8 Reasons Why Third Party Processors Are Better Than Merchant Accounts

8 Reasons Why Third Party Processors Are Better Than Merchant Accounts
By Richard Adams

Choosing the right payment processor to accept credit cards on the net is a difficult and time consuming task.

Like bank account accounts or mortgages there are just so many options around that you need to take an honest look at your own circumstances and desires for the future of your business before you make a firm decision.

We can generally separate payment processing into either third party processors, where you use another company’s processing account, or a full blown merchant account of your own.

There are pros and cons of both options and making the simple decision of which to look at should be your absolute first decision when looking for a processing account.

To help you, then, here are my top eight reasons why third party processors may be the perfect option for you…

1) Cheap Set Up

Whilst some merchant accounts will set you up for free, they are very much in the minority. A fee of several hundred dollars is commonplace in the industry whilst you can set up a quality third party processing account for next to nothing.

2) Easy To Set Up

With merchant accounts the application process usually involves *lots* of paperwork - and I mean potentially dozens of pages, plus audited accounts, bank statements, proof of identification and all sorts of other things.

On the other hand, getting a third party processing account involves little or no paperwork at all - making your life a lot easier.

3) Quick Set Up

Because of this lack of paperwork and all the checks involved it can also be a lot quicker to set up a third party account.

There are several companies whom you can get an account from where you can literally be accepting credit cards on your web site the same day you apply.

4) Low Entry Requirements

If you choose the right third party account you need to give only minimal information about yourself - and you’re virtually guaranteed an account.

5) International Acceptance

Whilst it differs from provider to provider, many of these accounts are available to you no matter where you live.

Canada? No problem! UK - come on in! Australia - pleased to meet you. Europe? Just sign here please.

6) Easy Integration With Your Site

One comment often levelled at merchant account providers is how complicated some businesses find it to integrate their site with the payment gateway.

Many third party processors have “wizards” that automatically generate a secure order form for you when you provide the basic details of your products.

Then you just link to that form and you’re away. It couldn’t be much easier.

7) No Monthly Fees

One additional factor to consider is that merchant accounts often charge a monthly fee. They may charge a statement fee, they may charge you to use their payment gateway, or secure server - or just to keep your account open.

Unfortunately it’s quite possible for the Internet newbie to be pushed to make any more than a handful of sales to begin with.

Sure, with dedication and hard work this can soon increase - but if you’re paying for your webhosting, broadband, autoresponder etc. each month, these fees can soon add up.

No Monthly Minimums

This is even more important. You see, most merchant accounts also have a minimum monthly value you must process.

If you fail to meet it you either get charged an additional fee, or your account can be shut down.

When I first started out on the Internet, I was making one sale every two to three weeks - for a total value of about $10. Now, as I learned how to market my site, sales picked up rapidly but if I had to meet monthly minimums my business could have died before it even got started.

7 Tips To Increase Ecommerce Sales

7 Tips To Increase Ecommerce Sales
Author: Jordan Williams

Ecommerce is just exploding right now on the Net. More and more people are doing their shopping online. Some Internet retailers are even beating out their offline counterparts. So what does mean to you? It’s important that you are taking full advantage of your web site to get your share of the billions of dollars spent online every year. In this article we are going to cover 7 tips that you can put into practice immediately to increase your sales and revenue with your ecommerce web site.

1: Introduction
Make sure to have a brief introduction on the homepage of your web site. Your introduction should be concise and clearly identify the benefits of your visitors shopping at your site.

2: Navigation
Make sure that your site has clear and easy navigation, such as a visible search box on the top part of your web site, clear categories to browse through, a FAQ page that clearly explains your shipping and return policy, and etc.

3: Gift Certificates
People love getting gifts at certain times of the year, so make sure that you have gift certificates that your visitors can purchase right on your web site.

4: Customer Loyalty
Instead of just focusing on getting new customers why not take advantage of repeat business? Why not give your customers an incentive to come back and do business with you again? You can easily do this by offering coupons and special discounts to ones who have already purchased something from you. This is a lot easier than acquiring new customers since they already know you and feel comfortable shopping at your site. You can also add more value to your customers by adding live customer support to your site.

5: Special Offers
Make sure to have a section on the top part of your home page devoted to featuring your current special offers and sales items. In fact if you happen to have a lot of special offers you can just feature the most popular ones and then make a separate web page that shows all of your sales items.

6: Shopping Carts People want the checkout process to go as and smoothly as possible, so make sure that your visitors are always just one click away to checkout. Try to reduce the checkout process to as few steps as possible. Make sure to offer multiple payment options such as credit cards, Paypal, online checks, mail orders, and such. When you no longer have a product in stock make sure to either remove it from your site or clearly mark it as “out of stock”. There is nothing more irritating for a customer to go through the whole checkout process only to find out that you no longer carry the item they ordered.

7: Affiliate Program
Do you have your own affiliate program? The most successful web sites have one and you should too. By starting your own affiliate program you will develop an increasing online sales force where you only pay them when a sale is made. There is really no risk and it is one of the best low cost effective advertising methods that you can use.

If you put these tips into practice you will notice a drastic increase in your sales and web site revenue.