Accepting Payments Online
By Bobette Kyle, Sat Dec 10th
There are a seemingly infinite number of choices andconfigurations to accepting payments online. Choices range fromalmost total “do it yourself” programming to turnkey packages.
You can accept online payments from an ECommerce Web site in twogeneral ways:
1)Through your own online merchant account and/or 2)Through athird party online payment processor.
Accepting Payments Online through your own Internet MerchantAccount
Accepting payments online via a merchant account puts you incontrol and limits your reliability on outside paymentacceptance services. This approach can also seem like a jigsawpuzzle. Besides an Internet merchant account, you will needshopping cart software, a store or site host, a processor, and asecure payment gateway.
You may fit these pieces together in several different ways. Onone end of the spectrum, you can choose the provider for eachpiece individually. On the other end, you may choose a turnkeysolution, where a single provider has completed the puzzle foryou.
There is no single best solution. Your choice will depend onyour particular needs and experience. Among otherconsiderations, you should factor in your own comfort with thetechnologies, customer convenience, providers’ service levels,available technical support, reliability, costs, and timecommitment involved.
Fees
There are a myriad of potential costs and fees involved inaccepting payments online, making it difficult to comparedifferent options.
Potentially, you could be charged fees by each provider involvedin helping you accept payments online - application fees, set-upfees, yearly memberships, monthly statement charges, monthlyminimums, gateway access fees, statement fees, fixed transactionfees, variable transaction discount rates (processing fee foreach transaction), and cancellation penalties are all common.
Often, it is easy to misinterpret the fees you will owe. Rarelyare all costs revealed in one place. If you are reading about amerchant account, for example, the quoted costs may not includegateway access, hosting, and/or shopping cart. Because you maybe comparing “apples to oranges”, options that at first appearlow-cost can - upon implementation - turn out to be pricey.Similarly, expensive-sounding solutions may actually bereasonably priced.
Accepting Payments Online through a Third Party Online PaymentProcessor
If you are not ready to set up your own online merchant accountand/or you want to offer additional online payment options, youcan turn to a variety of third party online payment processors.
Third party online payment processors provide a way to acceptpayments online without the extra cost and obligation of amerchant account. To compensate, transaction fees and/ordiscount rates are significantly higher than for merchantaccounts.
Each program is a little different and no single third partypayment processor is right for all situations. Clickbank, forexample, helps you sell digital products online. At last check,CCNow processes payment for tangible items only.
Deciding What’s Best for You
Whether you accept payments online through an Internet merchantaccount, through a third party payment processor, or both, readall agreements carefully before committing. Do not hesitate toask the providers questions if information is unclear orincomplete.
There is more information about accepting payments online -including explanations of merchant account fees, finding theright ecommerce providers, and third party payment processoroverview - on the ecommerce information site Take-Payments-Online.com, http://www.Take-Payments-Online.com .
Put together the “puzzle pieces” for accepting payments onlineand your ecommerce Web sales will flourish!
About the author:Bobette Kyle is publisher of the ecommerce information sitehttp://www.Take-Payments-Online.com . She is also proprietor ofThe WebSiteMarketingPlan.com Network, subject-specific Web sitesdesigned to help you find the right information for writing andimplementing your marketing plan. Visit here: http://www.WebSiteMarketingPlan.com
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September 27th, 2007 at 3:09 am
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