Get Credit Card Processing For Your Internet Business

One of the best features of owning an online-based business is the amount of money you save on start up costs, and ongoing overhead in comparison to businesses with physical locations. Not only do you not have to pay high rental or mortgage payments for the space, but you save on utilities, business insurance, and even credit card processing accounts!

As an Internet business, you almost have a requirement to accept credit card payments for your products or services. Have you ever been to a website that doesn?t accept credit cards as payment? Consider how you would feel if you wanted to purchase something online but you couldn?t enter your payment details in the site- would you take the time to write a check, put it in an envelope and mail to the company or would you just find the next website offering the same products that DOES accept credit cards? Web sites that accept credit card payments have sales that are 50-400% higher than web sites that do not accept credit payments. It is so easy to get set up to accept credit card payments that there really is no excuse for an Internet business not to accept them!

As a web business, you have a choice. You can apply for a traditional merchant account at any of the local banks and hope to get accepted (and likely pay a set up fee and sometimes an ongoing monthly fee for having the service), or you can use one of the numerous card processing companies that operate online and are geared toward online businesses just like yours. Many of the card processing providers you can use online allow you to set up your website for accepting credit cards with no set up fees!

Merchants Providing Credit Card Processing

When you are just starting out as an online business, or you are a small business- you are probably not going to want any credit card processing provider that requires you process a minimum number of transactions each month. It is hard to predict what your minimum will be for a new business, and it might be better to pay a slightly higher per-transaction fee than to pay a higher monthly fee in exchange for a lower per-transaction fee based on a minimum number of cards processed each month.

Paynet Systems: Offers a variety of merchant accounts, with a few focused on Internet based businesses. You can get your account set up to accept credit card payments (ATM, and Debit also) for no set up fee. You pay a small monthly fee for the account ($8-10) and fees per transaction processed.

Merchant Express: Offers a merchant account for Internet businesses that can accept credit card payments in real-time. Your account with Merchant Express will also give you access to a free ?virtual terminal?, which will allow you to accept credit card payments by phone or mail as well as online.

Charge.com: Similar to Merchant Express in that it provides both a real time processor for web site orders, and a virtual terminal in case your customers provide their payment information via telephone, fax or mail. The software will automatically send you an email to help you fill the customer?s order once the card has been successfully processed.

There are many other providers that allow internet merchant account providers that can set your internet business up with the ability to accept credit card payments at no set up fee. Researching each company before signing up will help you compare the features and make sure you sign with a company that can provide you with the necessary options for your business and at the lowest fees.

This article has been provided by Creditor Web. Creditor Web has the articles and other credit card processing resources to help you choose the right provider

Internet Credit Card Payment Processing

With the widespread success of the Internet, you can almost make any type of purchase online. Whether it is your groceries, subscriptions for comics or magazines, the latest best-sellers, DVD movies or audio CDs, the World Wide Web has everything. You can virtually fit some clothes online. When you get the desired garments, just check them out in a virtual shopping cart and make the purchase.

You can buy songs and movies online. You can make donations to your favorite charities. You can contribute to the sites you frequent. Almost anything you need, you can find online. The only requirement is that you need to have a credit card on hand. But do you know what goes on whenever you place the number of your credit card on the blanks and check out of the virtual store with your purchases?

There are several processes that take place during an online purchase. Your virtual store would request for your name and your credit card number. The system in the virtual store can actually verify whether or not the credit card is owned by the name specified. This is an optional step though since not everyone uses their own card.

The transaction is then sent to the system of the credit card company for recording. It is important to note that currency is specified with the transaction since not all transactions made are in American dollars. As a security measure, some credit card companies would send you an e-mail to verify if you did make such a transaction. Be very careful when answering the verification E-mail. You can commit fraud by answering no even if you did make the transaction. If you do not respond after a certain period of time, your credit card would be suspended.

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Third Party Credit Card Processing Vs. Having Your Own Merchant Account

We all know that accepting credit cards is the key to online sales. Unfortunately, most merchants are unaware that acquiring a merchant account can actually save them money. And in many cases, big money!

For this experiment, we will use a fictional character named Bill. Bill owns and operates a great online resources for marketing tools and resources. Bills website is a membership based website, and therefore could potentially be approved for both third party processing and an internet merchant account. Bill starts off processing his business with a popular third party processor who offers him the following plan:

Start Up FeeNone
Monthly FeeNone
Transaction Fees 13.5% (Initial or One Time)
15.0% (Recurring)

Bills sets up his business with this popular third party processor and charges $30 per month. He has built an extensive reciprocal link exchange directory, has purchased some PPC advertising on a few of the best search engines, and has reached a excellent spot in the content based search listings for the top 5 search engines. His customer base has grown from zero before accepting credit cards, to 150 members, is just one month. Bill cant believe his success at internet marketing, and is planning on building even more web based resources and tools for his website, thus increasing the value and content. He is ecstatic at the initial results, so lets take a look at Bills numbers:

$30 (Per Membership Sold) x 150 (Memberships Sold)= $4,500.00

$4,500 x 13.5% (Initial or One Time Transactions) - $ 607.50

$4,500.00(In total sales)
- 607.50 (Total fees)
= $3,892.50(Net profit after all processing fees have been deducted)

Ok. Well Bill certainly had an excellent first month accepting credit cards with his new business venture. But lets see how Bill would have made out if he would have secured an internet merchant account for his new business:

Start Up FeeNone
Monthly Fee$15.00
Discount Rate 2.35% (Initial, One Time or Recurring)
Per Trans Fee.30 cents
Gateway Mo. Fee$15.00
AVS Fees.10 cents

Now the first thing we see is that the merchant account company is showing us more fees. This may be disheartening at first sight, but we should really explore what these fees are, and how they affect our bottom line.

