Online Business Credit Card Merchant Accounts
A Credit Article Contributed by Kris Griebe
What is a Credit Card Merchant Account?
Credit card merchant accounts allow your small business to accept credit card payments. Whether you have a small shop downtown, a large store in the suburbs, or a growing online business, if you wish to accept credit card payments, you will need a credit card merchant account.
Merchant accounts can be gained by applying directly to a merchant service. These services specialize in setting up, maintaining, and operating merchant accounts for a variety of small businesses. These services will set up and handle everything involving your new account.
My Small Business Operates on the Internet, Can They Give Me a Credit Card Merchant Account?
Yes, they can give you an account, and better yet, these services will help you set it up! You don't have to be an internet whiz to start accepting credit card payments. On top of this, you will not have to buy expensive hardware and software in order to accept credit cards. These services will take care of all that for you. They will set up your business with a secure transaction site, and process all the information for you, including deducting the payments and crediting them to your account. Best of all, you don't have to do any upkeep, they will provide that for you.
All you will need in order to accept credit card payments to your business is a computer with internet access (it doesn't matter where the computer is), a browser, such as "Internet Explorer", "Netscape", or "Mozilla", and the service itself! Once you have these three things, you can immediately begin accepting credit card payments.
Why Do I Want a Merchant Account, I Don't Need to Accept Credit Cards, Do I?
Well, there is an alternative. You could allow your customers to mail you a money order or personal check for every purchase made. The problem with this is the time it takes! Mail will take anywhere from two days to one week to get to you (or more if you receive an international order), and if they paid with a check, you have to wait for it to clear at the bank. Then there is the processing time before you ship their item out, and then the time it takes for the item to go through the mail back to them. This means it could take several weeks!
Most customers will not want to put up with the wait, not when they can go to another website and get their item much quicker. Most will even pay a little more if it means they get what they ordered more expediently. Accepting credit cards is the best way to speed up your delivery process.
Credit card payments are also safer. You won't have to worry about payments lost in the mail, or personal checks bouncing! The funds for a customer's purchase will be deducted from their credit card and deposited in your account in a matter of moments.
There are many benefits to having a credit card merchant account. The real question is, can you afford to NOT have one for your online business?
