Tips on selecting the Best Payment Gateway and Commercial Account

Before we choose the best payment gateway for your shopping cart, let’s answer a few basic questions.

Q. What is a Payment Gateway?

A payment gateway is an e-commerce application service provider service that authorizes payments for e-businesses, online retailers, bricks and clicks, or traditional brick and mortar. It is the equivalent of a physical point of sale terminal located in most retail outlets. Payment gateways protect credit card details by encrypting sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, to ensure that information is passed securely between the customer and the merchant and also between merchant and the payment processor. – Wikipedia

Q. What is a Commercial Account?

A merchant account is a bank account that enables your business to accept card payments. You must have a merchant account in order to be able to accept credit cards.  Most companies bundle the two services (payment gateway and merchant account) together but they can also be bought separately.

Q. How Does The Credit Card Process Work?

Watch a short video to find out from Authorize.net.

When choosing the best payment gateway, use the checklist below to see how they rank:

1. Find out how quickly the proceeds from your card sales are deposited directly into your checking account  - typically you should see the money deposited within 1-2 business days.
2. Do they have 24-hour support?
3. Any transaction limit?
4. Do they accept the major credit and debit cards? Each merchant account provider can provide different credit card services to chose from when filling out the merchant application form. Generally providers will bundle the popular credit card issuers such as Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover together and some keep them separately with different fees for each credit card issuer.
5. Any warranties against fraud, chargebacks and data comprise?  Understand how your payment gateway will handle chargebacks.  Based on my experience, Paypal’s process is a one way communication, between them and the credit card and from the credit card to your customer.  It doesn’t matter if you shipped the product to them already and can provide proof of shipping.  So go with a vendor who can provide support in dealing with these situations (and you will encounter them).  Chargebacks occur when a customer challenges the credit card issuer about a made purchase.
6. What are their fees?  Set up fees: One-time set up fee charged to establish a payment gateway account.  Monthly gateway fee: charged for a payment gateway account.  Transaction Fee: Fee charged by the payment gateway for each transaction processed for the account.  Batch fee: the fee assessment per batch of settled credit card transaction.
7. What is and are they PCI Compliant?  I think every vendor I looked into is PCI Compliant and if they are not, don’t risk of dealing with a vendor who is not.

In security terms, it means that your business adheres to the PCI DSS requirements for security management, policies, procedures, network architecture, software design and other critical protective measures. In operational terms, it means that you are playing your role to make sure your customers’ payment card data is being kept safe throughout every transaction, and that they – and you – can have confidence that they’re protected against the pain and cost of data breaches. – http://techiezens.com/services/payment-gateway