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A Beginner’s Guide To the Online Merchant Accounts
by Lena Crossan © 2007, All Rights Reserved
It’s probably one of the most misunderstood aspects of Internet business. While others make it seem so scary, truly, there’s nothing to fear. Getting an online merchant account can be one of the easiest steps in setting up your ecommerce business if you know what to look for and what to avoid.
It used to be – in order to get a merchant account – you had to fill out mounds of paperwork at a stodgy old bank then try and convince the branch manager that small businesses deserved merchant accounts, too. If you were an Internet-based business, the uphill battle was even steeper. Today, however, site owners have many other options including merchant account providers, independent sales organizations and more. Because the marketplace has opened so widely, getting an online merchant account is quite the simple process.
Merchant accounts, payment gateways, shopping carts – it all gets pretty confusing when you start looking into the various aspects of ecommerce.
In our previous articles, we examined points to consider in setting up your ecommerce site and also hints and tips on choosing shopping carts.
Let’s briefly recap the nuts and bolts of the process of online sales using credit cards.