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Online commerce is growing steadily every year as people become more and more comfortable shopping online. For the consumer, the benefits are –

* Wide selection that you cannot find in any one store offline, not even Walmart;

* Easy to do comparison shopping;

* Low prices, especially with online coupons and cashback programs like from Live.com.

There are also many benefits for the vendor who offers their product or service online. They get to reach a much wider audience than just their hometown. They can try displaying different merchandise without having to commit to a certain purchase. The way to do this is to become an affiliate for other product vendors. And there are smaller fixed costs, normally associated with web hosting, domain name registration, and shopping cart.

Speaking of shopping carts, Paypal is the number one name online for transaction processing. EBay was wise to have bought Paypal a few years ago. With wide recognition comes trust and creditability, two critical factors for online success. A new comer to the online processing service market is Google. Google Checkout was introduced about a year ago as an alternative to Paypal. It has not caught on as well as Paypal, but it is a viable alternative to Paypal. You can also use Google Checkout in addition to Paypal to accept orders from your website.

Here’s how to sign up for Google Checkout:

1. Go to https://checkout.google.com.

2. You have a choice to integrate Google Checkout with your current Google Adwords account or to create a brand new Google Checkout account.

3. Google Checkout will ask for two things:  How you will pay and how will you get paid. This part is not very clear on Google’s website.

4. For “How you will pay,” simply enter your credit card information.

5. For “How will you get paid,” enter your bank account number. Google will then make a small deposit into your account and ask you to verify that amount.

6. Now enter your website details like website url, contact info, return policy, and how your product will be delivered to your customer.

7. Next Google will ask you if you want to integrate other Adwords accounts to your Google Checkout. The benefit for you is that they will  credit you a certain amount of the Google Checkout transaction fees every time you spend money on Google Adwords.

8. Finally, log into your Google Checkout account and create a “Buy Now” button under the Tools tab.

You are now ready for business online.

There are a great many ways to get good software, and the safest is going to a store and buying it straight off the shelf. However, because we live in a fast world, there are new and faster ways to get what you want most of the time. You can usually buy software online, though you won’t get all you can find in the store. There are a few cons to this, even when you are getting a good deal. When you are in a hurry though, and need something right away or something hard to find, buying software online is probably the very best way to go as long as you know what you are doing.

When you buy software online, you only have to download it after you have paid for it. You can usually pay with your credit card or your Paypal account, and that is usually instant. Depending on your Internet connection speed, you can usually get things in minutes. When you have a slower speed it might take a while, but it will still be faster than going to the store. Remember that phone calls can interrupt a dial up connection, so be sure you have it set to stay on when the phone rings so you don’t have to start all over again when you buy software online.

Because you have to use your credit card when buying software over the Internet, you should make sure you know who you are dealing with when you purchase. If you find something for free, do some research to be sure you are dealing with a good site. Some will give you free software, but they have hidden some “goodies” inside. Sometimes these programs will come with spyware, and some will come with viruses that will completely wipe out your computer. At least when you buy software online from a site you know, you can be sure you are getting a clean copy of whatever it is that you need.

If you want to buy software online, but you aren’t sure if the site is secure or trustworthy, type the name of the site into a search engine and go through at least three pages of results to see if anyone has had a problem with them. If you don’t find anything negative, and the site is not new, you can be reasonably sure it is safe to buy from them. Just remember that once you buy software online and download it, you won’t have a back up CD as you would if you bought it in the store. That means you should put in a blank CD and make your own copy so you have it if something were to happen to the one you bought.