Payment Collection

There are many companies that provide the service of processing credit card payment.

You should consider which one to use or a combination of a few services according to your need.
There are 2 approaches to consider:

1. Use one of the easy services that will provide you with a button to collect payment on each product individually.  These services are usually more expensive (PayPal 2.9% + $0.3/transaction) and limited in scope but very easy to setup.
2. Get a full service Merchant Account with a processing company.

To open a Merchant Account you usually have to go through a pretty lengthy and thorough approval process, to determine the viability and validity of your business. There are usually set up fees involved ($50-$200), monthly fees and transaction fees.
The advantages are:

1. Low commission rate = typically 1.5%-2.2%.
2. Scalability = As your business grows in size and complexity a full service account can accommodate.
3. Flexibility = The ability to process payments in 3 ways:

1. Point of Sale: if you are a retailer and deal with clients face to face where they actually hand you the card, you get a Point of Sale credit card machine (Usually merchant has to purchase the equipment).
2. Virtual Terminal: gives you the ability to enter a transaction manually, on line on the service’s site. This is especially useful if you provide services, teach seminars or any other transaction that take place off line and still enables you to collect payment with credit cards (Monthly fees apply).
3. A Gateway: is the connection & software that integrates with your shopping cart, which enables you to process CC payments on your website (Monthly fees apply).

Recommended merchant account providers:

CreditCardProcessingLive.com
       
CreditCardsProcessingOnline.com
  
EasyCreditcardsProcessing.com

CreditCardsProcessingLive.com 

CreditcardsMerchantsAccount.com 

PayPal