Setting up an ecommerce business is simple! All you need is an Internet merchant account, a payment gateway, a shopping cart, and a website. An ecommerce account differs from a regular merchant account in that an Internet merchant account is approved to run web initiated transactions, a regular account is not approved for web transactions. If your online business only sells one item at a time to buyers, you may not need an online shopping cart, however, most online businesses benefit from the option of a shopping cart. A shopping cart will give your buyers the option of picking and choosing what they want to buy. The shopping card feature will then connect to a payment gateway for processing the credit card order.