How to get https on a website?
 

Hey all,

Me and some friends of mine will be setting up an online shop for a friend of ours in the near future, and we were wondering - how do you get a secure connection for a website? I've tried googling but am a little confused, and to be honest I'm not really sure where to start :dozey: !

cheers!

P

Re: How to get https on a website?
 

Kingphoenix is probably the best person to answer that one for you.

Re: How to get https on a website?
 

If you want a secure site with any degree of credibility, you'll need an SSL certificate issued by a well known and respected authority like : http://www.verisign.com/products-ser...ssl/index.html

This will cost a fair amount mind you, but the investment is worthwhile if you plan to make money from your site.

If you don't know how to set up a secure server, I suggest you talk to your hosting company as they may well have a preferred route.

Re: How to get https on a website?
 

Here's a fairly comprehensive guide to SSL/https

http://seeingnetsecurity.com/Welcome...S.HTM#Step_SSL

Re: How to get https on a website?
 

You need to choose your shoping cart software
Knowing this choose a payment gateway provider, Netbanx, Worldpay, HSBC, RBS, blah blah.
Set up your site on your server with your shopping cart software, for this you will need a host that supports the os and DB that your software runs on, most use MySQL and Linux so it's pretty easy to find one. King Phoenix Iweb solutions would be a good port of call.

Integrage your site with the payment gateway, you provide them with files for your checkout pages that they host on their secure server so your site passes the payment amount to their server, their server takes the card details and processes it and then confirms.

Unless you are planning to set up the next Amazon then this is the approach to take.

IWeb seem to offer HTTPS (or SSL - Secure Socket Layer)
Yes we can install an SSL certificate for you, there is an
installation charge of £15.
Or we can purchase one for you and install it this will entail a
yearly fee of £100

But the point of one of these is to integrate into a checkout and verify process. A point that will need a credit card authorisation agent anyway, pass the problem onto them, it's what they take their 2-8% for anyway.

Re: How to get https on a website?
 

My hosting service http://www.hosts.co.uk/ offers a package "startup host plus" that includes access to their secure server system for £7.99 pcm or £89.99 p/a there's also a business £16.99 pcm or £189 p/a with higher bandwidth etc.

This allows you to use secure pages without needing to spend out on buying a certificate yourself.

Re: How to get https on a website?
 

Just outta interest (cause I'm a nosey git ;))..... what sort of stuff you gonna be selling on your site?

Re: How to get https on a website?
 

Hi Plonking, basically you will need an ssl certificate and a dedicated IP Address. You can get free SSL certs which do the same job almost but they dont look proffessional, as you will get a pop up saying that its from an un-trusted source and stuff like that.... If you want us to quote for the entire web-hosting side of it (including your HTTPS fees etc )

KP

This is very true, I-Web do the same, but for alot less than that per month ;)

But the only let down of it is the URL.... Our share secure url is secure-vault.co.uk

So your shop would be

https://secure-vault.co.uk/yourusern...shop/index.php Which doesnt look too proffessional.

We can offer discounted SSL certs too (we dont advertise this yet) but if your interested contact sales@i-websolutions.co.uk

Regards
KP

Re: How to get https on a website?
 

lol.. we're not actually sure, but its costumes and props and designer fashion stuff made by a load of creative types we know :)

Re: How to get https on a website?
 

Hey all,

Cheers for the info :) It makes a heckuva lot more sense than it did a while ago...

I'll get in touch with the people who want the shop and probably hassle you guys again when I get confused again!

Cheers for the help y'all!

P

Re: How to get https on a website?
 

Heya,

Not to pour water on the fire, but if you don't understand the basics of setting up an SSL server then you shouldn't really be doing this step yourself. As SMHarman explains, the steps to setting up a decent e-commerce site, from scratch, aren't exactly the simplest.

If you don't know what an SSL certificate is then my guess is that you will have trouble integrating any e-commerce store with the payment gateway, and on an SSL host. Obviously we'll help as much as possible :)

True, but the same also applies to hosts.co.uk, according to Grahams post :)

Re: How to get https on a website?
 

This is the point i was making ;) the fact that a shared SSL cert URL would be the main url followed normally by a username followed by a directory structure etc......

so it doesnt look proffessional or anything....

We are currently able to offer a geotrust certificate (full - not chained) for around £40 a year ;) :)

Re: How to get https on a website?
 

As a quick and less painful way of starting trading you can always use all in one providers, we started our first online store using Demon Commerce, this provides the store database, checkout functionality and sets up a merchant account for credit card processing.

