Merchant Accounts: The Easy Payment Processing Solution

By: zabel9

As the owner of a small or growing business, you know how important it is to remain competitive with other business owners, and understand the necessity of identifying and staying on top of trends in the marketplace. And in today’s marketplace, if your business isn’t accepting credit cards, then it’s in serious danger losing both customers and profits to your competitors who are.

Most small business owners today are tasked with fulfilling a wide variety of roles, from manager to clerk to accountant to marketing expert. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the idea of learning how to go about accepting credit cards as a form of payment.

But the fact is, today’s merchant accounts are much simpler than the accounts of a few years ago. Opening an account is as simple as filling out an application and providing basic personal, business, and financial information. Most account providers can approve your application within two days, meaning your company can be nipping at your competitors’ heels within a week.

But if the ease of opening a merchant account is not enough to convince you, consider the following statistics:

• Roughly 90 percent of all online sales transactions are completed with a credit card, meaning that if your business operates online – in full or in part – if you aren’t accepting credit cards, you’re missing out on a huge share of profits and losing the vast majority of customers.
• Credit card users spend nearly three times as much as those who pay with cash or check.
• Credit card users make impulse purchases far more often than those who pay with other methods.
• Credit card users are more likely to become repeat customers, and return more often for additional sales, than customers who use cash or checks or other forms of payment.
• Credit card users are much more likely to buy big-ticket items than are non-credit card users.
• Many businesses that begin offering credit cards see their sales double or triple soon afterward.

No matter what type of business you own, and how you conduct it – online, via retail establishment, by mail order or telephone, or on the road – there’s a merchant account solution that’s right for you.

Retail Merchant Account

It’s likely that the retail merchant account is the one with which you are most familiar. The retail account relies on the use of a point-of-sale terminal (or POS terminal) that allows the customer or the merchant to swipe the credit card through a special slot. This slot “reads” the information on the card and transmits it to the card issuer, which then authorizes the transaction or denies it. While it used to be the most common type of merchant account by far, the retail merchant account is fast being overtaken by the Internet merchant account.

Internet Merchant Accounts

As noted, about 90 percent of online business is conducted using a credit card, making the Internet merchant account an essential if you conduct any business online. The Internet merchant account comes in two “flavors:” one that uses a “virtual terminal,” and one that uses a gateway provider. The virtual terminal account allows the customer to enter their card information, which is then manually submitted by you or your staff to the card issuer for approval. This account results in a delay of the actual sale, since most businesses process transactions once daily. A gateway provider offers a fully automated, real-time transaction, accepting the customer’s credit card information, submitting it for authorization, and completing the transaction within a few seconds.

Mail Order/ Telephone Order (MOTO) Accounts

These accounts serve the unique needs of these industries, and usually rely on the virtual terminal to complete transactions. In many cases, companies can use a single account with a virtual terminal to handle MOTO and Internet accounts. In any case, the actual transaction will be “deferred” until the business representative enters the information into the computer by hand for processing.

Wireless Accounts

Also called mobile accounts, businesses that make sales “in the field” via sales representatives are ideal candidates for these accounts, as are tradesmen and women, such as HVAC contractors, plumbers, electricians, delivery and transportation services, and any other business that conducts all or part of its business on the road. If you select a wireless account, you can choose an account that allows you to process credit card transactions via your cell phone or other mobile device, through a wireless standalone terminal, or through a laptop with a wireless connection.

Many businesses prefer to have more than one type of account, and most merchant account providers offer bundled services that may include discounts. Regardless of the type of account or bundle you choose, there’s no getting around it: the time to sign up for a merchant provider account is NOW, to keep your business growing and competitive.