Shari:

As I understand it from having gone through this once or twice 
you'll need the following:

1. Patience
2. A shopping Cart or something similar (make sure the cart has a 
good mail group resource if you have setup/config questions or 
issues)
3. A web host that supports the Shopping cart (unix, NT?)
4. That web host should have an SSL layer available for you
5. That web host should let you use their secured certificate (if not, 
then you might want to get one yourself)
6. A merchant account that interfaces with your shopping cart and 
your banking institution (ya want to get your money, right!)
7. The web host should also assist with the connectivitiy of the 
shopping cart database

Some web hosts will offer a shopping cart with their hosting 
packages and will have all the information and assistance you'll 
need in a one-stop-shop to get it up and running. Their are also 
third party shopping services that you can link to and design the 
interface page to match your own web site. I am sure there are a 
lot of other methods designed and developed out there, and this list 
will make you aware of many of them. We got smart people 
connected to us ;-)

If you have any questions, please contact me off-list and I'll get to 
you ASAP. This whole process seems overwhelming at the start, 
but once you get putting the pieces together, it all makes much 
more sense.

Best of luck to you, and thanks for letting me plug my two cents in.

Jim H

HTML: hwg-basics mailing list archives, maintained by Webmasters @ IWA