How to Accept Credit Cards

Last Update : 2008/08/20 Rating : Not Rated

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How to Accept Credit Cards

In order to process credit cards through your online store, you will need a Merchant Account and a Payment Gateway.

Merchant Account

A merchant account is simply a commercial bank account that allows you to accept credit card payments. There is a transaction fee which is a percentage of each purchase. The percentage is based on volume. Higher volume accounts have a lower transaction fee percentage. There is typically a minimum monthly fee, sometimes called a “statement fee”, of around $20. This would come from a 3rd party such as your current bank or one of our recommended partners.

Payment Gateway

A payment gateway allows your online store to connect to your merchant bank account. It acts as a “virtual terminal,” as apposed to a card-swipe terminal. There is typically a small transaction fee and a monthly fee for this service. Merchant account providers typically resell this service from a 3rd party, or you can use one of our recommended partners.

Example Transaction Scenario

1. A customer places an order on your store.
2. AmeriCommerce contacts your payment gateway over an encrypted SSL connection, providing your account information and the customer information.
3. The payment gateway sends this information to your merchant account bank.
4. Your merchant bank contacts the credit card issuer bank for your customer and gets authorization for the amount of the order, while verifying address and other information.
5. Your merchant bank returns a response to the payment gateway, which returns a response to AmeriCommerce, which will either mark the order’s payment as approved or declined.
6. At the end of each day, the payment gateway processes all payments automatically to deposit the funds into your merchant account.

Our Recommended Partners

Merchant Account

If you do not have a merchant account, AmeriCommerce recommends PaymenTech. They also offer heavily discounted rates for the Authorize.Net payment gateway if you use their merchant account.  Ask a sales representative for the signup information for PaymenTech.

Payment Gateway

AmeriCommerce is compatible with over 50 payment gateways, though we recommend Authorize.Net as the best and most widely-used payment gateway.  Authorize.Net also offers merchant accounts now as well. You can sign up with them with the attached form below.  One is for the gateway only (if you already have a merchant account) and one is to have them set up the merchant account and payment gateway.