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Increase Sales with Payment Solutions
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Take a second and imagine your shopping on a website, find the
product you've been looking for, and as you go to the order form to
purchase it, you find out that the company doesn't accept payment
online. Instead, you must mail a check. If you were like me, you
would probably click off the site and search for another company that
offers the same products and *does* accept payment online, whether it
is by credit card or online check. It doesn't take a super,
intelligent person to realize that it is inconvenient, time
consuming, and adds on lag time till you get your purchase when you
must sit down, write out a check, and mail it. That is why it is
extremely important that you offer some type of online payment
solution for your e-business.
Accepting credit cards is the most well known way to accept payment
on the Internet. Almost everyone has a credit card and by accepting
his or hers, it makes customers' ordering process much more
convenient and time saving, not to mention it encourages them to
purchase from you. Accepting credit cards has become a necessity to
the survival of e-businesses.
In order to accept credit cards, you're going to need a merchant
account. To obtain one, just do a search on your favorite search
engine. You will be provided with a list of many different merchant
account providers to choose from. Merchant services contract with
several merchant-processing banks that will actually accept and
process your business transactions.
For each transaction the bank processes, you will be charged a
discount rate, or percentage, of the face value of the amount
charged, along with a per transaction fee (usually ranging from
$0.20 to $0.30). When you perform your transaction, and receive an
authorization number, the charged amount is immediately
wire-transferred out of your customers' credit card account into your
merchant account. The merchant bank will then discount, or deduct,
the percentage rate and per transaction fee, and wire-transfer the
balance of the charge into the business checking account of your
choice. At the end of the month, you will receive a statement, for
your records, so that you can balance your account.
There are three ways to perform transactions:
1. Terminals/Hardware
2. Point of Sale Software
3. Real-Time (Automatic Online Transactions)
Since this article is focusing solely on online payment solutions for
your e-business, I will focus on real-time. How real-time works is
when your customer is finished shopping and is ready to pay, they
simply go to the secure order form page where they type in their
credit card information. In a few seconds, a message appears on their
screen, showing whether their card was accepted or declined. A few
days later, the money will appear in your business checking account.
With real-time, you will be provided with an online database
containing all of your credit card transactions so you can balance
your account at the end of the month.
There's a second, and probably more unfamiliar way, to accept payment
online, and that is accepting checks by email. Until recently,
service bureaus have been responsible for check drafting, but now any
business can do it. Federal banking regulations and the Uniform
Commercial Code permit this process.
How it works is: a customer submits his checking account information
and authorization to draft their account; then the merchant takes the
information and enters it into a check printing program on their
computer. From that point, the merchant can print it on special
check paper (available from the software provider) and take the check
"draft" to their bank and deposit it as if the check was mailed
directly to them. Not only can a merchant accept checks by email
with the program; they can also accept them by phone and fax
capabilities, also. This is a great alternate solution to credit
cards as you will find some customers who aren't interested in
putting their credit card information on your site. If your
interested in this type of payment solution many merchant account
providers can help you get this solution along with a merchant
account for credit card acceptance.
In summary, I would highly recommend obtaining a merchant account
for your business. As the Internet continues to grow, more
businesses come online and more people decide to make purchases on
the Web, it will become essential that your business accept payment
online (especially credit cards) in order to survive in today's
business world.
About The Author:
Jim Conley II is the CEO/Founder of MerchantSeek. MerchantSeek allows
merchants from around the world to search FREE for a Merchant Account
Provider that best fits their businesses needs and budget. Visit us at
http://www.merchantseek.com/
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