This article will explain how to accept credit cards online, either for free or low-cost.  If your company has a website and you sell a product or service, selling your good or service online is a necessity if you want your business to strive and be successful on the internet.

E-commerce has many advantages, such as being open for business 24/7, and the tracking & management features it offers. Here are some steps you need to take in order to sell your product/service online:

- Find A Shopping Cart

If you are selling more than 1 product online, a shopping cart would be a great option. Not only does it make ordering your product easier, it makes managing and keeping track of your orders and your customers a breeze. We recommend going through a web design company or marketing company to get your shopping cart setup, as it can be tricky and tedious. We offer great e-commerce solutions and use industry standard carts such as CubeCart, OsCommerce, and ZenCart.

If you are selling only one good, or you want to take orders online for a service based business, a shopping cart driven website is not necessary. However, you will still need a Merchant Account & Payment Gateway.

- Build Up Your Inventory

If you are selling more than one good and are using a shopping cart, building up your product inventory can be a timely, but necessary process.  Begin by categorizing all of your products into different groups, for example, some typical categories/groups for an online art store could be: Pastels, Photography, Original Work, Art Supplies, etc. Under each category you come up with, add your product(s). It is okay if your product falls under multiple categories. Be sure to include a picture (more than one if possible) and also detailed information on your product.

- Find A Merchant Account/Payment Gateway that will Link to your shopping cart and/or website

So you have your shopping cart, and you have your product database built, but how do you actually take a customer’s credit card online? Easy! There are actually many options. The first thing you need to decide is how you want to process credit cards. Do you already have a physical storefront and can process credit cards manually? If this is the case, you will want to simply capture credit card information via your shopping cart, and then manually process it later on.

What if you are brand new to business and want to accept credit cards online? A good solution would be PayPal (www.paypal.com). PayPal is free to sign up. It will easily link up to your shopping cart. It acts as an online bank account. Everytime time someone pays you through paypal, PayPal will take a certain cut of the order (usually between (1.25% - 2.5%). PayPal accepts all major credit cards and also wire transfers and electronic checks. The only downfall to PayPal is that the customer will leave your website during the ordering process, and PayPal’s name is all over the place.

Other good options for accepting credit cards is the payment gateway Authorize.net. This acts similar to PayPal with a different fee structure, and users do not need to leave your website or be a member (such as a member of PayPal) to pay you.

If you are selling a service, we recommend PayPal. You can easily add PayPal buttons to your existing website to accept one-time payments or subscription services extremely easily. A service provider such as Eilers Marketing Group can help you link PayPal up to your current website, or any merchant account that you want to use. We can also design & create custom e-commerce websites from start to finish.