Online payment processing is needed for most businesses in today’s world. If a business has a store, they probably also have an online ordering system as well. Some businesses are purely run from online. Either way, a lot of businesses have expanded to offering online payment options.
This changes the way you ring up a client. If a client purchases something at a store, the credit card is swiped at a terminal and processed at the company, with an employee present. Online, however, a client can purchase something, and the company has no way of verifying that the identity of the customer matches that of the card.
In order to reduce the risk of credit card fraud as much as possible, credit card processing companies have created different safety mechanisms. These include requiring personal information that only the cardholder would know, and providing the merchant website with a secure and encrypted page that clients use to submit payment information. Credit card companies do charge additional fees for providing this with the purchase of the merchant account because of the increased security risks to themselves.
Credit card merchant accounts vary, but in order to accept online payments, an Internet merchant account is necessary. When this account is set up with a credit card processing company, they help you incorporate a shopping cart or similar set up into your website, as well as the encrypted page to enter credit card information into. It is important that this visually appears safe to your client, or they could change their mind about purchasing online. You can arrange to have the payment open in a new window, or have a pop up window notifying the client that they are being redirected to a safe page. The importance of the appearance of your online processing steps cannot be stressed enough.
Offering online ordering as an addition to a store can result in a tremendous increase in sales. The fees associated with opening an Internet merchant account seem big at first, but dwindle quickly as clients are able to reach out to you from anywhere. The ease that online ordering offers a client cannot be beat. Also, the marketing that comes from online ordering can reach places that your store or maybe you were not able to go previously.
Accepting online credit cards and payments may seem expensive at first, but is well worth the investment for you and your company.
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