How to Get Started Accepting Credit Cards Online

Being able to accept credit cards online is critical to the success of your online business. This process can be quite complicated, but there are ways to get started quite simply.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Work with your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to insure that you can provide a secure server. Customers will need this guarantee.

2. Explore your possibilities for setting up a merchant account.
   Look at the features of the merchant account providers who best meet your needs for the type of business you have and the volume of transactions you will need them to process.
   Here are just three of the many options:
   • Authorize.Net (http://www.authorize.net)
   • IntelliPay (http://www.intellipay.com)
   • Verisign (http://www.verisign.com/index.html)

3. Investigate all the fees involved in a prospective merchant account. Uncover the hidden fees as well as the ones that are presented initially as you open your account.

4. Be sure your merchant account provider can also accept orders from international customers, if they are potential internet credit card customers.

5. Another option is to process credit cards through PayPal or other services such as MoneyBookers and PayPay. Look into the fees involved, but these services often provide features that make it easy to integrate them with your website. Customer features here make the fees easier to accept knowing that a feature makes life easier for you the business owner. For example, PayPal has a procedure for handling disputes which helps the entire business operation.

Tips & Warnings

• Do not be impulsive about selecting a merchant account provider as you need to "read the fine print" with any of them.