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5 Strategies to Boost Your Affiliate Sales
Copyright 2005 Diane Hughes Are you promoting affiliate products? This article will show you 5 strategies to boost your Affiliate Sales, so make sure you read it and put in practice what I'm about to reveal you. The KEY to affiliate marketing is...
8 Tips for Starting and Maintaining a Successful Online Forum
Nothing promotes a business online better than staying in touch with prospects. The more interactive the continued contact, the more of a relationship that is built with a potential client. This business principle of continued contact and...
Harmonize Elements for High Ranking
Ranking high in search engines is like a carefully balanced high-wire act: you can't tip too far to either side or you will not reach your goal. When creating a website, you must use both content and meta tags effectively, but not excessively. There...
Online Marketing: A Busy Person’s Guide
Managing your online business is a full-time job. Unfortunately, most people have other responsibilities that prevent them from devoting all their attention to e-commerce. If your time is limited, here are five things you must do to keep your...
What Is The Difference Between A Home Based Business And A Home Based Job?
As a home business entrepreneur who is primarily involved with a program wherein I sponsor Affiliates in a downline, I often find that I am the recipient of emails from new enrollees who are clearly confused on several fronts. Commonly received...
 
Online Merchant Account - Costs and Alternatives

A Merchant Account is a commercial bank account established by a merchant to receive payment via credit cards. Three parts are required to accept credit cards. Besides a merchant account, you need a local bank checking account to deposit funds and a processing solution, such a terminal or web-based store front to take credit card payments. Online merchant account, or ecommerce merchant account, is a merchant account that can take credit orders on the Web.

Cost of Merchant Account

An online merchant account will boost your online sales, but merchant account incurs various types of cost. A merchant account usually requires a one-time setup fee between $50 - $100. Some merchant account providers waive the setup fee in promotion period or in conjunction with other services. Other costs include gateway fee, statement fee, annual fee, transaction fees and discount rate fees.

Accept Credit Card without Merchant Account

When you first start an online business and have limited resources, the alternative would be to use the services of a credit card processor. You can enjoy the benefits of processing credit card transactions online without the requirements of a merchant account and high costs involved. Paypal, WorldPay, PaySystems and Clickbank are some of popular credit processing services. Popular shopping carts or online storefronts, such as eBay Store, Yahoo! Store and Microsoft bCentral, offer built-in credit card processing capability.

International Merchant Account

International merchant accounts (


target=new>http://www.4th-media.net/online_payment/international_merchant_account.php ) , or Offshore Merchant Accounts, are merchant accounts that allow the merchants to accept payments from around the world-- regardless of where your business or customers are located. Comparing to an online merchant account, two major services that come with an International merchant account are Multiple-Currency Support and International Fraud Protection.

Wireless/Mobile Merchant Account

Mobile merchants used to face unique issues when accepting credit card payments. With the advancement of high-speed wireless networks and mobile technology, mobile businesses are no longer limited in their payment options to just cash or checks.

Many merchant account ( http://www.4th-media.net/online_payment/mobile_merchant_account.php ) service providers waive application fee and setup fees to attract more businesses. However, the use of wireless service provider does incur the expense of the terminal hardware, activation fee, monthly service fee, and transaction cost.

Copyright @2005, Bruce Zhang

About The Author

Bruce Zhang has over 10 years experience in developing ecommerce and e-business application such as literature fulfillment ( http://www.4th-media.net/order_fulfillment/literature_fulfillment.php ) and supply chain management ( http://www.sysoptima.com/scm/ ) applications.