Providing goods and services that can be bought online opens up your website to the worldwide market and, if you want to keep up with competitors, you have no choice but to accept credit cards for online payments. Nearly everyone has a credit card these days and it is the preferred method of payment to consumers everywhere. People with credit cards are known to be more likely to impulse shop and spend more money as the payment process is so simple, this in turn will so increase your online profits.

There are many benefits to accepting credit card payments; the main one is that you will receive your payment a lot faster than any other payment method can offer. There is no need to wait for the customer to send a cheque thus giving them time to change their mind. You don’t need to wait for the cheque to arrive through the post and then to clear before you receive the funds. If you don’t offer the choice of credit card payments you will find many customers will simply go elsewhere and that can only be bad news for your business. 

To accept credit card payments on your website there are a few systems you need to facilitate beforehand. Below is a brief outline of how the system works.

An electronic shopping cart system is based on the same idea as shopping in a bricks and mortar supermarket, you choose the products you want and then have to add it to your cart before you can proceed to checkout. At checkout all the items are added together and the system gives you the total figure owed. Then the details have to be filled in, including the shipping address the goods are to be sent to, and the system re-calculates the amount with the postage to that destination and any taxes added. Finally, the customer is asked to input their credit card details so these can be confirmed and funds transferred. At this point the gateway system is triggered to finish the sale process.

There are all types of shopping cart systems to choose from. You can choose a simple basic system that is free, these are usually from organizations that will entice you in with a free offer of a shopping cart but hope you also take another service from them. Or you can pay for an expensive shopping cart and have lots of fancy and additional extras attached to it.  When deciding on the type of shopping cart you require consider your product and the choices you want to offer your customers, also test the system yourself to see if it is easy to use, quick and reliable.

The gateway system is all done automatically and involves the transaction of funds from the customer to the merchant. As soon as the customer inputs their credit card details and clicks ‘send’ the information is forwarded to the gateway service who are then responsible for sending the information to the credit card processor for authorization.

The credit card processor is an electronic system that checks the credit card transaction and either declines it or authorizes it. Once the transaction has been authorized the credit card processor then transfers it into the merchants account.
An electronic shopping cart system is based on the same idea as shopping in a bricks and mortar supermarket, you choose the products you want and then have to add it to your cart before you can proceed to checkout. At checkout all the items are added together and the system gives you the total figure owed. Then the details have to be filled in, which will include the shipping address the goods are to be sent to, and the system re-calculates the amount with the postage to that destination and any taxes added.

Finally, the customer is asked to input their credit card details so these can be confirmed and funds transferred. At this point the gateway system is triggered to finish the sale process.

There are all types of shopping cart systems to choose from. You can choose a simple basic system that is free, these are usually from organizations that will entice you in with a free offer of a shopping cart but hope you also take another service from them. Or you can pay for an expensive shopping cart and have lots of fancy and additional extras attached to it.  When deciding on the type of shopping cart you require, consider your product and the choices you want you to offer your customers also if the system is easy to use and quick and effective.

The gateway system is all done automatically and involves the transaction of funds from the customer to the merchant. As soon as the customer inputs their credit card details and clicks on ‘send’ they are forwarded to the gateway service which is responsible for sending the information to the credit card processor for authorization.

The credit card processor is an electron system that checks the credit card transaction and either declines it or authorizes it. Once everything has been authorized the credit card processor then transfers it into the merchants’ bank account.

To accept credit card payments on your website you have to have a merchant account set up. If you don’t have this already in place then you cannot accept these types of payments. An online merchant account is a financial institution where the money coming from your sales are placed by the credit card processor. You are able to open a merchant account with organizations such as Visa and MasterCard; however, they can deny you an account if they consider you or your business a risk. Don’t worry though, there are many merchant organizations where you can apply to set up an account.

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