by Bobbi Hunter

Created on: May 05, 2008

Accepting payments online is vital for running a successful business at home. Once you have products or services to offer, a website rich in content, you must then have a merchant account.

Most customers, during this age of technology, rarely want to wait until you receive their checks. They want to pay now and receive their items now. It is crucial to select the right merchant account for your business.

You may want to give your customers a choice between paying online with their debit or credit card, and mailing you a personal check or cashier's check.

If you decide to let customers pay with their personal checks, please include a statement in your policy section that you will hold the check until it clears. Include that if it bounces you will charge them a fee. The usual fee is about $25.00.

I can remember my first merchant account. I signed a contract and bought a terminal for a ridiculous amount of money, later to find I could have purchased the same terminal for hundreds less.

Be wise and take your time to make any business decisions. Never allow someone to make you feel rushed to decide. There is really no reason that you need to have a terminal to accept payments. Read the companies policy thoroughly. Do a Google search for 'accept payments online' or 'online merchant accounts'.

There are plenty of online merchant accounts, which are both user-friendly and offer reasonable rates. My favorite online payment systems are PayPal.com, Charge.Com, 2CheckOut.Com, and Authorize.Com.

PayPal.Com

I love PayPal and now only use their services. I believe they are the best. PayPal charges a 5.6% fee on all payments you receive or the total at checkout. There is no charge for making payments. It allows you to send requests for money and invoices to clients. You may sign up for a personal or business account.

PayPal integrates very well with websites. There is a section in PayPal where you can set up the payment needed by the individual product or as a storefront.

People that want to purchase your product or service click on the Buy Now' button and they are taken to the products purchase page. You can accept all kinds of credit cards and international purchases through PayPal. This one is really worth looking into.

Authorize.Net

They offer several methods of linking web sites to the payment gateway. Authorize.Net offers great customer service. They also offer shopping carts for your products. The monthly fee is quite competitive.

Charge.Com

Apply there with no setup or application fees for your merchant account. You also will not need to pay for the software they use to accept your payments online.

2CO (2CheckOut.Com)

There is a one-time fee of $49.00 for setup. They take 5.5% plus $0.45 from the total on each order. It fully integrates with your website. They allow the customer to pay by check or credit card.

This is an important step in keeping satisfied customers coming back time after time. If this happens, there is no limit to how vast your business will grow.

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