Make Money Online - Accept Online Credit Card Payments

Deciding how to accept payments online can be confusing? Should you use PayPal? Do you need a shopping cart? How does a merchant account fit into the mix? If you are just starting out and not generating a high volume of income online I recommend you stick with PayPal. It’s low cost, easy to use, and most buyers online are comfortable with PayPal. Once you are generating regular income or if you want to offer payment options or charge recurring payments for monthly memberships then you’ll want to explore shopping cart and merchant account options. Shopping Carts and Merchant Accounts There are many, many options to choose from. I just want to discuss a couple. PayPal does offer a higher level service for a fee that allows greater flexibility. I have looked into this myself, but it didn’t meet my particular needs. Let me share how I set up my online payment options for customers. 1. Shopping Cart – GoldbarOne (another popular option is 1shoppingcart) These shopping cart services not only provide the shopping cart, but also autoresponder and broadcast messaging services. Once you have the shopping cart you need a service to process debit and credit card payments for you. 2. Merchant Account – Practice Pay Solutions You have to apply and be approved for a merchant account. A merchant account allows you to accept debit or credit card payments and serves as an agreement between a retailer, merchant bank, and payment processor (such as authorize.net) for the settlement of debit or credit card payment transactions. How these pieces fit together was really confusing to me initially. I was in business probably 1 year before I upgraded from PayPal to a merchant account and shopping cart.