Basics of Ecommerce credit card processing

Ecommerce credit card processing seems to be one of the most confusing issues for businesses doing business on the web for the first time. There are at least five elements that have to work together.

1• Your shopping cart or ecommerce solution gathers the necessary information about products being ordered, taxes, shipping charges, customer billing information and shipping information and prepares it for presentation to the payment gateway.

2. The payment gateway is nothing more than an interface between your ecommerce solution and the transaction processor. It takes the information provided by the ecommerce solution and passes it to the transaction processor and waits for a reply. The reply generally falls into three groups. The transaction is approved, declined or the transaction failed due to an error or insufficient information.

3. The transaction processor does the actual work of processing a transaction. It checks the users credit card account to insure that it is an active and valid account and, if the transaction is approved, updates the users credit card account and sends the approval back to the gateway which returns it to your ecommerce solution.

Every packaged ecommerce solution should include at least several options for credit card processing. If you choose an ecommerce credit card processing merchant account first it may require the use of a transaction processor not supported by the gateway(s) your ecommerce solution supports. Your ecommerce solution will define the payment gateway options you will have. Here are some of the fees you can expect to pay for maintaining a merchant account and payment gateway.

1• Credit Card Discount Rate: The percentage of the sale that the merchant account takes from each sale.

2. Merchant account Up-front fees: Most merchant account companies charge either an application fee, set-up fee or charge for the software you will use to process charges manually

3. Merchant account monthly fees: Most merchant accounts charge a minimum monthly fee for maintaining the account whether or not the account is actually used.

4• Gateway fees: This is generally a monthly fee charged for using a gateway service.

5• Transaction fees: These are fees charged by the gateway company for each transaction sent through their system.

Talk to your ecommerce solution provider for more information and make sure you understand all of the potential fees and charges. They can vary widely in cost and in capabilities.

For more , visit Credit Card Processing and Merchant Services Provider.

For more , visit Credit Card Processing and Merchant Services Provider.