When starting any kind of business, there are always various legal aspects to deal with and to be aware of. Though e-commerce might seem like a paper and a tax free business experience, in fact your online store is no different from any other kind of “physical” store. Here are some things to keep in mind and research well before opening an e-store:

• Store Business License. The regulations for a store license vary with the country and the state. They also depend on the type of products you are selling (pharmaceutical products, alcoholic beverages, firearms, etc.). In most cases, receiving a license is a relatively easy process, though could differ from case to case. Business license will also qualify you for a business (rather than personal) bank account.
• Taxes. You will definitely need to report your taxable items revenues and pay income tax.
• Advertisements on your website. For example you need to make sure that pay-per-click advertisements placed on your site are not fraudulent. 
• Keep the following statements up to date: license/buyer agreements, terms and conditions, terms of services, etc. You will also have to prepare contracts for third-party services and affiliate programs.

There are also several general items that are always relevant and important, and can protect you from a potential legal pitfall: make sure information placed on your site and sent out in e-mails to customers is authentic and always protect your site from spam.

You can get more information on legal aspects of e-commerce business: http://www.ecommercelaw.typepad.com/

Today we encountered a serious security vulnerability in Shop-Script FREE reported by users, and just released a patch for it.

We strongly recommend ALL users of Shop-Script FREE to get an update!

Users of Shop-Script FREE version 2.0 (which is the latest version, first released in May 2007):

Download this patch (10Kb) and overwrite files of your Shop-Script FREE installation with files from this archive.

Users of Shop-Script FREE versions earlier than 2.0, e.g. 1.2, 1.3:

Follow these instrucitons.

Shop-Script FREE distributives which are available for free download have already been patched.

IMPORTANT ADDITION: Once you have patched your Shop-Script FREE installation, please log in to store backend, go to “General settings” screen and resave the settings (simply click “Save” button on this form), then go to “Appearence” screen and save this form the same way. This is required to get rid of any code injections that could be in your files in case someone already obtained access to your store before it was patched.

The subject of today’s upgrade is a “friendly URL” in links, also known as “post slug”. We have added this feature to WebAsyst Files and WebAsyst Photos. In both services a new button now appears in the link properties window:

When creating a new link, WebAsyst assigns it a default address. In the picture above a link to the album is shown as http://demo.webasyst.net/photos/09c4d388 (this is an actual link, click it to view the demo pictures). The last part of the link is a series of characters, created automatically by WebAsyst.

Now click Change Link Address. In a pop up window you can specify a meaningful name as a last part of you link address, that is easy to remember. If you are creating a name for a link to your vacation album, as shown above, it makes sense to change the end of the link address to “vacation”. This way a new link to your photo collection becomes: http://demo.webasyst.net/photos/vacation.

Friendly URLs is a powerful feature, enjoy it! Keep in mind, however, that if you are changing your link address, the old address becomes unavailable.

We are looking forward to releasing WebAsyst Shopping Cart this fall, a new addition to the suite of WebAsyst web services. The new web service is based on Shop-Script PREMIUM software; it lets you create your own online store in a matter of minutes. The new store will not require script or hosting installation. You will be able to set up your store, control its’ settings, and modify design thru standard web browser. The screenshots of the new web service are coming up; we will publish them in this blog shortly!

We have just released WebAsyst Photos upgrade. Now you can create links to a collection of photos or an entire album.

Clicking “Create a Link” button will create a web address of your online photo collection, which can be viewed by others. You can e-mail the link to your friends, send it in a text or instant message, place it on your website, or a blog, etc. Your friends will see the images listed on a web page in a format that you have specified.

Sample 1: Thumbnails only (click the image below to view the demo).

Sample 2: Small images with descriptions (click the image below to view the demo).

Your WebAsyst Photos links are stored in your account, similar to the way you file links are stored in WebAsyst Files. Links can be modified or deleted. In the later case, the corresponding web address will no longer be available to open by others.

To learn more and sign up for a free account, visit WebAsyst Photos.

We are announcing time limited 20% discount offer for Shop-Script PREMIUM!

Discount applies on all Shop-Script PREMIUM orders, including the purchase of additional Shop-Script PREMIUM licenses (which are fixed 50% off the base price; plus additional 20% now!) and Shop-Script PRO->PREMIUM upgrade (only $111.11 during this time limited offer).

Discount offer is valid through September 30th.

Buy Shop-Script PREMIUM now

We have added several new handy features to WebAsyst Photos slideshow. To see the actual slideshow presentation, click the picture below:

Here is the summary of the new features:

Slideshow speed
Indicate how long you want your slideshow images to stay open before the next slide is displayed. 3 seconds is the default time. Click “-“ or “+” to increase or decrease the speed.

Show/hide image name and description
Image name and description appear right on the actual photo. Click “hide descriptions” if you don’t want name and description to be displayed. Click “show descriptions” to bring them back up

Show/hide control panel
Your control buttons do not have to cover part of your image any more – control panel disappears if you mouse is not moved for 3 seconds. To bring control panel back up, simply place and move your mouse anywhere on the slideshow window.

