How do I get started accepting credit cards?

[Guest]

Hi, can someone help me with getting starting with accepting credit cards? How do I get a merchant account to accept the major credit cards and how does that integrate with Cube Cart? How much does it cost? Any help is appreciated.

Thank you.

[Guest devstudent]

You need to go to a merchant service web site and apply for the service like PayPal, just for an example and since a lot of people new to internet commerce tend to use it.

You'll also want one that will integrate easily for you into the shopping cart software you'll be using like Cube Cart, just for example and since your already on this web site.

Telling you a cost and which one to use is up to you. I personaly selected PayPal myself just because I am running an online business and they are more online oriented than my local bank.

They offer several different options at several different price ranges. Since I wasn't anticipating 1000's of per day transactions, but wanted my customer transactions to take place on my web site without being redirected somewhere else I selected to go with PayPal's Website Payments Pro option myself. It runs like $20 a month for the service, plus a small percentage of each transaction, the cost and abilities with it best fit my particular needs, but they do have more and less expensive options depending on what your looking for.

You can see their different options here...

-PayPal Merchant Accounts url=http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_merchant-outside

There are other sites out there you can google that will redirect your customers to their sites for the payment portion of the process, including PayPal. It doesn't look very professional doing business this way, kind of like if you had a brick and mortar store in your local town and everytime a customer walked in your door to buy something you sent them off to your bank to pay for it there, then return to your store to pick it up. Still this is probably the easiest method as far as set up for most people, that ease of set up is also though why it doesn't make your business look very professional. Myself, when purcasing online, if I get redirected to a different web site, or get an SSL Certificate that isn't for the web site (shared) I'm actualy on to make my purchase I leave without making the purchase.

Another thing you'd need to consider if your planning on doing all your payments at your own web site directly is a need for compliance with the PCI Data Security Standard. It will certainly work towards helping you prevent and protect both yourself and your customers from fraud, and from your getting sued some pretty insane amounts. It's a good thing, I use to just think if I was buying on line I was doing so from companies that knew what they were doing and I had a degree of safety and confidence in that. Lately though, now that everyone and their brother is attempting to be their own online merchant, it's become very clear to me that there are a lot of completely clueless and completely computer illiterate morons, for lack of a better word, setting up their own sites, taking credit card information and not having the first clue about what they are doing! That to me is a very scarey concept, and as the popularity in doing it grows, the problems as a result of it are also going to grow and it's going to kill this type of business unless something like the PCI DDS becomes solidly established. No offense intended to anyone reading this who may be thinking I'm implying they are a moron, but when it comes to protecting my own money and personal information, it does scare me to think that we have people running some of these merchant stores online who don't even know how to figure out a directory structure or path on their web site, so there is no way possible they can even begin to insure their web site is secure to any degree and my money as well as information is being properly protected.

You can read more about this here...

-E Commerce Times url=http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/54673.html

Since I own my own servers, and have people who are for the most part completely clueless on these servers setting up their own web sites the risk is even greater for me personaly, or at least the responsibility for me personaly is greater. Even the craftiest user, if on a shared server with other people can be at risk if those other users on that server do stupid things. In any event, I decided early on I wanted as much protection as possible for both myself and my customers so I have hired a third party security company who regularly audits and tests my entire data structure from top to bottom.

I'm sure there are other simular companies out there, but for myself I went with Qualys to provide this service for me, you can see what they have to offer by going here...

-Qualys on demand security url=http://www.qualys.com/

That should be plenty of info to get you started on.

[vokf]

The costs will vary depending on your risk, trading history, levels of sales and your location. For example, the US has different rules with regards to a merchant account than the UK.

I was quoted �200 setup and 7% (yes, SEVEN) by Royal Bank of Scotland. The setup fee wasn't a problem, the commission was. I was selling low-risk items and it should have been sub 3% imo. For the time being, I'm using PayPal with a custom payment page.

If you don't have any trading history, and are on a budget - PayPal / NoChex (UK only) etc are a good start with reasonably low commission for no set-up fee.

Jason

[Guest tokmik]

There are many good reasons why you can benefit from securing credit card merchants status. Here are some of them...

1. People with credit cards are more affluent than those without plastic. They can afford to spend more money

. * They tend to be better "credit risks", if you want to sell "open account."

2. Overall, they buy more by mail than those without cards.

3. You cannot effectively sell from commercials on radio or TV without offering credit card purchasing. Visa and Mastercard are by far, the cards most consumers have.

4. They often will make credit card purchases even when they are short on cash, and/or when their checking account balance is low.

5. You can sell on installments, obtaining permission to charge the buyer's card on a monthly basis.

6. You can ship goods with the secure knowledge that payment has been secured before shipment is made.

[Guest]

I started out with propay.com that is a very good service though outgrew their limits and though I jumped thru all their hoops twice to get the limit raised, they never did, so I switched to paypal when they started their virtual terminal service.