Start Up Fee: This remains the same. Bill paid zero to get setup with his new merchant account, just as he paid zero to get setup with the third party processing account.

Monthly Fee: The third party processor offered us no monthly fees, yet we must pay $15.00 with the merchant account company.

Discount Rate: The merchant account has labeled one of their fees as discount rate. These fees are the fees Bill will pay as a percentage of each transaction. They are similar to the main fee charged by the third party processor. This fee when charged by the merchant account company is substantially smaller than the high percentage charged by the third party processor. But we will wait till the end of this experiment to see who offers the better comprehensive deal.

Per Trans Fee: The merchant account company charges Bill .30 per transaction he processes through his merchant account. Of course, we have already established that Bill will pay no per transaction fees with the package he received from the third party processor.

Gateway Monthly Fee: Because Bill will also need an internet payment gateway for his merchant account to work online with his website, he will also be paying $15.00 a month for his Gateway Monthly Fee.

AVS Fees: The AVS fee stands for Address Verification Service. Bill will want to use this service, to help reduce potential fraud, and customer chargebacks to his merchant account. He will now pay an additional per transaction fee of .10 per transaction.

Lets see the numbers behind processing with a merchant account as opposed to a third party processor:

$30 (Per Membership Sold) x 150 (Memberships Sold)= $4,500.00

$15.00 (Merchant Account Monthly Fee)- $15.00
$15.00 Gateway Monthly Fee)- $15.00
2.35% (Discount Rate) x $4,500.00- $105.75
.30 cents (Per Trans Fee) x 150 (Memberships Sold)- $45.00
.10 cents (AVS Fees) x 150 (Memberships Sold)- $15.00

Total Fees (With Merchant Account)= $195.75

$4,500.00(In total sales)
- 195.75(Total fees)
= $4,304.25(Net profit after all processing fees have been deducted)

With the merchant account, Bill was able to keep substantially more of his sales for himself, as profit. Bill could use these extra resources to advertise more, expand his operation, and even hire someone to work for him, even if only on a part time basis. The point is that that the better deal in credit card processing is always with a merchant account as opposed to using a third party processor. Most third party processors leverage the high levels of risk and chargebacks they must face everyday, by charging enormous fees and rates to their entire customer base. Third party processors are synonymous with Adult related websites. This is the reason for their increased exposure to risk. They must charge high rates to overcome the losses they are subject to by processing for a category of merchants that, unfortunate as it may be for them, falls into a certain level of risk and fraud that most other merchants do not. Because the merchant account company restricts its clientele to only companies with non adult related content, they are able to offer an entrepreneur like Bill, selling online content through his membership based marketing website, a much better deal in credit card processing.

$4,304.25(Net Profit with Merchant Account)
- 3,892.50(Net Profit with Third Party Processing)
= $411.75(Total Savings with Merchant Account)

This experiment has shown that the average website owner can save substantially by choosing wisely when it comes to their credit card processing solution. We have proved that most any entrepreneur can and will save substantial amounts of money by using a merchant account for their online credit card processing, as opposed to processing with a third party processor. In our little test, Bill saved $411.75, and that was just in the first month alone. Remember, that the third party processor will charge more, 15.0% to be exact, per transaction, once the customer is charged on a recurring basis. This means that for the second month, Bill would have paid even more to his third party processor; $675.00 to be exact! And that is just on the first months returning 150 customers. Every time Bill has a recurring payment processed through his third party processing account, he would be subject to a 15.0% transaction fee on all those sales. Not a very thrifty choice for credit card processing.

As with any business decision, be smart. Compare rates and plans, and make sure the simple setup is really worth the cost. In most cases, your Merchant Service Provider can setup your merchant account in as little as 24 hours. This is faster than your third party processor, and adds even more value to the otherwise already vastly superior deal you are receiving with your very own merchant account.

Make the decision that is best for your business, and best of luck! Please visit Josh Greth at CardStreet.com. Copyright 2003 Josh Greth. All rights reserved.

Josh Greth has developed, owns, and is the reigning CEO of CardStreet Cardservice Corp. To date, they have established over 100,000 successful merchants and helped make their dreams a reality, by creating a simple, yet cost effective, means of credit card processing. For more information on credit card processing, or to obtain your own merchant account for a retail, internet, wireless or phone/mail order business, please visit CardStreet.com.

Setting Up Credit Card Processing Quickly

Speed And Credit Card Processing

If you've just started your online business or have been in business for some time one day you might realize you suddenly need to process and accept credit cards quickly, even if you haven't in the past. It could be that a new customer has contacted you and wants to place an extremely large order. You may suddenly realize you are losing thousands of dollars in revenues by not processing credit cards. Regardless of the reason, you need to set up a credit card processing payment system fast.

What do you do? The best step you can take is to be informed. If you plan to open a merchant account in your name you may be surprised to find out you'll need time and lots of documentation in order to set up an account successfully. You can hire an intermediary but you will probably still have to deal with a bunch of paperwork and hassles that may prevent you from getting where you need to go quickly.

Fortunately you have another option, third party processors. You can set up credit card processing through many third party processors in 24 hours or less. Try 2Checkout or Paypal for example. Paypal will require that you verify certain information that could take 24 hours, but for the most part you should be able to process credit card payments relatively quickly. You can always switch to a merchant account under your name after you manage the crisis at hand!

Article by Frank Owen, visit his web site on credit card processing for more information on credit card processing http://www.creditcardprocessinginsider.com