Types of merchant accounts
Know about the different types of merchant accounts that are available today so that you can choose the one that is suited for your needs.
Merchant accounts are extremely useful no matter what kind of business you are in. most people today prefer to pay for the products and services that they buy through credit or debit cards rather than cash. If you do not accept credit cards there is a high chance that you might be loosing out on a valuable amount of sales. Merchant accounts basically allow you to accept payment from customers in the mode that they prefer to pay in and process it for you.
There are several things that you might need to know before you go ahead and apply for a merchant account. First of all, there are several different types of merchant accounts that are available today that you need to select from. Depending on the type of your business you can select one that suits your requirements. Some of the main types of accounts are listed below:
• Retail merchant accounts are the basic accounts that allow you to accept cards from your customers. Basically with these accounts you would be able to accept all types of cards and swipe them on one terminal. The service provider would then process the payments for you and make the funds available.
With these accounts there is the least risk of fraud and because of the low risk level the fees and charges associated with these accounts are also low.
• Another type of account is MOTO- mail order and telephone order account. With this type of merchant account you can take orders through telephone or through mail and credit card details would also be provided by the customers over the phone and via mail. These are basically accounts that are suited for the catalog based businesses where the customers place orders after referring to the product description in the catalogs. The fees on this type of a merchant account would be quite high as compared to retail merchant accounts since there is a higher risk of fraud and also because there is a longer processing time.
• The internet merchant accounts are for those who run an online business. People selling products and services on the internet would require having a payment processing service (allopass) that allows the customer to make the payments online either through credit or debit card. These accounts are extremely popular today and most people have realized the huge potential of online business. With an internet merchant account there is also a high risk involved so there would be a higher fee levied on the accounts. However, there are quite a lot online service providers that do offer free internet accounts to traders.
• High risk merchant accounts are for those whose business falls under the high risk business category. Certain businesses like online dating, adult industry, online gaming, gambling and casino businesses are all considered to be high risk and so these traders would generally not be able to get a normal merchant account, they would have to apply for a high risk merchant account.
While doing merchant account comparisons it is important to select an account that is suited to your needs and compare prices, getting a cheap merchant account is not that difficult.