How To Accept Credit Cards On Your Website
Nowadays, it's a standard business practice to be able to accept credit and debit card payments from clients in the course of doing business. The consumer credit hullabaloo notwithstanding, the truth remains, consumers continue to appreciate the convenience that credit and debit card offers. Therefore, it's important that new online merchants offer appropriate payment processing solutions to their clients.
How to set-up a merchant account
An online merchant account is basically a bank account that receives cash generated from eCommerce transactions. Banks are usually a more safe and reliable option when it comes to this type of accounts. The challenge is that small businesses may find it difficult getting approved for this type of accounts. There are third party providers of this kind of service, these ones are more flexible but they charge a commission for their services and this can be huge to a small business that is just starting.
How to decide on the type of merchant account
Merchant accounts are available in various flavors. The appropriate type of merchant account is determined by the kind of business one plans to establish.
Examples
"Brick and Mortar" POS (Point of Sale) Merchant Account
Best for majority of retail businesses because they support standalone POS terminals. These are usually in-house based card processing systems (The business processes payments from it's own computers) and also on web-based virtual terminals.
Web-based Merchant Account
This one is created to exclusively handle online payments which are mostly major credit and debit cards. This type of account is best for any type of business involves in electronic commerce. Charges for this type of account are usually higher because of the higher risks associated with web-based payment processing. E-business establishments are also advised to secure payment getaway services from any suitable company, because most of them offer shopping cart software package.
Payment gateways function like standalone card processing terminal and the only difference is that it makes use of the internet as the communication medium as opposed to the phone line. Shopping cart system automatically connects the eCommerce site to the payment gateway.
There are also Mail Order/ Phone Order abbrev as (MOTO) type merchant accounts, this one enables business establishment to process card payments over the phone or via mail without the need to physical presence of the card being processed. MOTO accounts are offered with either a virtual terminal, a standalone terminal with keypad or a dial pay processing system which requires that a merchant dials in card transactions.
Deciding on a card processing solution to use
Stand Alone POS Terminals : This type constitutes of a card information capturing equipment, which transmits the info to a card processing network. In addition to the card swiper, most terminals incorporate a keypad to allow the manual entering of card information.
Virtual POS Terminals : also called web-based POS terminals, these are secured, browser based interface that allows an online merchant to authorize, process as well manage credit card transactions straight from a web browser.
About the Author:
Sammy Kirkland in site development, programming and design. If you'd like to know more about our services, please visit our x-cart web design page and our wonderful cs-cart programming page.
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