[Techtalk] e-commerce

[Dan Richter]

I work for a small company that's looking to add online payments to 
traditional payment methods. We're looking at a handful of online payments 
a month; no more. (But they're big payments from far away, so it's worth it.)

This area is completely new to me. Is there anyone out there who has 
experience with e-commerce and can tell me what I need to know?

A question in particular: normally you would have an online system to enter 
the credit card information, and another system that actually performs the 
transfer of funds - usually through a middle-man. Can we do the transfer 
part through the mail, so as to avoid going through a middle-man?