One of the best features of owning an online-based business is the amount of money you save on start up costs, and ongoing overhead in comparison to businesses with physical locations. Not only do you not have to pay high rental or mortgage payments for the space, but you save on utilities, business insurance, and even credit card processing accounts.
In order to accept credit cards either online or through your physical storefront, one of the things you are going to need is an account with a credit card processing provider. A Credit Card Processing Provider is a company that manages the interface between your credit card terminal or shopping cart software and the Visa/Master network.
It’s a given that running an online business means that you need to accept credit cards. If you don’t then you are losing as much as 70% of your sales to competitors who do accept credit cards according to an article published by Forbes Magazine. But it’s not just online businesses that suffer lost sales by not accepting credit cards. That same 70% figure, and higher in some cases, is applicable for off-line businesses as well.
If you’re a small business or just starting out, you may not feel ready for a merchant account. Obtaining a merchant account is not usually considered difficult, however, for a newly established business it isn’t always feasible to run out and a merchant account immediately. Starting a business is often costly and risky to begin with- you do not need to go out and spend money on optional features (like a merchant account) until you know whether or not your business is going to succeed, and whether or not you’ll have the need to accept credit cards from customers.
As a business owner, when you set up a merchant account to enable your customers the ability to pay for your products or services using credit cards (or debit cards with a Visa or Mastercard Logo), you will have some fees associated with the credit card transactions.
As an online merchant accepting credit card payments, you have numerous security issues that you must be aware of for the safety of your business and your consumers. At this time, there are two main aspects of credit card security for credit card processing, including “AVS” and “CVV”. Both allow credit card transactions to be completed anonymously over the internet, and any merchant accepting credit cards online should require both forms of information of your customers.
When you set up shop and allow for payments via debit and credit cards,
there are numerous advantages- including spontaneous shoppers, and
people who will buy more when they can put it on a credit card, but
there are also a few disadvantages as well.
Are you the owner of a home based business that wants to be able to
accept credit cards payments from clients or customers, without all the
high fees that typically go along with it? Well, now you can thanks to
e-commerce and the internet.
Choosing the best business credit card takes a little more research than finding one for your personal use, but the time spent educating yourself on credit limits, interest rates and repayment options will pay off in the long run.