Robert R. Brady asked:




Many intelligent and aware online business owners often tend to forget a particular aspect of owning and conducting an e-commerce enterprise. Although they may spend a great amount of time setting up their website, inventorying their services and products and posting photographs of the same, they sometimes forget about spending time on the eventual result, which is making the transaction easy for the customers they are targeting.

The most popular as well as the most convenient method of payment online is by credit card. Several other options available to customers and sellers, but this article focuses on setting your business up to receive credit card payments. Since it has been established as the most popular choice of payment method for online consumers, it is no longer an option on your site, but essential for your business.

The Internet, by design, provides instantaneous access to various kinds of information and other services, which may even be your business. Consumers who like the ease of access the Internet provides, do not want to be hassled with making telephonic orders or with writing out and mailing checks drawn on their accounts. If your business doesn’t provide them with a quicker option, they will look elsewhere. Also, since your retail outlet is no a store in the tangible sense, accepting credit cards make it seem more real to the customers. Additionally, if you accept cards then you don’t have to make frequent trips to the bank and worry about checks bouncing.

The first step in equipping your business to accept credit card payments is to contact providers of merchant accounts, who can give you such services. This involves an application process, which has certain qualifications and eligibility criteria, for both your business and you.

Merchant account providers are of three types:

1. Direct Processors:

These are usually banks, allowing you to directly access processing centers for credit cards. You require an order form, which once completed is sent from your site to a secure server, which absorbs credit card information, subsequently transmitting it to the bank involved.

This type has a distinct disadvantage in that banks don’t like to be involved with online e-commerce businesses. The prime cause for this is that they do not have access to any transaction slips which the cardholder signs.

2. Brokers:

Brokers are middlemen such as PayPal and Monster Merchant Account. They act as intermediate agents between the direct processor and you. A system known as the discount rate system pays for their involvement.

A discount rate is the amount on each sake that you are charged by the intermediary for their services for the payment. For instance, on a sale of $500, for a discount rate of 5%, you receive 5% less than that amount, i.e. you receive $475 and the broker receives $25. If you have a large profit margin and you make smart deals on your wholesale purchase, then you receive a pretty good deal with this system.

3. Third-party processors

This system is similar to the broker service, but they also have some additional services. Third party processors are fundamentally of two types:

Fulfillment houses – Webgistix and National Fulfillment Services are companies that take orders for the products that you sell through a live operator who uses a toll-free number and then ship the packaged goods for you to the customer while providing you with an online transaction record. It is a pretty neat process. These houses too charge a discount rate of 5%.

Service providers – If you have a credit history that is not too reliable, then you can use these services as they allow you to bypass the requirements of a merchant account, since the payments made by your customers are processed from the service provider’s merchant account. The service provider acts as the legal retailer and you are known as the agent. The only drawback to this system is that the fees are higher than normal.

There is one more thing to note: A lot of these services provide different kinds of services and are not protected against fraud. Thus, if a consumer purchases your goods using stolen credit cards, you will probably be liable for the entire cost of the goods. An example of such a service provider is iBill, and another is Vantage Card Services. These companies allow you to set up services or accepting card payments along with telephonic payments and online checks.

Roberta

Richard Adams asked:




If you have a new website and need to accept credit cards online then the process can actually be surprisingly complicated. In order to accept credit cards online you will need what is known as a “merchant account” – a facility that will allow you to charge a customer’s credit or debit card and then deposit that money into your own account.

There are hundreds of different merchant account providers out there who are competing for your business and so getting approved for such an account is generally reasonably easy. This is particularly so if you are based in the USA. Outside of north America there are still options available to you but it’s only fair to mention that approvals can take a little longer.

So if merchant accounts are easy to find and get approved for, why did I just say that the process can be complicated? It’s because merchant accounts to accept credit cards online are like anyo ther financial service such as a mortgage or a loan – that is to say there are lots of different options available to you and choosing the best for your business may be something of a challenge.

There are accounts for US businesses, for non-US businesses, high volume accounts, special accounts for high risk ventures like online gambling sites, MLM, pharmacy sites and so on. There are accounts that charge monthly fees but low transaction rates and also the reverse. Different accounts work with different shopping carts and so on.

The first thing then in accepting online credit cards at your website is a thorough investigation of your business. Are you an established business now setting up online? Do you have an existing website and you’re considering changing your merchant account provider? If so, then you have statistics to go on. You can make a reasonable guess as to how much money you’ll be processing, how many orders and what products you’ll be selling and so finding the ideal merchant account for you will be a little bit easier.

The job is slightly harder if you are setting up a new business. In this case, use your market research (or your business plan if you have written one) to try and estimate these very factors. What will you be selling? What is your average transaction size? How many of these per month do you think you’ll be making?

If you are uncertain as to some of these answers then an excellent starting point is to sign up with one of the online credit card processing companies that offer a free set up. In this way you can easily have your processing account set up in a matter of a few hours (days at worst) then get it all linked up to your site.

The experiment will have cost you nothing but a little time but now you have a “baseline” to compare future deals against. It is entirely possible to switch merchant accounts at a future date if you find a better deal elsewhere but you’ll only know it’s a better deal when you have 3-6 months worth of processing history behind you so you can see what your monthly fees are working out to and hence if you can save money with a different merchant account provider.

Even better, many merchant account providers will actually be willing to recalculate the fees they charge you as you start to develop some history with them so you can even save money without all the hassle of changing to a new online credit card processing company.

Jackie

Hugh Walters asked:


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Online business opportunities that allow you to make money from home by selling a product or service online often require you to accept credit cards in order for your home business to make a profit. You can set up a “merchant account” to make money from home from your online sales, but be sure to evaluate your costs before you do.

How to make money online is obviously the first topic to research when you have decided to make the transition to make money from home instead of dragging yourself to work every day. If you have decided to pursue an online business opportunity that allows you to make money from home by selling a product or service online, such as the highly profitable opportunity of selling ebooks, then a significant part of your continuing research will be to select a merchant account. A merchant account allows you to accept credit card payments on your website. You are the merchant. You will open an “account” with a provider. That account is a contract – your “merchant account.”

Statistics confirm that online customers prefer to make their purchases with credit cards over cash, check or money orders. Nielsen Online Survey reported that the majority of online purchases from businesses were made with credit cards (61%). Books, traditional books and ebooks, had the highest volume of sales. Since 85% of internet users have made a purchase online, (most likely from home), not offering the opportunity to make a purchase with a credit card at your website would be like closing the door on the majority of your customers and letting them take their money to another online business that does accept credit cards. Website customers don’t stay long. You need to learn how to take every opportunity you can for an online sale. You also need to learn how to make a profit to make money online.

First, you need to learn how to evaluate businesses providing merchant accounts so that you can determine which one will be the most profitable for your online business to make money from home. The money involved in providing the opportunity for online credit card purchases at your online business will be considered part of your expenses. Your expenses will determine how much you should charge for your product or service, and your total revenue minus your total expenses is your profit.

When evaluating merchant account opportunities, make sure you learn how to look for expenses such as transaction charges, or a monthly minimum charge if your sales from your online business don’t meet the company’s minimum standards. Other charges that will affect how much money you make online are a statement fee and money for an application fee. Learn how to look for money requested as a “batch fee.” At the end of the day, a business will typically run a “batch report” – which is a report of all the transactions that are rung up on credit cards for the day. Some businesses will charge you every time you run a batch report, even if you don’t have any expenses. A “discount fee,” despite the literary implications of the word “discount,” is an expense (fee) to your business, not a discount. Different companies will charge your online business a combination of different fees. They may also charge you money for monthly, quarterly or annual fees, and you should learn how to evaluate charge back fees. List each potential company and the amount of money the company will charge, then make your comparisons.

How to make money online using credit cards so you can make money online with your own home-based business takes time to research, but it is well worth the investment to learn everything you can about all aspects of online business opportunities. Every piece of information you learn how to apply to your home business is another avenue to increase your profit. Evaluating merchant account opportunities is an important part of your online business so you can make money from home knowing you made your most profitable business decision. Your online business from home will increase sales, and you’ll keep the profit, not a billion dollar bank. Invest in some reading and research, and the profit will be yours for as long as you want to make money from home, and you’ll keep making more money as long as you keep up with the trends on how to make money online.



CORNELIUS