Before start accepting credit and debit cards for an ecommerce business, there are few things you need to do. You need to have a Web site, a virtual shopping cart, an ecommerce merchant account, payment gateway, and a business bank account. A merchant account is a business and financial contract with a bank or a third a party such as Charge.com Payment Solutions, Inc. to accept online credit and debit card payments from your customers. It enables you to run Web-initiated transactions online in real time. A payment gateway is a secure connection or better yet remotely-hosted software that transmits data between your shopping cart and your Internet merchant account. It is the link used to process transactions efficiently and securely from a computer.

When opening an ecommerce merchant account or a merchant account consider your business reach. If you do international sales and or services, in addition to major U.S. credit card companies you need to have the flexibility to accept some cards that are more popular in other countries. Many acquiring banks accept many international cards but may limit local cards. One solution is to look into opening either a direct merchant account or a sponsored merchant account. Many ecommerce merchant account come in as direct merchant accounts that come with free payment gateway and sponsored merchant accounts may provide a complete solution for your card payment acceptances and processing. You also need a credit card machine at a physical location if you have store.

Many services provide flexibility and reliability you need for credit card online processing at competitive pricing. However, mobile payments are becoming increasingly popular. Some devices offer the swiping card capability with a credit card machine at lower processing fees. Also consider the capability to issue receipts, refund capability to customer card accounts, batch processing, multi-user platforms, and e-mail management.

There are services such as Charge.com Payment Solutions, Inc. that provide complete ecommerce processing solutions. Consider who controls the Web site and shopping cart, security, cost of services, dependability of the service, technical support, software maintenance, how long it takes to deposit money into your business bank account, fraud protection and other important aspects of the arrangement before you chose a service for your business. If you are not technology savvy, it may be better to allow a professional to manage the complete ecommerce experience for your business. The service you chose should be able to cater to growing needs of your business too.