Ecommerce Merchant Accounts

"Looking for an Ecommerce Merchant Account?"

If you can make a web page, and upload it to a web server, you can speak to the world. It's simple. To compete with all the other sites out there, however, you need an edge. TigerTom's Black Book Of Ecommerce is that edge.

If you can go one better and set up a secure order form on the internet, and get ecommerce merchant accounts, you can trade world-wide.

These come in two varieties: Third party, whereby you 'pimp' off someone else's account, and a true ecommerce merchant account, which is yours and yours alone.

This is not as great as it sounds, if your payment gateway provider (the service that funnels your orders to the bank), doesn't have good fraud protection. If you're just starting out, or your have a low volume of sales, use a third-party provider to start with. See how it goes, get a feel for the business, then change.

If your ecommerce merchant accounts are terminated for reasons of fraud, you will find it very hard to get another one. Effectively, you go on a blacklist.

The good new is that most gateway providers now have good fraud protection. Still, vigilance is necessary. If an order seems suspicious, a bit too good to be true, it probably is.

If you have a bank account of years standing, a good credit rating, or a business bank account, there's no reason you can't get an ecommerce merchant account.

Are you bamboozled by all the options available? Or maybe you're outside the US, and are frustrated by the lack of them?

Well, the US invented the credit-card. Americans historically have done much more of their shopping with credit and charge cards. So ecommerce merchant accounts are much easier to get over there. Still, all is not lost. The rest of the world is finally playing catch-up.

Things to avoid, if you can:

a) Expensive credit-card processing software rental or hire-purchase.
b) Monthly fees.
c) High discounts (the % of your sales they keep).
d) Fat fees up front (anything over $500 is a joke).
e) Salesmen calling you up with a spiel.
f) Getting lumbered with hiring their shopping cart as well.

Things to look out for at sites offering ecommerce merchant accounts:

If you need to maintain a U.S. presence - full U.S. incorporation, U.S. server, U.S. offices, U.S. bank account - or NOT.

Also if they want a deposit, and the size of their application fee. And the usual monthly minimums, discounts etc.

CLICK HERE to get the FREE Ecommerce Merchant Account eBook.