Is there a White-list of Trusted Online Vendors?
"I'm going to go with ""ridiculous notion.""  :) The vast majority of businesses are legitimate, run by honest people trying to earn a living for themselves and their employees.  These days, almost all of them accept credit cards.  Crooked businesses are a very small minority. When a bad business over charges you, you dispute the charge, and you get your money back.  But that's not all that happens.  The bad merchant pays penalties for this, and if it happens more than a couple of times, the merchant loses their merchant account with their bank, which means that they lose their ability to accept credit card payments anymore.  A crooked business is not able to rob people via credit card for very long at all. A whitelist would certainly not be able to include every legitimate business.  And a blacklist would never be able to be kept up-to-date, as bad businesses come and go continuously; as soon as a business was added to the blacklist, they would lose their merchant account and would no longer need to be on the list. What you are describing is very rare.  My brother once had a bad experience with a tech support company where they were repeatedly charging him for a service they never performed.  But a credit card chargeback took care of it.  If that company made a habit of that, I'm sure that they got in trouble with their bank. Instead, the most common credit card fraud happens when crooks use your credit card at perfectly legitimate businesses.  But your whitelist/blacklist wouldn't help you with that at all."
I don't understand why businesses that supposedly offer a legitimate product decide to host 3rd party code.  Is their actual product so worthless that they need the extra few cents from ad revenue?  And there are open source analytic packages that tell you how many times people click on things on your web page and how they were referred.  I don't see the reason behind relying on other packages unless you really need to compare yourselves to the competition-- which probably doesn't come up in boardroom meetings every day. No. Brokers and HFT are two different entities, mostly.   No HFT shops have prior information about a client order.  PM me if you want to discuss more in detail. Getting beyond the scope of this post. This kind of thing is right up my ally. I am based in Australia so suggestions will be Australian based. I was looking at starting up a private consultancy. Basically use neto as your ERM and online website. link in to xero for accounts. Netos predictive inventory module tells you when to restock on raw materials. Embrace the web.  Let folks search for info while they're in your store.  make the Salesmen do it.  give your customer all the info they need to pull the trigger and buy the product.  Just say we'll match Amazon or Newegg on this and the sale's a lock. Have you considered a service that allows you to generate credit card numbers on the fly? DoNotTrackMe allows you to generate a CC number on the fly, for a specific amount.  If the vendor tries to charge more, it will fail.  If it gets stolen, it's useless. I don't know the specific fees off hand, but they have an annual fee for the feature.  Still, for the protection, doesn't seem like a bad way to go. Note: I have no affiliation with DNTM, I'm just a very happy user of their email protection products.  The Masked Cards faq is here. There are companies who sell data gleaned in aggregate from credit card providers to show how much of what category of product is sold online or offline, but that data is not cheap.  1010data is one such data aggregator we are talking to right now. Haven’t seen pricing yet but I expect 6 figures to access the data The are legit, I have been a member for more than 15 years. I have used there services many many many times. I have never sold any, I have only been a customer. The friend who sold me the service did very well for himself selling and recruiting. It sounds like the items shipped directly from the vendor need to be recorded into your system when the order is confirmed, that way cost of goods sold and revenue don't get lost. You'll have a record of re-orders and cancels and other such things too. Yes, but note that some credit card companies let you create virtual cards--you can define how much money is on them and how long they last.  If you're worried about a site you can use such a card to make the payment, then get rid of the virtual number so nobody can do dirty deeds with it. In practice, however, companies that do this are going to get stomped on hard by the credit card companies--other than outright scams it basically does not happen.  (Hacking is another matter--just pick up the newspaper.  It's not exactly unusual to read of hackers getting access to credit card information that they weren't supposed to have access to in the first place.) So long as you deal with a company that's been around for a while the risk is trivial. Whether or not I trust them depends entirely on the personal finance application. In the cases of Mint and Quicken, I would trust both. Always make sure to do plenty of research before submitting any personal information to any source. Are you looking for a company that can help you get more website visitors? If yes, then get in touch with White Digital (NE) Ltd! This company offers search engine optimisation services that can help business websites attract potential customers. Such services include keyword and competitor research, full website SEO health check, Google set-up and directory citations, and so much more! Visit White Digital (NE) Ltd’s website, https://white.digital, for more information on web design and development services. The closest thing to purchasing prospects we did was buy an email list that contained the names of several thousand people who fit our profile. Personally, I am not in favor of doing that. The companies you are buying from really don't understand what you want and you end up getting a hodge podge of information that never really gets you anywhere. Outside of that I am sure there are other services that provide prospecting, but the best lists are always developed internally.    Good luck! Are you dropshipping (I'll have to tune my answer a bit if so)?  Suggest you're probably looking for a supply chain consultant.  As you've found, ecomm is a bit of a loaded term and will get you the wrong kinds of folks.  Sounds like in your case, you're looking for more classical-style supply chain help and e-commerce just happens to be the vehicle with which the consumers place orders - though correct me if I'm off. Seems like it's more dependent on who you want to be your supplier.  The times I've been involved in requesting this, each company had its own application form.  They usually need proof of business activity, which gets back to SpecKK's answer. No. At least not in my case. Without divulging too much information. I don't tell any of my distributors how to sell my company's products our engage their customer base, but due to the nature of my business, I am frequently called on for product selection, marketing, quality, etc. Distributors often utilize their account reps and managers to help them push products on their customer base. The only way this could be seen as truthful, in my opion, is direct retail distribution. Because how are you going to track the product after it has been purchased by a consumer.