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SOME THINGS YOU MUST KNOW TO ACCEPT CHARGE CARDS PAYMENTS 5 THINGS YOU WILL WANT TO KNOW TO ACCEPT CHARGE CARDS PAYMENTS If you don't take credit card payments, you'll lose sales. Getting started taking credit card payments can be complicated. We'll break payments down for you in easy to understand pieces. So you can start taking credit card payments and get back to business. To get started with credit card payments you require 5 things: We'll help you find out about the things below: You need a merchant account provider. You need access to the credit card network through your internet site, smart phone or credit card terminal. You need an understanding of how credit cards work and what you need to do to follow credit card rules. You need to know your sales volume. You need to know how to shop around for the best deal. WHAT 'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A MERCHANT ACCOUNT AND A PAYMENT GATEWAY? A payment gateway is a service that sends transactions (Most of the time we're talking about credit cards.) This service submits your customer's purchase to the credit card network, the customer's bank and sends an OK or a decline back to you. , if you get an OK you ship your product or hand your product to the customer.. The payment gateway also tells your customer's bank to put money in your merchant account. Ok. So what is a merchant account? A merchant account holds cash gathered through a payment gateway. This is where you money is until your money is sent to a regular bank account. You'll get your money in anywhere from 2 days to 2 weeks. The much faster the better of course. A merchant account provider establishes this special account for https://www.facebook.com/Ecommerce-Simplified-997464833627504/ , inspects your bona fides, and monitors your behavior. Usually the merchant account provider is a bank of some type. What's great is that the payment gateway already has a merchant account provider association. So you don't need to find both a payment gateway and a merchant account provider. You can just pick a payment gateway. Credit Card Network: Website, Smartphone, or Credit Card Terminal There are different methods to accept credit card payments. You'll need to decide if you want to use your website, iPhone or iPad or a credit card terminal. If you're a retail business in a fixed location such as a restaurant, cafe, car repair shop, tatoo parlor and etc. you'll use a credit card terminal. If you're a business that's mobile such as a kiosk in a mall, farmer market merchant, or running some sort of pop-up retail operation, you'll want to consider accepting credit card payments on a mobile device. You'll get your customer to input their credit card information into a website if you sell online. What are the rules you need to follow? shoppingcart Refunds When your customer asks for a refund you should provide it. Also you should put your refund policy clearly on your website. You can do something like full refunds within 30 days. Or full refunds within 30 days no questions asked. Generally, showing a refund policy is also a good sales tool. Chargebacks Chargebacks are when your buyer does not like the purchase they made. They complain to their bank. Their bank sends the complaint to your payment gateway. Your payment gateway contacts you and charges you a fee. What is the charge for? The charge is a processing fee as the payment gateway will fight the dispute on your behalf. You need to respond to the chargeback disputes in a sensible timeframe. PCI DSS Finally you need to keep your customer's credit card information secure and follow PCI DSS regulations. There easy ways to do this such as using tools provided by your payment gateway. Sales Volume When we talk with payment processors, their first concern is "What is your sales volume?" , if you're just getting started as a business you can provide a forecast of sorts.. Usually, you don't want to share your volume because the lower the volume the more the payment processor will charge you. But you can't help this when you're just starting out so provide a forecast. , if you are an established business you don't need to provide the precise volume.. You should also use a forecast that shows growth over time. Give a projection for volume 12 or 24 months in advance. You Will need to Know The best way to Shop Around Shopping around is necessary in buying anything. But for payment processing it's super important. You don't want to pay too much. You want features that are available. You want to get support. You need to search around for a number of different payment processors. You can use our recommend list.