Ecommerce site help

Hi,

This is my first e-commerce freelance site, and i'm doing it entirely on my own . We are getting a server soon. We are getting a merchant account from the clients bank as well. I need some answers to the following questions:

1. We have a order form. We want to make it secure. I think i will need to set up something on the server and get a certificate, is this correct?

2. How much is a certificate? i can't find out

3. I am also planning to test the site. I can test the following, are there any other important ones I need to try: IE6, IE5, AOL6, Firebird, Netscape, Safari and also on 56k and 512k and Win XP, Win 2000, Mac OS X, Win NT, Win 98 and the resolutions, 1024x768 and 800x600.

Thanks in advance,
comp

http://verisign.com/

link for SSL certificates on the homepage

there's also OpenSSL...
http://www.openssl.org/

wow. expensive!!!

4. where can i confirm addresses are valid and an IP is in the right country?

Why do you have a database mixed in with browsers? And you forgot Mozilla...

Oops, mozilla

umm, isn't firebird a browser as well?

uh-oh jpenn is on his 'firebird is a database, not a mozilla browser/project name' jihad again...

ah yes.

i remember on another forum someone mentioned firebird, someone replied "So you want burning birds, or a database?? or maybe even a browser"

5. Two server possibilities:

Rackshack and The Planet (Server Matrix division). I would like to know how much control I have over either server. ie, how much stuff is preinstalled or configured. What is the Server Matrix Bronze managed service mean exactly?

thanks again

Actually, you can´t. Or let me say you will have a hard time with that.
Remember, the internet is international. Or would the site only sell to one country?
If you think the SSL cert is expensive, forget about verifying adresses. (didn´t search for how much verisign takes, but they are about €200 per year over here, this is less than $20 per month - isn´t an ecommerce site for making money of it? you need to invest something before you can get revenue...)

But depending on your circumstances, it could be possible:

I once made a ecommerce site that had a kind of a "closed usergroup". They were pre-authenticated and on the safe side (speaking about laws) by them signing a contract for access. Most were already customers in RL before. They are selling a special kind of wood connector that they have a patent for. They sell to the whole world and only they do. So they can do this kind of stuff, it was for optimizing the order processing times and such.

Dunno about your customer. But if he is selling to endusers, you need to make clear to him that he will have that many percent loss because of fraud and such. Some rough numbers should be available from some kind of government bureau.

it is a jewelry shop and he will be selling to people within his delivery area. (south east england). i doubt much fraud will happen as he (or his employees) deliver it themselves and will get the money first.

Good, so there is only those people left that let you deliver stuff to other people´s house for fun

yeah but we get the money before we deliver so that person doing it for fun will still have to pay

6. Which bit of a credit card should i hide, eg.

4444 4444 4444 ****
or 4444 4444 **** 4444

etc.

typically all but the last 4444