A merchant account or third party payment processor?

If You are thinking about selling Your own products online You must provide for Your customer secure online payment.

That means You must have a credit card merchant account or you can turn to a variety of third party, online payment processors.

But to obtain merchant account for online payment sometimes for new businesses is "Mission impossible". Because if You want to have a merchant account with the major credit cards such as American Express, Mastercard, Visa and Discover card You must have a legally registered business, You are not allowed to process credit card payment for personal use.

You are exposing Yourself to high risk when You're accepting credit cards online. When You accept online payment fraud rates are higher than traditional retail.
Consider and ask Your merchant account provider for monthly fees for Your merchant account. Sometimes You must pay a certain amount of money even if You don't have any transaction this month, and also You should calculate a monthly getaway fee and getaway setup fee.
The payment gateway server is not provided by Your merchant account.

What are payment gateaway server?

When Your customer submits purchase transaction online using credit
card this data is encrypted for security purposes and then sent to payment gateway server using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). SSL are cryptographic protocol that provide secure communication on the Internet. The payment gateway sends the encrypted data to a bank who provide a credit card, financial institution or credit cards institutions for validation of the requested transaction. Then credit card provider sends an authorization code or declines message through link to the payment gateway and then forwards to the merchant. This process from purchase, verification and back information is called a "real-time" payment processing.
You should ask Yourself, "Do I really need a merchant account?"
For small merchants who process a few hundred dollars transaction
per month a third-party processor would be preferable as fees are charged per transaction. Also not a marginally You are eliminating the monthly fees and, in most cases, the setup fee as well.
When Your money making business is at the beginning, and You are
not experienced with html code and web design it is much easier for You to implement a html code for purchase transaction in to Your web page with payment processor. They provide You with "buy button" code for Your product or order page and that "buy button" code will direct buyers to payment processor. Payment processor then works as payment gateway and provides You with secure information about this transaction.

Never leave a big amount of money on Your payment processor account!

Also if You are money making person who makes a profit with some affiliate program You can receive Your earned money with payment processor as well. Almost every affiliate program offers to You a possibility to receive money by check or some payment processor.

If You are beginners in online business then I suggest You to sign up with few payment processor provider, they will make Your money making opportunity much easier.

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