Resizing slideshow window and displayed images
Resizing your slideshow window will automatically resize displayed image. It will be scaled to the new window size, no matter whether you are decreasing or increasing your window dimensions.

Try the new features! Upload your photos to WebAsyst Photos and enjoy the show!

The number of online stores has grown significantly in the past 10 years. More and more people practice online shopping and enjoy its most evident benefits: shopping is fast, can be done without leaving home, lets you see the greater goods assortment and compare prices with other stores, checkout and shipping are arranged in a matter of seconds, etc.

Yet, there are still people who do not trust online shopping. The reasoning for mistrust varies from not getting the full picture of what you are paying for to fear of entering credit card information online. On the other side, though, most people who have shopped online even once are satisfied with the experience, and want to come back for more. This means that it is the fear of unknown that scares them off. Whether these fears are legitimate or not, I believe online merchants should not ignore them.

Here are some common concerns and solution possibilities:

• Concern:online shopping experience is different from shopping in an actual store. Shoppers like to see and feel the product, they like to try on different sizes, feel the material, taste and smell, etc. Online shopping takes away that possibility.
  What merchants can do: as a merchant you can make shopping experience as close as you can to offline shopping by providing enough visual and descriptive information. These include several graphical images from various angles, sizing information and charts (simple, yet informative), comprehensive product description. A good idea is also to offer “ask a salesman” option, letting customers get some help with their shopping either by e-mail or by phone (it will be especially helpful to those who need to hear live voice of a salesman to be reassured in making their choices).
• Concern: online stores lack credibility. You probably don’t have to worry when you shop in a well known online store or a store with a large offline sector. However, when it comes to private sellers or small Internet only stores, a lot of people start to get nervous.
  What merchants can do: offer product warranties and insurances, store rebates and credits, easy return and exchange policies, place addresses and phone numbers on a highly visible place in your site; provide affiliate program members and third parties information.
• Concern: fear of credit card fraud. These fears are definitely not unfounded. Nobody wants to provide their credit card details if there’s risk of credit card fraud, which are common in e-commerce.
  What merchants can do: choose reliable payment gateways, provide secure order check out, guarantee privacy, to keep personal information safe and secure - concise and comprehensive privacy policy, never ignore consumers privacy concerns and always address their issues

There are also several other things that could only help e-commerce business: offer prices comparison, add customer reviews, set up easy store navigation (you don’t want potential shoppers to get lost browsing thru pages).

To summarize, I think it is important to address concerns of mistrustful customers, but it is equally important to make online shopping advantages clear and evident.

We have recently added several improvements to WebAsyst by utilizing AJAX technology. Since AJAX functions are written in JavaScript, it requires that WebAsyst users set their browser to allow JavaScript running on their computer. This in turn has caused some of our clients to raise JavaScript security concerns. Some fear that a webpage containing JavaScript code can potentially be vulnerable to privacy attacks, clearing a way to retrieve someone else’s Internet cookies or other sensitive information.

These are fair questions, especially if your database is hosted on a server other than your own (as it is in the case of WebAsyst hosted users). There exist several security issues in web development technologies that can potentially create security problems. However, most of them (Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), Cross-Site Security Forgery (XSRF)) are not unique to AJAX. They have been known and worked on before. In fact, the level of security that software can provide depends entirely on how well code developers understand the technology and its flaws.

The security level of WebAsyst accounts has not changed since we have introduced AJAX; neither did WebAsyst developers’ team approach towards the software they produce. Our software team members are experienced developers; they stay on track of both new technology innovations and their potential security issues, which they take very seriously. As a result, WebAsyst software is least vulnerable to software piracy as possible, and our customers are guaranteed completely confidential access to their information.

There has been a lot of research done on the topic of Web 2.0 and AJAX security. For more information you can consult the following resources:

JavaScript Tutorial from www.howtocreate.co.uk/
AJAX security page from www.cgisecurity.com/
“Attacking AJAX Web Applications”, August 2006 Black Hat conference presentation by iSEC

We have partnered with E-onlinedata to provide you with a low-cost merchant account/gateway all-in-one solution.

Shop-Script shopping cart software supports credit card processing with many payment gateways, therefore you’re free to select your preferable merchant account provider and gateway. E-onlinedata offers merchant accounts with very good rates, and you get merchant account + payment gateway fully compatible with Shop-Script. After you have your E-onlinedata merchant account, simply install Authorize.Net module in Shop-Script backend, and then you can start accepting credit cards online. 

See our rates:

• NO Application Fees
• NO Annual Fees
• NO Address Verification (AVS) Fees
• NO Leasing
• NO Termination Penalties
• NO Batch Header Fees
• 2.29% VISA/MasterCard Qualified Discount Rate
• $0.30 per Transaction
• $10.00 Monthly Service Fee (includes Monthly Statement)
• Toll Free 24/7 Customer Support with FREE TECH SUPPORT

Get your merchant account now

It’s easy and fast.

This offer is for US or Canada based business only. Unfortunately, E-onlinedata does not provide merchant accounts for businesses outside US and Canada.