Tuesday, January 6, 2009

The Quickest Way To Accept Credit Card Payments Online

By Justin Harrison

Customers who use the internet to shop are spoiled for choice, so if you don't offer them what they want right away, they will simply go someplace else. They expect different payment methods to be available, but credit cards get the most use because they are so convenient and the money doesn't have to be in a checking account right away. They also generate more revenue from impulse purchases.

Ecommerce sites may arrange to accept their customer's credit card payments by one of two ways. The first is by establishing a merchant account with the business owner's personal bank, the second to use a third-party service for processing the payments.

Many banks will offer merchant accounts and processing gateways to their account bearers; the main disadvantage of which being that approval for merchant accounts is much more stringent for internet based businesses than it is for traditional retail.

PayPal and other third party services do away with the need for an account with the merchant. They also offer real time payment and fund transfer into the account of a business owner for a small fee, which is usually a small flat rate plus a percentage of each transaction's sale.

For this purpose PayPal has the most appropriate solutions for using credit cards and the features that they have consist of a shopping cart where the company website can be placed, the ability to interchange international money, and receive various types of payments including debits electronically or echecks.

PayPal and other third-party services present a more easily obtained method of banking for the newly starting small business. Their services are often also more affordable than typical banks and they are significantly faster at processing credit card transactions too.

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