How to Accept Money on Your Website

There is really more to your online businesses than just setting up a website. Let’s assume you have set up a website to market your services or products. Though your products and services may be great, without an adequate system to accept money from your visitors, you are not going to realize any profit. Absolutely the more alternatives of payments you have incorporated, the more sales you make. I remember how disappointed I used to get when I want to buy something from a site and discover that I just don’t’ have the required credit card. When I first got interested in online businesses, I used to wonder how business men and website gurus get to accept credit cards on their sites. If you have been thinking like me, then I have good news for you. It is usually not that complicated as I used to think. The good news is that third party companies and banks take care of that.

Merchant Accounts

Surely there is no hiding the fact that to accept credit cards and online checks, you will need a merchant account. If you allow only credit card sales on your site, those without credit cards will leave your site disappointed and may never return. They may be the only ones that would have patronized you. Except you are setting up an online business for fun, your payment system is not something you should leave to chance. So many people have made such mistakes and I would not like you to make same. One secret most online merchants don’t know is that most people that visit the internet don’t have credit cards. If you don’t have an alternative for credit cards on your site, I think you are joking and would advise you go get one as soon as possible. No matter how desperately your vistors want to buy your products and services, if you don’t have at least one alternative to credit cards, it shows your potential buyers outright that you don’t have concern for people who may not have credit cards.

Among services rendered by these third party processors are authorization of credit cards, settlement of funds through the bankcard associations (MasterCard/Visa), depositing of funds to checking accounts and merchant billing. Though merchant accounts can be very expensive to set-up. There are now companies which have evolved to take care of the needs of Internet merchants at very affordable prices. Two great companies which I can recommend at any time are:

ClickBank and

PayPal.

ClickBank
With ClickBank, you don’t need to worry about writing codes as they usually take care of the herculean tasks for you. From processing of orders to confirmation of payment approval, it can also take care of customer billing, inquiries and bank inquiries too. Because all what the people at Clickbank want you to do is think about your business and not codes, all you need provide ClickBank with are the price of your product, your affiliate commission rate (if applicable), and the ‘Thank You’ page URL where your customer will be redirected after making payment. Once they confirm that your site meets their basic, simple-to-follow guidelines, you will be able to place additional product links, and change prices at your discretion. Whenever your customer clicks the ‘Buy Now’ or ‘Order Here’ link on your web page, they are redirected to a Clickbank order page showing the name and price of your product.
After the customer inputs her name, address and credit card details, ClickBank gets the transaction approved. Payment from ClickBank is made to you, the merchant, and commission to your affiliate, if there is one. Lastly, the customer is directed to your ‘Thank You’ page from which they may access their purchased goods. As of July 2002, ClickBank accepts the following credit card types:

Amex, Bravo Discover, EuroCard, MasterCard, MasterDebit, Novus, Visa, and Visa Debit.

In addition to credit cards, ClickBank may also permit orders to be paid via online checks. With online checks, there is a greater risk of revoked sales. If however you want to disallow this method of payment, the decision lies with you. As with all businesses, keeping your customers satisfied is important to the success of your web business. Whenever the need arises as it may sometimes do, you will need to refund a purchase. If your customer emails ClickBank directly for a refund, you will be asked to rectify the problem within 48 hours. If they do not hear from you, or the customer indicates that they are still not satisfied, the refund will be issued. To get started with ClickBank, you will need to sign up at their website at www.ClickBank.com

PayPal-Your True Business Pal

For those of us who may like to keep our web business more simple than ClickBank’s simple start-up, PayPal is truly the pal that you will have to walk hand in hand with to take care of this. With this new Pal of yours, you can accept online payments without the trouble of going through the traditional merchant accounts. One question that the newbie to online business might ask is “What is PayPal”? PayPal is an online payment system that enables its users to use their credit/debit card, funds from their bank account or PayPal account balance to send and receive money online. With PayPal, it is very easy to shop online. Before I forget, I would like to add that one other thing I enjoy about PayPal is that PayPal users can also accept money online and later withdraw it to their local or US bank account or withdraw funds using a PayPal debit card or shop online.

Though almost a universal payment solution, it is available to users in about 190 countries. Covering such an enormous number of countries, I would advise that every serious online merchant incorporate PayPal to his or her site as an alternative to credit cards. Given online credit thefts and cybercrimes, most people may not trust your site enough to use their credit cards. Most webmasters are becoming aware of this trend and are beginning to resort to alternatives like PayPal and E-gold. Most leading online stores like Dell, eBay and many more accept funds via PayPal. As at now, features offered by PayPal vary from country to country. For example, local bank withdrawal is unavailable to users in Malaysia (who however can withdraw to a US bank account), but is available to users in Singapore. Many countries (including South Africa) can only send money via PayPal, and do not have the privilege of receiving funds via PayPal.

Another good feature of PayPal is that it hides your financial payment information (credit/debit card and or bank account details) to a great extent. You only need to store your financial information with PayPal, and do not need to share it with merchants or other PayPal users since all you need to complete a transaction is your email address (one attached to PayPal) and PayPal account password when making payment. Registering with PayPal means you would not need a costly merchant account and at the same time take advantage of its low fee schedule, e-commerce integration with solutions like PayPal's easy-to-use shopping. Their product is ideally suited for small scale businesses, online merchants and individuals. PayPal's service, which lets users send payments for free, can be used from PCs or Web-enabled mobile phones.

Benefits of using PayPal

If you open an account with PayPal, then you may be open to enjoy one of the following benefits:

Accept all major credit cards and electronic checks

Low and no set-up fees

Easily integrate PayPal with your website and auctions (no programming required!)

Pay Pal Features
Payment Options include:
Shopping Cart - a Business and Premier account feature, a shopping cart allows you to accept PayPal payments for multiple items at one time directly from your website

Subscriptions - lets you accept recurring payments for your service

Single Item Purchase buttons

Donation Buttons - Accept donations instantly from your web page with these buttons.
Merchant Tools include:

Instant Payment Notification, available to Premier and Business members, allows you to integrate your PayPal payments with your website's back-end operations, so you get immediate notification and authentication of the PayPal payments you receive.

Password Management

Auction Tools

Permissions

Collect Shipping Charges - You can automatically collect shipping when you are using PayPal Shopping Cart, PayPal Donations, or Web Accept for Single Item Purchases. Shipping can be calculated as either a percentage of the subtotal or a flat amount based on the subtotal.
PayPal Shops- PayPal Shops is truly an exciting and diverse directory of online businesses and organizations which accept PayPal payments. Any PayPal member who meets the eligibility requirements may register their website for PayPal Shops.
Easy to Get Started -Use PayPal to process your online transactions in just 3 simple steps:
i.
Open a PayPal Premier or Business Account
ii.
Choose the PayPal Solution that's right for you (Single Item Purchases, Shopping Cart, Subscriptions)
iii.
Create PayPal payment buttons and place them on your website

For those of you who may want to learn more, I recommend using the net to find out more about these companies from their official websites

Receiving Payments as Freelancers
It may sometime happen that as a freelancer, you might need to receive payments from your employers. The problem usually arises when PayPal does not service your country. One way of getting around this may include using bank wire or money transfer, Ikobo, Xoom, or egold. Ikobo is somewhat similar to PayPal. To find out about their services, you can check them out at their official website. I would like to talk a little about E-gold.

What’s E-gold
Do you know that you can now use e-gold to pay for goods and services online? E-gold is an electronic currency issued by e-gold. The payment system of e-gold allows individuals from all parts of the world to spend specific weights of gold in transactions with other e-gold account holders. It’s free to open.
How Reliable is E-gold.
E-gold is issued by E-gold limited, a Nevis corporation. It is backed up to 100% by gold bullion in allocated storage. E –gold is worldwide money created to serve e – commerce through the worldwide web. E-gold payment allows payment to be made in terms of some major national currencies. E-gold is global and can therefore be used by everybody in all parts of the world. Most sites now include payment alternatives using e-gold.
Why You Must Open an E-gold Account.
1. It is efficient, cost effective and simple to use. It can be used for e-commerce. This is especially true for some multilevel marketing like massive gold, 22USD club and gold money network.
2. You can pay and also get paid in online business transactions. This is cost effective as you don’t have to pay extra for money transfers.
3. You don’t need a credit card to operate it.
4. You don’t need a merchant account to operate it.
5. You can also get paid for referring others.
6. You can also make money from selling other currencies to those who need it.

After all said and done, it is usually no harm to consult experts if you eventually run into trouble. However you might want to achieve your payment solution, I will advise that before you finally choose, you get to familiarize yourself with all the policies, terms and conditions of any one of the above mentioned companies you are settling for.

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