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Accepting Payments Online through your own Internet Merchant Account
Accepting payments online via a merchant account puts you in control and limits your reliability on outside payment acceptance services. Besides an Internet merchant account, you will need shopping cart software, a store or site host, a processor, and a secure payment gateway. You may fit these pieces together in several different ways. On one end of the spectrum, you can choose the provider for each piece individually. On the other end, you may choose a turnkey solution, where a single provider has completed the puzzle for you. There is no single best solution. Your choice will depend on your particular needs and experience. Among other considerations, you should factor in your own comfort with the technologies, customer convenience, providers' service levels, available technical support, reliability, costs, and time commitment involved.
Accepting Payments Online through a Third Party Online Payment ProcessorIf you are not ready to set up your own online merchant account and/or you want to offer additional online payment options, you can turn to a variety of third party online payment processors. Third party online payment processors provide a way to accept payments online without the extra cost and obligation of a merchant account. To compensate, transaction fees and/or discount rates are significantly higher than for merchant accounts.
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