Internet Strategies to Improve Farm Business Management

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Security

Security is a key concern for both you and your clients. On-line shopping carts typically incorporate the latest security technologies to protect the buyer and seller. Buyers may be much less comfortable including credit card or other personal information in other types of transaction communications, like a fax. Remember, if they're wary about the security of the transaction, they won't buy! Buyers are rightfully worried about identity theft. Reassure them by using the latest security in your shopping cart application.

A shopping cart technology not only processes the payment, but also facilitates order processing. Once the buyer chooses to checkout, or to actually make the purchase, the software will provide an order to you or your fulfillment service. You can use that to fill and ship their order quickly. Using other technology may mean handling the order twice, once to process the transaction and once for fulfillment and shipping. The more you handle the order, the higher the probability of introducing error.

Website Security

What makes people think a website is secure or not? Well, people look for signs that information being sent through a page is secure and being encrypted. This is done by employing a secure sockets layer, or SSL. When a SSL has been employed for a page, an icon of a padlock will appear at the right of the address bar at the top of your screen (using Internet Explorer).

When a website is not secured the padlock will either not be present or will appear unlocked, or broken.

verified Including the logo of the company that provides your SSL certificate can also add to peoples' sense of security on your website. VeriSign is one such certificate provider that is well known.

Two other methods for reassuring people that your site is secure include:

Requiring that people set up accounts and sign in to access secure pages of your site
Providing a privacy statement. This can be included either on the secure page(s) or on a login page.

For more information about website security and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), check out VeriSign's website where they provide lots of information (http://www.verisign.com).

Of course, you can perform the transaction by other means. Email, phone, FAX, and snail mail will serve the same purpose. If you choose not to adopt a shopping cart technology, remember that the more you ask the buyer to do to make a purchase, the less likely they are to buy from you. You should make it as easy, or convenient, as possible to make the transaction.

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These materials were developed as part of the Southern Rural Development Center’s National e-Commerce Extension Initiative. They are based upon work supported by the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under Award No. 2005-45064-03212

Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Southern Rural Development Center.