Can online shopping be secure?

This month, I’ll take the opportunity to answer some reader mail.

Rayberna wants to know: “The time has come for me to renew the subscription on my Norton AntiVirus. It will cost me $19 to renew my current program for one year, or I can buy the new version for $29. Is it worth it to go for the new version?”

Well, Rayberna, yes and no. It will depend on which version of Norton AntiVirus you’re using. The latest version of NAV is the 2004 version. It’s not a whole lot different than the 2003 version. It does have some anti-spyware options, but since Ad Aware (another spyware detector) is free, I don’t see the need to spring for the extra $10. Then again, I’m cheap. When my NAV was due for renewal, I stuck with my tried and trusty 2003 version, thank you.

Now, if you have a version earlier than 2003, you may consider an upgrade. New versions of NAV have an automatic update feature. As I’ve mentioned time and time again, you need to keep those anti-virus programs updated. Unfortunately, most regular users forget to do it. Early versions of NAV would allow you to schedule the downloading of updates. But that feature was a little hard to find, and again, most novice users never turned it on. Newer versions of NAV have an automatic update feature that’s turned on by default. Once a week, when you go online, the program logs into Symantec (Norton’s parent company) and downloads the latest virus definitions. You don’t have to click anything, schedule anything, or do anything. And that’s a feature I’d advise you to spring for. So if your NAV automatically updates, just stick with it. If it doesn’t, or if you have to schedule updates manually, I’d say buy a newer version.

Ed in Rockland asks: “In a recent column, you talked about secure buying online. I’m thinking of retailing my products direct from my Web site. Is this worth the effort? If so, how complicated could it get?”

Let’s start with the second part of that question first, Ed. It starts out kinda complicated, and then it can get real complicated. There are lots of ways to sell your goods online. The easiest way is to put some kind of page up on your Web site that potential customers print out, fill in, and mail or fax back to you. That’s pretty easy to do, and anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of HTML (the language used to write most Web pages) could do it. But in my opinion, it’s not too professional. I’d skip it. But hey, if you’re on a tight budget, and you want to get your feet wet, go for it. But I’d rather you start off with a simple form.

You’re familiar with the online form, right? Pull down menus, radio buttons, check boxes, text fields, that kinda thing. Put a check in the box next to “thingamajig,” and put the number “2” in the quantity box, hit submit, and by gorry you’ve just ordered two thingamajigs. If you make sure the form is on a server with a secure certificate, then your customers can feel secure giving you their credit card number online.

(How do you know if the Web site you’re on offers encryption? Your browser should be able to encrypt and decrypt too. Can yours? Well here’s how you know. Look at the address of the Web site you’re on. Look at the beginning of the address; does it read http://, or https:// ? If the latter, feel safer. The extra “s” means you’re on a “secure” site. To feel very confident, look at the very bottom of your browser window. Do you see a closed padlock? That closed padlock is also a sign that you are on a secure site. And if you double-click that padlock, you’ll usually see the strength of the encryption used on that server, as well as the company that owns the secure server. The server address at the top should match the certificate owner listed here.)

The values the customer filled in will be emailed to you: Joe Customer has a 2 in the thingamajig box. You then fill their order, charge their card, ship their order, and send them another email back saying where you are in the process, and what their total was. This system is easy to use, and fairly easy to set up. Probably your average entrepreneur should have their web-designer build the order page, as you’ll need to know not only HTML, but a bit of Perl-cgi-scripting-mojo.

Next step up from there is the shopping cart. Now we’re getting big league. How’s the shopping cart different from the form? Well, a form is all on one page. You fill the boxes and fields in, and hit submit. If you forget something, you basically fill out the whole form over again. The shopping cart allows you to add one item at a time, then go back and keep shopping. See something else you like? Add it to your cart! When you’re done shopping, you “check out.” You’ll see the items and quantity of stuff in your cart. From there, shipping and tax can be figured in, and the customer completes their purchase quickly and easily.

Software is needed to run this shopping cart system. Most web hosts provide some form of shopping cart software to their customers. The advantage to this system is that you don’t have to buy the software license. All you need do is get your designer to make a page that works with your host’s system. If your designer is your host, then this should be easy. If your designer isn’t your host, then things may get a little trickier. But there are many different cart systems out there, and not all are hard to learn, so your designer may want to take a crack at it.

Another option is to buy your own shopping cart software. This is nice because if you ever change hosts, your shopping cart moves with you. If your whole site is designed around MOFcart (a piece of shopping cart software), and you want to move to a host who’s using Miva Merchant, well, you might have some coding to do. If you bought your own software, then you just install it with your new host. But buying your own software isn’t always cheap. Miva Merchant is $700. A single MOFcart license is only about $40 per site, though—not bad. I’d say it’s a good shopping cart software package to use, if you choose to go out on your own.

One word of advice though. Make sure your current retailing ducks are in a row before you start selling online. Make sure your shipping department is ready to go with this. Having sold multiple items at a time on eBay, I can tell you that keeping 30 packages straight, with the right products inside, mailed to the right address, and in a timely manner isn’t as easy as it may seem. You’ll want to be sure you can handle that first before you move into online retailing. And make sure you’ve got the time to put into keeping your customers informed. They like to know their order’s been filled. They like to know it’s been shipped. They’ll want to know the tracking number. Be ready for this ahead of time. I bet there’s just as much work involved in keeping your cyber-customer happy as there is your walk-in clients.

Bill Batty, Jr. is the Director of Public Relations and Marketing for Midcoast Internet Solutions and the hardworking drummer for five (yes, five!) midcoast bands, including Blind Albert and Three Button Deluxe. Contact Bill by email: <bbatty@midcoast.com>, or visit his eclectic Web site, www.billyrhythm.com.

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