What a great idea! Start accepting credit cards and watch your profits soar.
Nothing could be simpler. Or so you thought until you began researching merchant
accounts. It can all get extremely confusing. There is an easy way to find the
best deal that suits your business. You'll be able to compare apples to apples
and have a clear picture of what the merchant account will cost you.

Over the last two years there have been a number of initiatives on the
Internet Payment Front. Ever since the dawn of e-commerce, Credit Cards have
ruled the roost, primarily because they were already in wide circulation and
used extensively by the brick and mortar business. However, credit cards, while
great for the day to day purchased in the physical world, came across one big
problem in the virtual world.

If you are trying to sell a product or service on your business website, you
would need a way of accepting payments on it. The most popular mode of payment
on the web is credit cards. Credit cards can be accepted in two ways on a
website. You can have your own merchant account, or you can use a third party
payment processor.

E-Commerce, E-Business, Internet Shopping, On-line Storefronts, Digital
Storefronts, Electronic Shopping, Internet Commerce, Web Commerce, B2B, B2C,
etc. are all terms used by marketing to grab a "mind share". They all refer to
buying and selling over the Internet. Client-Server, client side functionality,
server side storefronts, thin client, server enabled, client enabled are terms
that, if you're a busy Internet shopper, are important to you. They refer to the
way your Internet shopping session functions.

As a Web Hosting Provider, your payment processing needs are quite different
than that of many other business models. To effectively implement a merchant
account & e-commerce solution, you will need to put together several key
components and each of these components must be able to "co-exist amicably" with
one another.

So... you've decided to setup your own merchant account. You've seen the many
different options available to you on the Internet. Chances are, you have even
received some e-mails or postcards with great promotions and
offers.

If you want to sell online, you need to be able to accept credit card
payments. The traditional way is to open a merchant
account.  However, opening a merchant account is expensive, especially
for small businesses who are just starting. In the last few years,
however, a number of companies have entered the market with a new concept:
third party credit card processing services (for example,
Paypal). This option offers small businesses a quick and easy way to accept
cretit card payments.