumptions can be a dangerous thing – and in the world of business they can be costly. That includes assumptions made in tandem with facts. Indeed, when assumptions are mixed with facts it’s like trying to blend oil and water with outcome about as...

By Jim Osterman The decision on whether or not to add credit card processing services to an online business’ site is driven by several factors, one way to make the decision is by playing the “what if” game. As in: “What if I (the Internet ...

By Jim Osterman Though the numbers may vary from study to study, consumers are acutely aware of credit card fraud and identity theft. They read the same stories that you do, and they know that some people can struggle for months to clear a bogus charge...

By Jim Osterman There are two sides to the rationale for adding credit card online processing to your Internet-based business, and which side you see depends on how you think about the business. One view stems from being a business owner. You’ve r...

By Jim Osterman It’s an irony of the business world that the more successful a person is, the less likely they are to reach out and ask for help when comes to an area of commerce they have no experience in. And there is no area where this is mor...

By Jim Osterman It makes no difference whether you have a store in the neighborhood strip shopping center, or in the virtual shopping community, if you can give your customers what they want you will never know a hungry day. And the great thing abo...