Businesses selling products need to be able to collect payment from their customers, either they collect it in cash form, check, or charge a credit card. When you sell a product online, credit cards are the only practical form of payment. How to accept credit cards online?
There are three common methods to accepting credit cards online, and these are listed below:
Merchant accounts + payment gateway
A merchant account is a special bank account that allows a company to accept payment by credit cards and have the money deposited to the account. The payment gateway is used to either insert the credit card number by hand, and functions like a physical Point of Sale terminal, or is fed the number by a shopping cart through it’s API (application programming interface).
Third party credit card processors
Accepting credit cards online through a third-party processor is a step down from the merchant account method, but gives you almost all the same benefits. The third part processor lets you use their payment gateway and merchant account, some even help with a shopping cart.
PayPal-type service
How to accept credit cards online isn’t any easier than with a PayPal-type service. They are a little different then the methods above in that no credit card has to be involved in the actual interaction between the customer and your company. With a service like PayPal the process is similar to the above. However, when the customer normally would enter their credit card information they are instead sent to a PayPal web page where they enter their e-mail address and confirm the order after logging in.
Money is either charged from the customers PayPal balance, or directly from the credit card they have registered on file. Money to your company is deposited to your PayPal balance. Business credit card processing can’t be more simple!
