The Ecommerce Buying Process From Start to Finish

Many people take for granted the amount of work that goes into putting an online store together. They see a website, products, and a shopping cart and think that it must be easy to pull together. Building your own online store can be a difficult process. And getting online purchases to work can be complicated. Have you ever wondered what the buying process looks like from start to finish? Let's take a look at that process.

When someone comes to an online store, there are a host of technologies working together. Once that person puts things in their cart, they are starting a cueing process. This places all of those database objects, which are products in the store, in line to proceed to the checkout process. And it's that process that I want to highlight. The start of the checkout process will launch you to a secure portion of the store's website. This allows for secure transmission of the information that you will input. This is usually indicated with a small lock symbol on the lower right hand corner of your browser.

The customer fills in contact and payment information and submits it. The submit button initiates a transfer of that information to the payment gateway. The payment gateway then analyzes the information to accept or deny the payment. If it is denied, the customer is sent back to the online store to correct the payment and contact information. If it is accepted, the information is sent to the merchant account. The merchant account then processing the transaction. The customer is billed for the purchase and the online store is credited for the sale.

The online store, payment gateway, and merchant account all work together to make the transaction work. The online store offer products to a prospective customer. The payment gateway acts as a broker and a bouncer. They broker the transaction, making sure that all necessary information is present and accurate. If it isn't, the gateway bounces the transaction and it is started all over again. The merchant account receives a confirmed transaction and handles the money exchange.

Paul McGillivary has been a technologist for 15 years. In that time, Paul has experienced thousands of technology problems, challenges, and products. He brings this experience to bear in the articles that he presents.