A bricks and mortar business might need different services than those required for an online business. With that in mind, there are a number of variations of a merchant account you need to be aware of. Retail Merchant Accounts: If your primary business does business out of a physical location, your needs will be different than a strictly online business. You’ll need a point of sale (POS system) where customers can swipe or tap their card to make a purchase. Ecommerce Merchant Accounts: Many businesses today, even if they have a brick and mortar retail location, also process online transactions. Some businesses strictly take online transactions and never see their customers or their credit cards in person. Your service provider will want to know how you transact business because in addition to the fees they charge you, it might also impact the device (or interface) you use to accept credit cards. An online business will likely not require a card reader, for example. Mobile Merchant Accounts: There are some businesses that do business strictly on mobile devices. If you’ve even swiped a Square card reader, with a food truck, kiosk, or similar business, for example, you’ve done business with a business that requires a mobile merchant account. Venmo and CashApp business accounts can also be used this way.  Telephone Merchant Accounts: Although not as common as they used to be, some businesses take payments for services over the telephone. When I was a small business owner, my merchant services provider preferred we not take credit cards over the phone, so we had additional protocols when we did to reduce the risk of fraudulent transactions. Mail Order Merchant Accounts: Yes, there are merchants that still do business via the mail and allow their customers to send in forms with credit card numbers to pay for purchases. This presents additional challenges to the merchant services provider because customers are manually writing their credit card numbers on an order form and like many of the other transaction types, they don’t get to inspect the credit card before the transaction is submitted.