All About Merchant Account Processing

In any credit card transaction or application, the merchant account should always be paid attention because it this will define how advantageous the future transactions for you would be.

As defined, merchant account is the account wherein a specific merchant deals with a certain bank to be able to make credit card payments possible. Without such account or contract, no transactions can be made because there will be no order in processing the payments made for purchase or orders.

Today, more and more banks as well as independent financial firms and companies are becoming merchant account providers because they have seen how much the credit card and its usage among consumers have grown. Many of them join the bandwagon because of its being lucrative. While others are getting into it to ensure that they will provide options for credit card users as well as the companies or business establishments will have smooth sailing business transactions in terms of payments and other financial processing.

How a merchant account is processed

With the advantaged of modern technology, there have been so many attempts to make merchant account processing easier. As many people would know, when one uses a credit card, he or she allows the funds to be transferred to his or her bank account in short span of time, usually not more than one week. This is to ensure that there will be smoother yet tighter cash flow. When something goes wrong along the way of transactions and payments being made, there will be a disruption in the cash flow which will cause everyone involved delay as well as loss of investment.

To ensure that there will be lesser hassles in this type of payment system, merchant account processing has been made easier by eliminating the invoice payment system, which is among the primary causes of delay. When there is an efficient merchant account processing, the credit card payment system will be in its proper place which will enable one to have easier purchases either online or on physical stores.

More and more companies today are coming up with their own ways to be able to develop a merchant account processing system that can offer the clients the best option they will have. Some of these companies go through outsource companies and ask them to handle the bulk of the workloads in terms of credit card processing so they can pay better attention to business details that will give the clientele much satisfaction.

When it comes to qualifying for a merchant account, the first thing that the merchant account providers question is the legitimacy of your business. This is because they would not want to encounter problems in terms of fraud and other related charges that might be filed against them. If you are applying for a merchant account, expect that merchant account providers will start with a basic background check including the assessment of your business's credit history and a review of the owners as well as the officers that are listed on the application.

During this background check before the merchant account processing, the most important aspect that should be paid attention to is the incidence of the business's "chargebacks" or the reversal of a certain sale which was credited to the owner's account.

Most of the time, chargebacks come up because of certain errors which are either made by the bank of the card holder or a certain misunderstanding made by the customer him or herself.

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Part 8 – Monetizing Your Blog

You have been working hard to produce good-quality, original content on your blog and you have attracted a decent amount of traffic by doing so. However, money is not going to appear out of thin air just because you have traffic. You have to turn your traffic into money.

There are several ways to generate profits from the visitors of your blog, and Google’s Adsense programme allows you to do so with ultimate ease. First, visit their website at http://adsense.google.com/. You’ll find out more about their advertising programme there, but here are some extra bits I’d like to tell you.

First, Google’s Adsense programme is a really useful way to monetize your blog because when users finish reading your newest post, chances are they want to leave your blog because they have nothing else to do on your blog. If your Adsense advertisement block is visible on your blog, they might see advertisements relevant to them and click on them to exit your blog. Ka-ching! You’ve just cashed in on your first virtual cents!

But yes, your profits will only be cents if you don’t “do it right”. This involves placing your Google ads in the right places and ensuring they blend in to your site so that they appear more like links rather than advertisements to your visitors. Consult the page https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/static.py?page=tips.html to see the “heat map” of your blog. The “hotter” a certain area, the greater the chances of someone looking at your blog.

Once you get a Google Adsense account, you can change the colour of your advertisement text and links. You will want them to match the colours on your blog. If your blog’s text is black and the links are red, do the same for the ad blocks too! It’s that simple.

Another way to earn profits from your blog is to recommend products to your readers. When your visitors buy from the merchants you recommend, you get to keep a little commission too. This is known as affiliate marketing and it is very easy to start because you don’t have to create your own products or services.

Anyway, let’s refer back to our technological gadgets blog example. Let’s say you discover this Gadget X on a merchant’s website, and they offer an affilliate programme. What you would do is to create a post in your blog and do a mini-review on this Gadget X. Rip it apart and point out its benefits and bad points, if any, and include a link (which is given by the merchant) for the visitor to purchase the Gadget X online.

If your visitor clicks and purchases the gadget, the merchant will track from the link that the purchase is referred by you, so they will send you your share of the profits. Imagine if 1 out of every 100 visitors you get purchases this product, and you earn $27.00 commission from each purchase! If you get 10,000 visitors in a month that would be a $2,700.00 paycheque for you just for writing about ONE product.

Now, affiliate programmes are very nice ways to generate profit, but how do you find affiliate programmes that are related to your blog’s theme? Easy, just go to Google and search for +”affiliate programmes”. Another slightly better way is to go to http://www.associateprograms.com/search to look for affiliate programmes in your niche.

The two ways mentioned above are basic ways to generate profits from your blog. We’ll be discussing other great, profitable ways, so keep your eyes peeled!

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ABC’s of ECommerce Merchant Account

What are Merchant Accounts?

The process of buying products through the internet has become so convenient that we become unaware that there is actually a complex system of commerce that goes with it. With the birth of the credit card, business owners have realized its potential on making their products more accessible to their target consumers. This is when merchant account providers come into the picture. Merchant account is way for business owners to accept payments through credit cards.

What are Payment Gateways?

Aside from the merchant account provider, there is also a middle party that oversees how the actual exchange of payment information takes place. It is the online version of a cash register. Upon payment, the consumer enters encrypted information into the merchant’s web browser. The payment gateway then sends another encrypted information from the merchant account provider then into its acquiring back and lastly into the issuing bank. The seemingly complicated process of exchanging encrypted information between the different parties takes only around 3 seconds.

What should business owners look for in an eCommerce merchant account provider?

Reputation, integrity and compliance are some of the important characteristics that a merchant account provider should have. Business owners may study the history of the company by looking through the company’s financial statements, tax accounts, credit returns and its Dunn and Bradstreet credit file. The merchant account provider should also be properly registered to the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standards (DSS) and is insured to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Business owners may also inquire with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) to look for any complaints, if any, that have been filed against the merchant account provider.

The merchant account provider must also offer a reliable technical support. The technical support must be available for 24-hours through the net or the telephone. Most preferably, there is a qualified technician that would personally respond to any problems associated with either the software or hardware. A few seconds lost through a technical problem would also mean loss of profit.

Business owners should also look into the cost that the merchant account requires from them. There are additional costs to consider other than the typical costs that goes with merchant accounts like interchange fees, transaction fees and monthly fees. There are hosting fees, website maintenance and design costs and website start up fees. Most of the time, the less you pay for these additional costs, the less is the quality you get and the poorer service you give to your costumers.

What are the risks associated?

The risks associated with an eCommerce merchant account provider are basically the same as with the traditional merchant account provider. Fraud is the most common scam in online transactions. Hackers may enter into the system and transfer credits into their own accounts. They may also steal the customers’ personal information from the merchant account system and use it for other fraudulent transactions.

Other risks may also be accounted to the part of the costumers. They may falsely claim that the product was not properly shipped, that it was not accurately described as it was on the website or that they may not actually have received. The customer may also complain of unfair or incorrect billing.

What are some of the best eCommerce merchant account providers?

Charge.com easily tops most of the reviews of merchant account providers. Some other highly praised merchant account providers are Merchant Account Express, CyberBit and Electronic Transfer.

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