Accepting Credit Cards on your Ecommerce Site

If you’re in business online, you need to be able to handle your customer’s credit cards as they pay for your goods or services. After all the work you did setting up your online storefront, creating pages and descriptions for products, and everything else, you need to be sure that customers can actually buy your product, and that the purchase process is smooth, easy, and safe.

Paying with debit or credit cards is the easiest and most popular way to buy when you shop online. However, hackers are waiting to steal customer information at any sign of vulnerability. Your company also needs to conform to PCI compliance standards, which are safety regulations put in place by a joint venture from the major credit card companies. Depending on your choices, you may need certain shopping cart software, payment processors, payment gateways, merchant accounts, and more. These decisions can get complicated and may include liabilities. Make sure you’re asking your service providers questions to ensure you have the knowledge you need.

Finding the Right Payment Processing Options

Only certain compatible shopping cart systems work with other payment gateways. It’s important to ask if your systems will work with the credit card processing functions you’re in the market for. If you’re using a content management system, there may be plug-ins or widgets for it that will greatly simplify your options.

With online credit card processing, you usually only pay small transactions on percentages, as well as an initial start-up fee. Some may have an additional fee for support or upgrades, which you’ll want to know about up front. You will need an ecommerce merchant account and an SSL certificate. A merchant account is a link between you, your bank, and your customers’ credit card processing database. An SSL (secure sockets layer) certificate signifies that your website is safe and encrypted, so private customer information can’t be stolen.

You need to apply for a merchant account. However, if you’re an existing business, you may already have an existing merchant account that lets you handle the credit cards you take in person. Regardless, check with your bank and ask about their internet merchant account options. Check with other banks as well to compare your options, and look online as well; there are now many services that cater specifically to internet merchants, and may offer better deals for your specific situation. Remember to ask what payment gateways each service uses.

Group ISO E-Commerce Solutions

Group ISO is a one-stop shop for payment gateways and payment processors, accepting of all major credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, and Discover). Our gateways are easily integrated and work with plenty of shopping cart systems. We are PCI compliant and our API uses its own SSL certificate to keep your data safe. And we have a wide variety of other features that set us apart from the rest.

Check out the full details of our plans, or call sales support now at 1-800-722-4476.