Credit Processing

When you begin accepting credit cards with a third party merchant account, you are connected to a global transaction network. As a result, you’ll want to ensure that you pick the right provider for your business. While there are a number of smaller processing companies that may promise more personalized service, there are advantages of working with a global processor which may have more mature technologies to protect and deliver transaction data.

All too often, businesses solely look at the fee structure when selecting a merchant account. While fees are an important consideration, and you should seek out efficient processing fees, there are larger considerations to take into account. In particular, you can often get discounted rates from major providers, especially as your volume grows, which gives you the technical advantages that their networks offer relative to smaller providers. Even if smaller providers are able to offer you discounts on your transactions, you’ll want to look at the entire offering to ensure that support and data delivery standards are up to your expectations. The fee structures will often include setup, monthly and per transaction charges, so you should add up the complete sum you can expect at the end of the month, rather than just looking at each cost in isolation. For example, a company might waive the setup and monthly fees only to charge a higher transaction fee that will end up costing you more at the end of the month.

You can often find certain merchant accounts will have transaction fees close to five percent while others are closer to two percent. In isolation these numbers are difficult to understand, so you’ll want to estimate your transactions costs in full based upon the entire fee schedule. Take into account your potential growth as well, as you can often get much lower fees as a larger company which clears more transaction. For small companies, make sure that you meet the necessary minimum transaction threshold, otherwise you might find your effective transaction costs are prohibitively high.

One of the largest credit processors is Authorize.net, which works with over 200,000 merchants to accept payments over the Internet. A major advantage of working with a large provider such as Authorize.net is that you can either process on-site transactions on the https protocol, or, alternatively, can utilize the API to process credit cards directly on your site. The company has taken extensive steps to improve the security of its transactions, which can further ensure the safety of your transactions.

Other global processors include Paypal, which is the de facto choice for merchants on eBay, and is part of the same parent company. There are also more specialized services such as e-Junkie which focus on digital download credit processing – if you are selling digital goods, the service allows you to place the secure download link behind a secure firewall until the customer pays through the service. For artists and creative professionals, this specialized service can solve many of the problems that creative designers face in protecting their work.