Earn Money Online – Accept Credit Card Payments Online

Deciding how to accept payments online can be confusing? Should you use PayPal? Do you need a shopping cart? How does a merchant account fit into the mix?

If you’re just starting out and don’t generate a large volume of income online, I recommend sticking with PayPal. It’s low cost, easy to use, and most online shoppers are comfortable with PayPal.

Once you’re generating regular income or if you want to offer payment options or charge recurring payments for monthly memberships, you’ll want to explore shopping cart and merchant account options.

There are many, many options to choose from. I just want to talk about a couple.

PayPal offers a higher level of service for a fee that allows for greater flexibility. I have researched it myself, but it did not meet my particular needs. Let me share how I set up my online payment options for customers.

1. Shopping cart – GoldbarOne (another popular option is 1shoppingcart)

These shopping cart services not only provide product options, but also auto-responder services and broadcast messages. Once you have the ability to create and sell products, you’ll need a service to process debit and credit card payments for you.

2. Merchant Account: Practice Payment Solutions

You have to apply and be approved for a merchant account. An account allows you to accept debit or credit card payments and serves as an agreement between a retailer, a merchant bank and a payment processor (such as Authorize.net) for the settlement of merchant debit or credit card payment transactions.

How these pieces fit together was very confusing to me at first. I was in the business for probably 1 year before moving from PayPal to Practice Pay Solutions combined with GoldbarOne.