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E-Commerce is perhaps the single most critical components for a site performing credit card transactions on-line. This is not so much from choosing appropriate shopping cart software, but in understanding and selecting an appropriate merchant account. Because all the associated monthly flat fees, transaction fees, and per-occurrence fees can add up quickly, you must be very careful when shopping for merchant services. Why do I need a Merchant Account? If your on-line business is planning to receive payments by the major credit cards with conventional shopping cart, then you must set up a merchant account. Whileconvenient alternatives exist for single transactions, they don't offer different payment gateways to integrate with third-party shopping carts, and the level of fraud protection required by high-volume credit-card sales. Merchant accounts also come with their own virtual terminals that are similar to regular on-line banking containing extra features that perform verifications of their customers credit cards. What are Gateways? Gateway processors are service providers for the banks that manage secure transactions between issuing banks of the credit card holder and the acquiring bank that underwrites your merchant account. A typical merchant card service will support one or more of the major gateways. And, because most banks outsource their gateway services, the cost is passed on to the customer who typically pays an extra flat $15/mo gateway fee on top of all their other fees. Furthermore, you may need to take gateway compatibility issues into consideration when choosing a web host plan. What is SSL? SSL stands for Secured Socket Layer. A simple explanation of sockets: A means by which different operating systems communicate through their software ports. The "Secure" means that an added layer of encryption (typically 128-bit) protects data from being spied upon by hackers. The important thing to remember about SSL relative to e-commerce is that your hosting plan needs to have it supported and enabled. All our hosting plans from the Small Business Power Plan (both Linux & Windows) and up comes with free SSL. Our E-Commerce Solutions At Innovator Web Design & Hosting, we provide three e-commerce packaged solutions that effectively come in a small, medium, and large sizes. Merchant America e-commerce is a great starter plan. The OS Commerce fills the mid-range. Miva Merchant is considered industry-wide to be the Cadillac of shopping cart technologies. It steps well beyond being a good shopping cart into inventory control and order fulfillment.
In many ways, the Merchant America Plan is most attractive as it is one of the only in the industry that comes integrated with the merchant account you set up through First Regional Bank. Whether you are a small business starting up or an established business with a website entering the world of e-commerce for the first time, this could be the perfect plan for you. Their fees are incredibly low. One reason being is they have been in the electronic transaction business since 1983 and actually own their gateway processor, so you don't have to pay that $15/mo gateway fee we talked about earlier. Also, many merchant accounts add a monthly fee for virtual terminal usage. Merchant America's is completely free. |
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