Payment Gateways

One of the most important aspects to your online merchant website is how payments are accepted and handled on both ends of the transaction. There are now many different ways to do this, some of which are complicated and some of which are relatively simple. We can work with you to decide which system is best for your merchant account and then help you set it up.

A payment gateway is pretty straightforward. Once your customer has selected their items, then they are taken to the payment page. The customer enters their credit or payment information on the page, then submits it to your web server. SSL, or secure sockets layer, will encrypt the information and send it over the internet to your server. Your payment gateway then takes that information and processes it, often using another SSL transaction. After verifying the card and transaction amount, your web server receives confirmation and passes that on to the customer. At the end of the day all of the payments that come through the payment gateway are sent to your bank account.

This whole process seems a bit complicated, but it only takes a few seconds. Depending on the internet connections, it can a couple seconds to 30 or more. Making sure it is done correctly is important.

When setting up your shopping cart and payment gateway it is vital that they are compatible. Whatever gateway you choose, and there are many available, you want it to work with your shopping cart. AVS, or Address Verification System, is something that you probably want with your gateway as well. This makes sure that the person using the card at least has the right address for it.

In order to have a payment gateway you will need an internet merchant account. Most gateways will want to download your money into an account, so you want to set that up ahead of time. You can set up this account through you current bank, or you can use a third party provider such as Instamerchant or Merchant Express. Other options are third party processing services such as PayPal or WorldPay. These services process all the orders and deposit the money into your bank account. They take a transaction fee, so make sure you understand what you are getting when you set up your system.

The folks at MTQ can help you set up your payment gateway and merchant account so that you have the right system for you. We will make sure it works property and that you understand it, so you can run your store as best as possible.