Merchant Services

Ecommerce Merchant Accounts

Setting Up an Ecommerce Business

In order to setup an ecommerce business, you need an Internet merchant account, a payment gateway, a shopping cart, and a website.

Internet Merchant Account

An Internet merchant account is a financial relationship between you and a credit card processor, so funds can be deposited into your bank account. It differs from a regular merchant account in that an internet merchant account is approved to run web initiated transactions over the Internet, while a regular account is not approved for web transactions. Usually it involves a website with real time credit card processing. At Merchant Accounts Express, we provide you with free setup of an Internet merchant account.

Payment Gateway

A payment gateway is a remotely hosted software application that transmits transaction data (either from your website or from a virtual terminal where you manually enter or key in transactions) to a credit card processor. Our payment gateway of choice is Authorize.Net as it is pre-integrated with most shopping carts, has the most features, includes a free virtual terminal for manual entry, and is the easiest to use. At Merchant Accounts Express, we provide you with free setup of the Authorize.Net payment gateway.

Shopping Cart

If you only sell one item, or one service, or just a few items, chances are you do not need a shopping cart. However, most ecommerce businesses require some sort of shopping cart on their website. This is especially true the more items you have. A shopping cart allows website visitors to pick and choose the items they wish to purchase. The shopping cart then collects the customers address, and adds tax and shipping as needed. Finally the shopping cart connects to a payment gateway for processing of the credit card order.

If you already have a shopping cart, make sure it is compatible with our Authorize.Net payment gateway.