Understanding your Internet merchant account
Probably everyone who has surfed theInternet will have come across the term, internet merchant account or at least used one to buy a product.
But have you stopped to find out what it means?
Most of you probably have not because you were busy doing something else over the net during that time and did not want to stop your work.
An Internet merchant account is actually the facility that allows you to take payment from customers using credit and debit cards an example you have no doubt used is Yahoo Merchant Solutions
they power many popular ecommerce websites.
This is the “gate” through which processing of your payments is done, whether it is by credit card or any other form of payment.
Features and Factors
An internet merchant account is necessary in order for you to receive money into your bank account.
It is the back end of your ecommerce web site and the final link in the sales process chain from your customer to your bank account. Other features commonly used with an internet merchant account :
Virtual terminal
This is the place where a customer can place an order after using the ‘help’ or ‘contact us’ button to enquire about your product.
Many people dislike the fact that they need to go back to the home page and again navigate to the item they are interested to buy.
They would rather just place the order after their questions and/or concerns have been clarified.
Fraud alert
This is something that most payment gateways have build within, just like a bank has an inbuilt alarm. Sometime this alarm gives false alarms, but most of the time it is accurate and is something to look for in your internet merchant account provider.
By using a good fraud prevention system you save yourself and others from a lot of problems.
Many will include special features such as AVS or address verification system where the details given by a customer at registration time is checked for accuracy.
Checks include matching the name mentioned on the credit card with that who received the goods, as well as the three digit number that the credit cards have on their backside for additional safety, etc.
Recurring billing
This is something most gateways do for regular customers. By this process, you will need to key in your payment information only once on the site.
After that everytime you make another purchase, the site will recover your information and before checking it out with the customer for any change, it is processed. This saves the customer time and effort.
Other types of payment – some gateways provide processing of e-checks though this method is really not very popular as it is slow and difficult to process. But if your internet merchant account allows it it may be useful to have.
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