It does restrict you to all the above and as time goes on you may want to escape as turnover increases and functionality becomes limiting, but as a start it is not a bad package.

http://www.demon.net/products/demoncommerce/

http://www.demon.net/helpdesk/produc...e/d-faq1.shtml

Re: How to get https on a website?
 

Hey everybody,

Thanks for the extra info - I've learnt a great deal already :) The vague original plan I had in mind was to use oscommerce (with good old I-web and oscommerce comes with fantastico) with a secure connection on top, but that demon net offer also looks quite good as an alternative as well.

Frank's made a good point about me being a bit out of my depth in all this;the payment gateway stuff sounds pretty confusing, but hopefully some googling and research will help me get my head round it :)

Mind you, compared to where I was in February when I first bought some proper hosting.. I've learnt a great deal in the last 6 months, so hopefully the coming months will continue that trend as well :)

P

Re: How to get https on a website?
 

Thank you for starting this interesting thread, I'm sure a lot of people have been educated by it, I know I have :)

Re: How to get https on a website?
 

The great thing about oscommerce is that it comes with pre-written payment modules... so all you need to do is switch them on..... and voila.... :)

Re: How to get https on a website?
 

lol, once i've googled enough and bugged everyone about it enough, i'll make a guide ;)

well, that's presuming, i ever manage to do it :)

Re: How to get https on a website?
 

very true! oscommerce is very cool and does it all nice and neatly, and processes credit cards correctly (the testing one, that is!)

so would i be right in thinking all someone would need now is a machine with a phone line to sort out the credit card details recieved by the shop?

Re: How to get https on a website?
 

Not the shop, just the final "secure ordering page".

All that's needed is a message saying "we're now passing you over to our secure server handler to complete your transaction and take your credit card details etc" which is, frankly, no different from using Paypal etc.

Re: How to get https on a website?
 

Yep, the online payments are done using the payment gateway.

Re: How to get https on a website?
 

I wouldnt recommend having the details sent to the shop owner to then be processed, i would have it all done online with an online credit card processing company (much more secure) But it would all depend on the value each month whether it would be worth it or not as the rates arent cheap for low turnover businesses

Re: How to get https on a website?
 

But make sure these work with the processing company you select, the problem with many of these is that they are designed to work with the US processing companies (the US being the primary market for all this stuff).
The more global / net specific companies are likely to be supported, eg Netbanx or Worldpay, but quite possibly say Lloyds payment gateway scripts may not have been built. (I have no experience with oscommerce as I am using XCart, but take this as something to bear in mind when you look at the authorisation company).

Orders on line will be processed on line and you will get an alert e-mail advising you of the basics and be able to visit a web page to see these orders / order manage (ship / cancel / amend etc).
As the gateway took the credit card details all you normally get are the card type, last four digits and authorisation status, an order recieved and alerted by OS commerce may have a declined card status from the authorisation agent.

You are also opening a virtual shop or physical shop? For a physical shop you will need a swipe machine and phone line (it can share a line with a fax, phone or anything else, but obviously would not work if the phone or fax was in use) You can get this from any of the big banks (with a business plan in hand), you will also need a bank account for this to clear into. It is generally wise to have your bank account and CC processing with the same bank as the funds clear quicker and if they go walkabout then there is no buck passing (eg. Barclays Merchant Services saying we sent it to HSBC) > HSBC (we never recieved anything) (grrr).

If you are just talking about orders taken over the phone, then you can easily process these yourself through the web interface, or set up a couple of hidden products of a £1 item and a 1p item, so for an ad-hoc payment you can sell however many of these products to raise the appropriate charge.

Also...

If you are going down this route, you also need to think about how this venture is set up, whether you set up a company or run it as a partnership or sole trader, you all need to be aware of the tax implications of your trading and the need to declare this to the inland revenue, you need to be aware that if your turnover exceeds £50k ish (not sure exactly) then you need to register for VAT and do VAT returns and pay Customs and Excise on time.

Even if you are a small venture you need to keep proper accounting records of income and expenditure, learn how to account for stock and fixed assets etc. Simply Books is a good package for this. It also can do most of the VAT work for you when you need to register.

Re: How to get https on a website?
 

Hey all,

Thanks for all your help (sorry I haven't replied, been busy at work and getting wireless stuff workign here) - I have a great deal of information now from all of you kind people, and I'll have to ask the prospective shop owner about what she wants to do with her site. She's setting up a business in the near future, and I'll have to have a chat about how much she expects to make, what the setup will be, and so on. It seems like there is a lot of info i need off of her before I can even begin to work out the "best" way of doing things!

Thanks once again people,

Plonking