Setting up a Merchant Account
Whether you can believe it or not, businesses that are offering customers the opportunity to pay with a credit card will sell more products and increase their revenues. Customers like the idea of being able to instantly purchase products and the convenience and protection that credit cards offer allows them these advantages. But in order to process such payments, you will need to have the right tools in place - namely, a merchant account.
There are several questions that you will want to ask before you begin the process of setting up a merchant account for your e-commerce business:
- What credit cards will you accept?
- What fees and rates are within your budget?
- Where will you be able to accept credit card payments? Where do you want to be able to accept them?
- Are there any specials or packages that are geared toward your needs?
- Have you talked to your bank about the services that they can provide?
- What kinds of fraud protection do they provide?
- What kinds of sales numbers will you need to be processing?
But the last question is actually the first one that you will want to ask yourself - are you a high volume or a lower volume merchant? This isn’t about where you plan to be over time, but where you are right now in terms of how many credit card transactions you will need to process each month. If you’re on the lower side, you may want to delay the use of a merchant account and stick with a simple third party processor (like PayPal or 2Checkout).
You will want to start to figure out what you want from a merchant account provider and then narrow down the list of options that you find based on price, services, and requirements. By having these options listed side by side, you can start to make the right choice for your particular business needs. However, you don’t want to base your entire choice on the lowest prices either - be sure to look at reliability and reputation before cost.
You will also want to check to see what kinds of fraud protection the merchant online account provider has in place. Services like preCharge can help you eliminate chargeback fees and reduce the number of chargebacks altogether.
Once you have chosen a merchant account provider, you will need to fill out an application to see if your business is someone that they will want to work with. Be sure to read any and all fine print prior to setting up the final contract and see if you can have a trial period in which you survey the merchant account provider to be sure that they are really doing all that they promised to do. If not, it’s time to move onto the next option so that you can be the best e-commerce business for your customers.
Brought to you by MerchantTalk