Monday 28 March 2016

Accept credit card payments

As there is a constant increase in the technology and the time deficit that people are facing most of them prefer to make payments with the help of credit cards. Moreover people instead of shopping in the market prefer shop online. This has made it very important for businesses to accept credit card payments online. When your business accepts credit card payments you get a merchant status.

This can seem to be a headache for people who get paid most of the time by checks or cash. But if you are not accepting credit card payments then also you are losing customers. This is especially the case when your business deals with consulting or with mail orders. Most of the businesses these days are opting for accepting credit card payments. More than credit cards payment through debit cards has gained popularity. To accept credit card payments you are required to be associated with a bank that would transfer the money into your account within a day or two of the sales and would later get the money from the customer who has bought the item. For doing such transactions the bank would charge you a commission of 1.5-5% for every transaction, a pre-determined fee for every transaction, and also a set up fee. Besides this you are also required to pay a rental for the terminal machine that is used in the transaction.

The fee charged for such issues depends on two main things. One is the total amount sale that you have on an annual basis and the other is the average amount that is transacted for every transaction. When you apply for a merchant account the bank would typically look into the history of your business and your performance. Besides this the bank would also consider facts like the type of business that you do and the credit record of the business. If you have an online business then accepting credit card payments is your necessity. After you get the merchant account then you are supposed to make a form for your web site. Making a form is an easy task as it can be written in any language and can be done by any normal programmer. In case you dont wish to create a code for your site from zilch then you can purchase a readymade code.

There are a number of such codes that are available and you can easily get any of those. Once all this is ready then you are required to buy a service that would help you in processing the credit card payment. There are quite a number of online services that allow businesses to set up merchant accounts. If you take the help of these services then you can forego a number of tasks and this can help you in getting all the services from just one company. After all this is done then you are required to make sure that you site is secure so that information provided by the customers is kept confidential. For making your site secure you are required to step up your site to Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). Your ISP can do this and then you can obtain a SSL certificate so that you can easily let everyone know that your site is secure.

Getting a merchant account to accept credit card payments can be an expensive deal it is hence advised that you include this factor when you are applying for start-up financing for your business. Having a system that would allow you to accept credit card payments gives your customers a sense of support and relief that your business is rising and thinking about the future. It is not always possible for businesses to have a merchant accounts accept credit card payments. This is especially the case when the business is in its staring stage and does not have many resources. In such cases also you can process credit card payments with alternatives like other online services.

Some of these services include:

Click bank:

in case the product that is being sold is downloadable then you can go in for www.clickbank.com they would charge you approximately $50 as the initial fee and with this service you can process credit card payments and also online checks. You would be charged $1 for every transaction that is done with an additional sales tax of 7.5%. Pay Pal: they are also another service that helps your business accept credit card payments. This service does not charge any initial fees. By paying just a meager amount of $0.30 and 2.9% sales tax you can process your transaction. Besides this even you can pay others through credit cards or online checks. This service does not convey your personal information to the payee for processing any transaction.

Pay Systems:

This system can take care of both downloadable or shipment product payments. You are required to pay an initial fees of $49 and you would be able to get payments from all the major credit card companies and even through online checks. The fee for every transaction is $1 and you are required to pay an amount of $3.95 of the sales. You can also opt to pay 5.5% of the sales and only a fee of $0.35 for every transaction. Accepting credit card payments has gradually become a very simple task. There are a significant number of companies that have taken up this option and have seen the variation in their business development.