If you are selling selling goods or services of your own from your home business website, you must be able to accept payment electronically. If you cannot, you will lose a very large percentage of your sales. Your shoppers expect the convenience of being able to pay by credit card or cyber check. If your site doesn't offer this ability, it reflects negatively on your credibility. In order to process such transactions you must open a Merchant Account .
Merchant accounts can be quite costly, so it pays to shop around.
There is typically an application set-up fee, a percentage charge per transaction, a flat transaction fee, a statement fee, and additional fees dependent upon the payment system you choose. It can cost hundreds of dollars or more. Having said all that, if you have a product which adds value, having a merchant account will enable you to substantially increase your sales and is well worth it. This is a very extensive web hosting and related services site with a very broad range of value added web management services, merchant account procurement and related offerings. Monthly hosting charges are very reasonable.