Hello.

I am new to Soho and looking to setup my online store. I was wondering which payment gateway is the best for my type of business.

I will have tons of products that will all be available online for direct purchase (meaning no e-book downloads, etc.?)

There are numerous options which allow you to collect payments directly from site, go to 3rd party vendors, etc., and I am unsure as to what this all exactly means. If anyone can offer me some assistance it would be more than appreciated. I am looking to maintain the checkout process entirely through my site, without the visitor being redirected to another program, so I am trying to find the best payment gateway to aid along those lines.

Thank you very much for you assistance.

Well what you use for a gateway will depend on your merchant account. Seeing that you dont know what gateway to use, I would also assume you dont have one of those either. To accept credit cards online you must have BOTH. A Merchant account is NOT the same as your bank account or business account. Where you are located will also determine who you use. There are gateways, such as eway that are country specific, Worldpay is another.

You will also have to use a dedicated ip and SSL if you take payment onsite thru one of the gateways. The only way around this is to use 3rd party payment providers like paypal, email etc.

If you take orders thru email, please be advised you CANNOT take credit cards as payment. You have to have a way to process them, you cant just walk up to the bank teller and give her a list of numbers and expect to be paid, you will still need a merchant account, unless they pay you by check or money order.

Karen

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Ok, thank you for your assistance. To give you more information regarding my account I am located in Chicago, IL and setting up my site through SohoLaunch and using the shopping cart feature to insert products into my online directory. Which company do you suggest I use to accept credit cards on my site (sales within the US only). Can you please clarify the difference between a merchant account and payment gateway. What is a tried-and-true combination of both that many online sellers use?

Thank you very much for your help.

Vodahost offers you a free setup on one that uses authorize.net I believe.. I dont know which bank they use.

A gateway is like the ATM machine between you and the bank, the virtual terminal, the merchant bank actually takes the money from master card, visa, discover, amex etc, and then the merchant bank pays you.

Authorize.net is one of the biggies in the US, and several banks offer merchant accounts, your bank might even offer them.

Karen

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