These are the steps you should follow:

♦ Advertising: The company communicates its products and services (catalogue);

♦ Offering: The company offers specific goods and services;

♦ Selling: The company agrees with the customer on the content of a specific order;

♦ Billing: The company produces the invoice;

♦ Paying: The buyer pays the seller by giving a payment instruction;

♦ Matching: The seller matches the payment information (the authorization results and the actual crediting of account) with the orders and feeds the result into the back-office;

♦ Delivering: The seller delivers to the buyer; and

♦ Resolving: The seller and buyer try to resolve delivery or payment issues related to the purchase.

However, in some cases, the payment can also be a separate off-line transaction or a transaction via a financial intermediary (depicted by the dotted line).

The current payment instruments for use on the web have different characteristics in terms of risk and security.