Accepting Credit Card Payments

If you are in business for yourself you know how vital it is that you make quick and easy forms of payment processing available to your customers. The great thing is that merchant accounts can provide you with the ability to take credit cards online, over the phone, by fax, or by mail. Some will even let you take e-checks. The more payment methods you accept, the more customers you can keep happy and after all, isn't that the goal?

It has been years since the average person carried a check book with them everywhere they went and even longer since anyone has accepted C.O.D. transactions. While the Internet offers the convenience of taking credit card information in a variety of ways we want to urge you to send all personal information of any kind in the most secure way possible. This means that you will need a digital certificate and a secure server to do your ecommerce with.

To accept credit cards you will need to get a good payment gateway and a merchant account. Payment gateways will help your site communicate with the merchant account and help to keep data secure as well as help you with fraud protection. The merchant account will process the actual payment in less then seconds and your customer will finish the check out process.

Things to look for when you are shopping for a merchant account:

• Set up fee
• Activation fee
• Application fee
• Discount fee
• Transaction fee
• Statement fees
• Monthly minimums
• Virtual terminals (these are best unless you have a storefront that has a card swipe terminal)
• What cards are accepted?
• Are e-checks accepted?

For merchant accounts we recommend using Charge.com.