| By: Brennan Heyde | Published On: 11/05/2007 |
When it comes to merchant accounts and payment gateways, you can quickly get overwhelmed. We have tried to simplify things as much as possible and provide you with the best information possible.
You need both a merchant account and payment gateway to accept credit cards online. They are not the same thing, so you will need to sign up for both.
Having a merchant account and payment gateway allows you to seamlessly accept credit cards on your website. Your customers are not transferred to another website to pay (such as Paypal). Having the ability to accept credit cards on your site makes your site look very professional and also makes your overall checkout process much easier for your customers.
What is a Merchant Account?
A merchant bank is a financial institution that provides business level accounts to merchants for collecting payments from consumer banks or credit card accounts. If you’re already selling products from a retail location, you probably have a Card Present (CP) merchant account. However, to sell from your Web site, you’ll also need a Card
Not Present (CNP) merchant account. A CNP account is used by merchants that receive payments via the Internet or in situations when a payment is not physically presented to the merchant by the consumer at the time of the transaction (e.g. telephone orders).
Simply put a merchant account is used to actually process your customer’s credit cards.
What is a Payment Gateway?
Payment Gateways provide the necessary infrastructure that enables e-commerce store owners to accept credit card and electronic check payments online. They create a link between your website and your merchant account (which actually does the credit card processing). They are the middleman and the backbone of online payment processing.
Below is a diagram taken from Authorize.Net®. Authorize.Net® is unquestionably the most popular payment gateway in use today. In fact, it is synonymous with ecommerce and is often confused as a payment processor.
Additional Information
Still want to know more? Here are some great resources about merchant accounts and payment gateways:
http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=322415
http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=139173
http://www.merchant-account-services.org/
Are you ready to sign up? .MVC Madness has partnered with Authorize.net to provide our visitors with one easy application for both a Merchant Account as well as a payment Gateway with some of the best rates available.
All you have to do is download and print our PDF application. Fill it out, and fax it back to the number provided on the application.
Because you are signing up from .MVC Madness you will automatically be assigned a personal account rep to help you with any questions you may have, it’s simple and easy.
About the Author: Brennan Heyde is an e-commerce consultant working in San Diego, California. He specializes in online marketing and SEO for e-commerce. Have a struggling e-commerce website? – Contact Brennan today for a site analysis.
