People who are planning to start expanding their business to an online venture tend to have a misconceived thought that it is not an easy task. This thought is largely due to the misconception that setting up an online credit card merchant account is not easy as there are many procedures involved in it. Contrary to this thought, the fact is that setting up an online merchant account is probably the easiest step in the entire eCommerce business setup. By having information about the process involved in getting an internet merchant account and by being aware of what you need to look out for during the process, you can get the process completed easily. Earlier you had to depend on banks, financial institutions and independent sales organizations for getting a merchant account setup. Now, with the popularity of online payment on the rise, there are a lot more options that are available to you for setting up a merchant account and setting up the account is now a simple process
Application Process
- Gone are the days when there used to be tons of paperwork that you needed while setting up an online credit card merchant account.
- Nowadays, the whole process has gone online and with most of your financial information available to companies online for scrutiny, there has been a reduction in the paperwork done.
- There used to be times when application fee was collected by the service providers, but now most of them have stopped that and that is a cost you can write off from your setup cost.
- Some of the information you will have to provide is the company name, name of the owner or promoter, address, contact information, type of company, website details, tax details, bank details, social security number, estimated volume of business, estimated credit card transaction volume and some other financial information.
- These details can be filled in an online application, but always ensure that the application page in which you are filling in your details is a secure one.
Types of Fees involved
The revenue for the merchant account providers is the fee that they charge you for the services that they provide and there are different fee structures used and differs from one service provider to the other. Some of the fees that you will come across are
- Transaction fee – A flat rate charged for every transaction.
- Discount rate – Percentage of fees paid per sale.
- Setup fee – Onetime fee paid for setting up your online credit card merchant account.
- Annual Fee – Fee that is annually paid to the service provider.
- Monthly minimum – The fee that you will have to pay to the service provider if the monthly sales fall short of the sales indicated in the agreement.
- Statement fee – The service provider will charge this flat fee you for the monthly statements of your merchant account.
Things to remember
There are a few things to remember and to be aware of while setting up the online credit card merchant account. The most important thing is to look for flexibility that is available to you with respect to the account. Make sure that you compare the costs by using some sample data and transactions so that you get a clear idea of who will be less expensive. Never fill up the application in an unsecure page and do not opt for a service provider who requires you to pay an application fee.
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