Does anyone have any suggestions on a Merchant Account provider for an e-commerce business?

When looking for a merchant account for ecommerce you need to look for the following criteria:

1. An organization with longevity and a track record
2. A competitive processing rate for your business
3. A reliable and easily accessible gateway with real-time reporting features, fraud protection and a dashboard feature to monitor the gateway anytime.
4. Customer Service: You need to be able to reach a person when you have questions or concerns regarding activity or other even after business hours

For more information out this reliable provider:

I use Authorize.net and I’m happy with them. Their fees are low for a merchant account.

You have many options… And will receive numerous advertisements and self-proclamations to this question. I’ll try and keep it primarily informational.

If you are looking at ecommerce enabled web/based processing – you’ll likely be best served using a separate merchant account provider and gateway provider – simply because third party gateways tend to focus only on being a gateway and compliant to PCI, while the merchant account provider – although typically offering some type of in-house branded gateway – doesn’t have the staff to properly support.

If you are looking for an integrated shopping cart with the gateway – this limits the list way down – as there are only a few – and even less who actually develop and support themselves.

If you are looking at using a third party shopping cart like OS Commerce – it is supported (as are most) by the majority of the third party gateways. Your third party gateways will have superior products and services as well as support versus any of the ‘branded’ solutions or the Auth.net empire.

As to the merchant account – there are hundreds of offers and even more schemes of pricing. Understand that are some simple principles (certain types of cards are more expensive to process than others), and no one will process your business for below or near cost (business doesn’t work that way) – although you will be told otherwise. Also understand that the difference between a rate of 1.15% and 1.19% for a merchant who processes $1000.00 per week is only $.40 – and you’d be amazed at how many people sign off on that rate thinking they have accomplished something great – only to miss the boat – as their ecommerce and those rates related to swiped transactions – NOT ecommerce… Which coincidentally was outrageously higher – but the quality rep they signed with was nowhere to be found once they figured it out.

Yes, I sell this stuff (and have since 91’) and did contract work for 5 years for a gateway in product development – but this post isn’t for promotion – its about educating.

If you have questions – just call 888-700-7153 – I don’t promise the fastest/greatest/lowest/ect… Just the truth.
Brett.