Merchant Services

How To Accept Credit Cards Without A Merchant Account
By Stephen Pope

To increase sales on your website, you must accept credit
cards. To process credit cards, you could apply for a merchant
account through your bank or other financial institution.

Sometimes, though, you would be further ahead to use the
services of a credit card processor. This is especially true
when you are first starting out and have more limited
resources. In this way, you may process credit card
transactions without the high front-end costs and requirements
of a merchant account.

Here, then, are just a few ways of accepting credit cards
without a merchant account. I personally use all of these
vendors and can recommend them wholeheartedly.

1. Clickbank

If your product is downloadable (such as electronic books or
software), you might consider ClickBank.com . For a $49.95
initial fee, you can process credit cards and on-line cheques
for $1.00 per transaction plus 7.5% of sales.

You receive additional exposure through free listing on their
website and through the search facilities of other websites,
such as CBMall.com.

As an added bonus, you have your own built-in affiliate
program. You decide what commission (from 1% to 75%) you would
like to pay your affiliates.

2. PayPal

PayPal.com has no initial fees. For just 2.9% of sales and $
.30 per transaction (and sometimes less), you can receive money
from anyone.

Also, you can pay others by credit card or chequing account
without supplying your personal credit information to the
payee. PayPal can be used to collect money from your auctions,
website sales, or even from friends or clients.

3. PaySystems

In the original edition of this article, I recommended
PaySystems.com (also known as MyPaySystems.com). This is what I
wrote about them:

"PaySystems.com can handle either intangible (downloadable) or
tangible (shippable) products. For an initial fee of $49.00,
you can accept all major credit cards as well as online checks.
Fees are just 3.95% of sales and $1.00 per transaction.
Alternatively, you may pay 5.5% of sales and $ .35 per
transaction."

"For this, you receive shopping cart, integration with
third-party affiliate programs (such as ClixGalore.com), fraud
screening, multi-currency transactions, toll-free support,
marketing tools, and more."

Unfortunately, PaySystems.com has discontinued their "Internet
Billing Account" for those outside the United States.

4. 2CheckOut

2CheckOut.com can handle both intangible and tangible products.
For an initial fee of $49.00, you can accept all major credit
cards as well as online checks. Fees are just 5.5% of sales and
$0.45 per transaction.

For this, you receive shopping cart, fraud detection,
integration with third-party affiliate programs, multi-currency
transactions, free on-line support, and more.

Incidentally, 2CheckOut.com has the same policy as
ClickBank.com does with regard to sales taxes. Both companies
take the position that you are selling your product to them and
that they resell it to the final consumer. Thus, they claim that
you are not subject to sales taxes on those sales.

About the Author: J. Stephen Pope, President of Pope Consulting
Inc., has been helping clients to earn maximum business profits
for over twenty-five years. To learn more about accepting
credit cards and other profitable Work at Home Small Business
Ideas, visit http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/creditcards.html

Source: http://www.isnare.com