Article Submitted by: Merchant Account Central.
Are you going to start an online business? One of the most important things for you to consider will be how you are going to accept payments from your customers. It will not be practical for the customer to send you a check while you also face the possibility of the check bouncing due to unavailability of funds in the account of the customer and people are reluctant to give away details of their bank accounts to make an online purchase. So what are the other options that are available to you to accept online payments?
Credit cards
This will be the most convenient method of payment for many customers. In order for you to be able to accept credit card payments online you need to first open a merchant account with a merchant service provider who will link your account with that of the credit card company of the customer and collect money from the credit card company and deposit it in your merchant account.
Due to the high demand for credit card processing, merchant account services are now affordable and within the reach of small businesses.
Amazon WebPay
If you intend to do business with Amazon you can use Amazon WebPay to accept money from customers for free. The customer can send a payment request from the Amazon payment website to the email address of the seller. The customer will fund this transfer with the money in his Amazon payment account or use a credit card. You can withdraw the money sent to you or use it to purchase Amazon gift certificates. There is a minimum withdrawal limit of $10 per cash withdrawal or $1 for Amazon gift certificate withdrawals.
PayPal
PayPal is one of the most dominant methods of payments used online. It is an easy as well as secure method to receive money online. Both buyer and seller must have a PayPal account and both parties should enter credit card and debit card information to the PayPal account and the transaction is carried out between the two accounts. The information given to PayPal remains within PayPal and is not exposed to all the parties involved which can be a security threat.
You can accept payments from PayPal by adding a PayPal shopping cart to your website or by adding a PayPal “buy now” button for the items for sale. You can choose a type of PayPal account depending on your needs.
PayPal also provides additional security with the PayPal Security Key to ensure extra security for your financial transactions by making a onetime payment.
