Before you can accept payments you need the following:
A company bank account - if you don't have this you'll need to call your county clerk (they're in the phone book), and file a DBA (doing business as) form. Once you have this form you can open up a checking account.
Paypal
- they let you take credit cards and checks, and their unique PayPal payments which are becoming more and more popular on the internet. Click
Here to set up a PayPal account.
Once you're signed up with PayPal they'll give you the complete details required to incorporate their system into your shopping cart.
The alternative to using PayPal is to open your own merchant account, where credit card payments deposits are made directly. he advantage of this is that you usually can get a better discount rate (the discount rate is the percentage that the bank takes which is their fee for providing the service), and you are a little more flexible if you ever want to make changes in your system. You also can build the payment page directly into your website, so it looks and feels like an extension of your web page.
I'd strongly recommend using Paypal to get started, as it delivers 95% of everything that you can do with a merchant account for only a slightly higher percentage charge, and it integrates simply and easily into your website without programming knowledge.
If and when you're ready to sign up for your own merchant account we recommend Vswipe: