Merchant Accounts

[Stevie4CB]

We are shopping for a merchant account that will handle online transactions, ecommerce, and also allow us to run transactions using a gateway and also by telephone if needed.

Does anyone have any recommendations for merchant accounts? We are interested in great rates, low setup costs and ease of use.

Any help would be most appreciated.
Steve

[bbman]

We are shopping for a merchant account that will handle online transactions, ecommerce, and also allow us to run transactions using a gateway and also by telephone if needed.

Does anyone have any recommendations for merchant accounts? We are interested in great rates, low setup costs and ease of use.

Any help would be most appreciated.
Steve

They all will allow that. You have an API that your software connects to for your web shoppers and then a "Virtual terminal" where you can enter customer information for call-in orders.

Getting recommendations for merchant accounts can be quite iffy. There are only a few companies that do their own processing of credit card transactions. However, there are thousands of ISOs (independent sales organizations), which are the companies that are usually referred to as merchant account providers. They are basically responsible for selling and some parts of technical support. The ISOs outsource the actual processing to one of the major processors. Here are two articles that will help you understand: http://www.informed-merchant.com/articles/merchant-account-supply-chain.html and http://www.informed-merchant.com/articles/who-makes-money-from-my-merchant-account.html.

In my experience the best way to get good pricing and service is to be a very informed consumer and then shop around diligently to find 1. someone that you trust personally and 2. a good price.

Here are some resources that will be helpful:

1. A long (but very incomplete) list of merchant account providers - http://www.process-merchant.com/index.xml

2. A blog by the owner of an ecommerce store that explains merchant accounts - http://www.informed-merchant.com

3. A blog by the owner of a merchant processing company that explains merchant accounts - http://www.merchantaccountblog.com/

[Stevie4CB]

Hey there, Thanks so much!!
I have some reading to do but I appreciate you taking the time out to send me some informative links!!
Thanks again,
Stevie

[bobchrist]

bbman,thanks for sharing useful links about merchant account, I checked that another link of process-merchant.com, most of the providers listed there are not popular though. Alternatively this link might be helpful I hope.
http://www.electronic-payments.co.uk/product_data.jsp

[brian.mark]

We've been looking for a secondary provider for when our main gateway is down and have found this book (http://www.internetretailer.com/top500/) to be full of information about gateways and providers of all sorts of services. Since we just happen to have a copy laying around, it was a great place to start looking.

Brian.

[dave]

Check with few processors like 2checkout,protx, chronopay, worldpay, moneybookers, authorize.net etc I think they can provide you merchant account and handle online transactions that you are looking for.