Merchant Account Third Party Alternatives

The two main alternatives to having your own merchant account are Bureaux services/third party Merchant accounts and person to person services (PayPal).

By far the most popular of all online payment methods is PayPal. Because of it's popularity almost all ecommerce sites provide PayPal as a payment method (even sites that have their own merchant account).

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The main advantages are:

• They are extremely easy to use,
• Setup is done in minutes. -The service providers provide the necessary HTML that is simply pasted onto the Web site to provide the link with the service provider.
• All confidential information entered by the customer is stored on the service providers’ servers making it very secure and usable for any Web site without the need for SSL or scripting support.
• Payment can be made from one membership account to the other without using credit cards or debit cards.
• Payment by credit cards is also supported
• Free to setup and Transaction costs are reasonable.

• Transactions fees are higher than using your own merchant account
• The purchaser is taken to a third party site for the transaction. However this can also be an advantage as PayPal is trusted so it adds credibility.

Even though your Website supports other payment methods due to their popularity and hence instant recognition PayPal should be included as one of the payment options on any web site.

PayPal not only provide for credit card transactions from a website they also provide an invoicing and virtual terminal facility. For more information regarding PayPal then see PayPal review

PayPal isn't the only provider

What Is a Bureau Service

A Payment Bureau e.g. WorldPay collects and processes the card details on behalf of the business. This means that the business doesn't require its own Internet Merchant account.

The bureau collects funds via credit or debit cards using its own Internet merchant account. Usually the only requirement of being accepted as a merchant by a bureaux service is the basic requirements of having a business bank account and an address that confirms the identity of the business.

A bureau reduces the risk of accepting almost any type of business mainly by holding the collected funds for a minimum of 30 days and often up to 60 days in the initial period of accepting a business. In addition a bureaux service will normally charge higher fees for card payments.

 Most Web Hosting providers that offer ecommerce web packages offer direct integration to one or more bureaux services.

Advantages of using a bureaux service