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Why are “category floors” important for my products?
Gourmet Food Mall is very similar to a “real life” shopping mall or a large department store.  Our Mall is structured to replicate the way people generally shop at their local mall, except we make the process much easier, informative, and more convenient.  Our “category floors” are a convenient way for online shoppers to browse the Mall and discover your products and webstore.

Most of the time, online shoppers may only have a general idea of what they are interested in.  By having products and webstores grouped into category floors, shoppers can more easily browse and see what’s available.  If your webstore has several types of products, this gives you a greater opportunity to merchandise to these shoppers.  Gourmet Food Mall currently offers online shoppers over 40 category floors to browse.  Your Gourmet Food Mall account manager will assist you in selecting the most pertinent category floors to ensure that you are positioned properly to merchandise to our online shoppers. 

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What is “dynamic product merchandising”?
Gourmet Food Mall’s “dynamic product merchandising” technology allows you to feature products that are relevant to the interests of each individual online shopper.  Each webstore has the capability to feature four (4) products on the home page.  With dynamic product merchandising, these 4 products change to fit the interests of the shopper according to the path that they arrived at the webstore.  For instance, if a shopper was searching for coffee and tea products and they clicked your webstore, they would see your coffee and tea products featured on your home page.  If another shopper was browsing on the candy and chocolate category floor and then clicked to your webstore, that shopper would see your candy and chocolate products featured on your home page. 

Our dynamic product merchandising technology is a powerful feature that allows you to merchandise to the individual online shopper.  

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Will online shoppers be able to find my webstore using search engines?
Yes.  An additional benefit in being a Gourmet Food Mall merchant is that we optimize your webstore and products for all of the major search engines.  Each merchant is assigned their own unique URL address (www.mystore.gourmetfoodmall.com).  If you already have a domain name, you can easily transfer that address to your Gourmet Food Mall webstore.  Either way, your products and webstore will be accessible directly from search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, AOL, and more.  Contact your Gourmet Food Mall account manager or our technical services department for more details.

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Will GourmetFoodMall help me set up my online store?
Yes.  The only way to tell your story online and communicate your value proposition is through your own branded webstore.  The look, feel and functionality of your webstore are critical to the success of your online business.   We are experts at what works well online and what doesn’t.  Our professional design staff will assist you in developing the best webstore solutions for your online objectives.  Please contact our sales department via email at sales@gourmetfoodmall.com

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How often can I change my product listings?
You can update your webstore as often as you want, from any internet-connected computer, through your Merchant Console.  While we have made it easy to make changes to your webstore, we realize that many of our merchants have neither the time nor inclination to make these changes themselves.  That is why Gourmet Food Mall offers an inexpensive Pre-Paid Maintenance program where we handle all of your webstore maintenance quickly and professionally.  For more information please contact our technical services department.

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What if my webstore sells the same products as another store?
Because there will be hundreds of merchants who list thousands of products on Gourmet Food Mall, there will be some overlap in products and brands.  We do not assign exclusive rights to offer particular products.  There will be competition, just as in any shopping mall. 

Why do your customers buy from you right now?  It is not about being the cheapest.  Each successful business has a distinctive value proposition or competitive advantage.  If you didn’t, you wouldn’t stay in business very long.  Gourmet Food Mall works with you to translate your value proposition to the online environment.  The Web is the most ideal communication channel ever devised and the companies that will be the most successful are the ones that view the Internet as a complement to their traditional ways of competing.  In addition, Gourmet Food Mall offers many different ways to merchandize your products and webstore to create added awareness and visibility.

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How long will it take to get my webstore online?
Most of our webstores can be created in just a few days.  It all depends on how many products will be added to your store database and if you have all of your information readily available.  You will need all product information, all graphic images (in jpg format), and an e-mail address so we can send information to you.  You also need to set up your “card-not-present” merchant account in order to accept credit cards and use our “mall-wide” shopping cart.  Allowing time for you to get your information together and setting up your merchant account, we can have your webstore up and running in about a week.

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Where is my webstore hosted?
In order to ensure a stable and reliable shopping environment for our online shoppers, all of our webstores are hosted on our platform and servers.   If you already have a website, we can replicate the look and feel of that site in your Gourmet Food Mall webstore. 

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Do I need to know HTML to maintain my webstore?
No experience with HTML or related technologies is required.  Our easy-to-use Merchant Console takes care of the formatting and automation for you. 

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What will my store’s URL be?  Can I use my existing domain name?
Each webstore has its own unique URL or internet address such as www.mystore.gourmetfoodmall.com .  And, YES you can use your existing domain name.  For example if you owned the “salsa.com” domain name, you can continue to use that domain name and it will take your online customers to your Gourmet Food Mall webstore.  To obtain the greatest benefit from Gourmet Food Mall we highly recommend that you transfer your current online address to your Gourmet Food Mall webstore.  It is easy to do and our technical services department will help you.

