Helping you build an Internet home business, one step at a time. Most of us have been told about the necessity of getting a merchant account. Online shoppers are impulsive people, and unless you can accept credit cards you're going to lose a lot of sales.
People often do buy on impulse.
Every so often someone will write to me expressing their interest in getting a merchant account. There are usually setup and application fees, monthly fees, sometimes transaction charges, statement fees, or other hidden costs. My personal opinion is that it's better to start off with third-party processing companies. These companies handle credit card transactions for you. They usually charge a small setup fee, plus a per-transaction charge typically somewhere between 7 and 20 percent.