For larger brands that have invested heavily in their current website, please note that we do not require exclusive arrangements.  You can continue to maintain another website outside of our Mall.  However, for the majority of our merchants, there is no practical reason to maintain two websites.

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How do I receive my orders?
Currently there are two ways that you can receive your online orders:

1. You will receive notification of your orders via email.  This notification will include all of the necessary information to process that order, and
2. You can access your orders online through your Merchant Console.

Coming soon … you will be able to retrieve orders as database files in a choice of common formats.  This allows merchants with a large volume of orders to integrate their web orders directly into their existing ordering system.

By providing several ways of receiving your orders, it minimizes the risk that an order will not be processed due to human error or technical disruption.

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What kind of security do you have for online transactions?
Online security is a priority to Gourmet Food Mall.  We use a secure transaction environment and industry-standard SSL encryption wherever sensitive information is required to be used, such as during the shopping cart checkout process.   SSL provides privacy protection by encrypting the channel of communication between Gourmet Food Mall, you - our merchant and your online customer.  Through SSL, your customers can complete transactions at Gourmet Food Mall with confidence that no one else can read, change, or fool with their payment information as it travels over the Internet.

Gourmet Food Mall gives your customers the most comprehensive protection available on the Web today.  Only Gourmet Food Mall’s Safe Shopping Guarantee protects online shoppers when they shop any of the webstores in our mall:

1. We guarantee their Credit Card Safety,
2. We guarantee their 100% Satisfaction when ordering products from any or our merchant webstores, and
3. We guarantee their Privacy by not releasing personal information to any 3^rd party.

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Why do I need a “card not present” merchant account?
All bankcard companies (i.e. Visa and MasterCard) contractually require merchants to have “card not present” merchant accounts for all online transactions.   Card-Not-Present (CNP) merchants are targets for bankcard fraud.  Scamsters take advantage of the fact that they can operate anonymously.  They know that many of the bankcard features (such as checking the cardholder’s signature on the sales draft against the signature on the card) that prevent fraud in the physical world do not apply in the card-not-present environment.  Mail order/telephone order (MO/TO) and e-commerce merchants who choose to process transactions in the card-not-present environment must understand that there is greater need for protection against fraud exposure and associated losses.

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Can I receive my orders via email and then process them through my POS terminal in my store?
No.  Email works independently of any security software, such as SSL and is not protected.  Email is vulnerable and should probably never be used to send or receive sensitive information such as credit card numbers.  In our email order notification to the merchant, the purchaser’s credit card number is not included for these security reasons.  Gourmet Food Mall’s shopping cart and order processing system provides a secure and robust payment infrastructure.    In addition, Visa and MasterCard prohibit the use of card-not-present transactions processed through retail POS terminals.  Please contact your merchant account provider for details.

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How do I get a “card-not-present” merchant account?
Gourmet Food Mall requires all merchants to have an approved “card-not-present” merchant account prior to activation of their webstore.  Gourmet Food Mall has partnered with Paymentech, the nation’s leading processor of e-commerce and direct marketing payment transactions to offer a preferred merchant account program.  As the preferred merchant account provider to Gourmet Food Mall, Paymentech offers low prices and great service for Gourmet Food Mall merchants to accept credit cards in their webstore. 

Please contact your Account Manager for costs and details.  You can also log-on to your Merchant Console to apply for your merchant account or set-up an existing merchant account.  If you already have a “card-not-present” merchant account or would like to choose a different merchant account provider, you are welcome to use any bank that is compatible with the Authorize.net platform.

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What is the difference between GourmetFoodMall.com and GourmetFoodMall.net?
GourmetFoodMall.com is our retail or direct-to-consumer (B2C) website and GourmetFoodMall.net is our wholesale or trade only (B2B) website.  If you are interested in selling wholesale, please contact your Account Manager or send us a Prospective Merchant Form for more information.

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How much does it cost?
GourmetFoodMall charges a monthly rent based on the size of your webstore.  Your rent will be charged to your credit card each month and you will receive an e-receipt (email receipt) on the same day. You can learn more about our progam here Join GourmetFoodMall

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Who can I call if I have a problem or question?
Shortly after registration you will be assigned a personal account manager. Our account managers are there to help you get the most out of your GourmetFoodMall webstore. Having access to this valuable resource is included in your monthly rent. You can reach your account manager via email at accountmanager@gourmetfoodmall.com

In addition, our technical services department is available to answer any technical questions that you may have.  You can reach technical services during normal business hours M-F 9am-5pm EST via email by clicking here Technical Services Group. 

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