As an online seller or ecommerce business owner, there are many different payment methods to choose from.  Deciding which one is the best for you requires analyzing the factors involved.  Here are a few questions to ask yourself before choosing an online merchant account.

1. What kind of sales volume do you do or expect to do?  If you haven’t opened up shop yet, this might be a difficult question to answer, but you will have to estimate as best you can.  Higher volumes can often make better deals available to you.  If you do anticipate a high volume of sales, look into international processing that has a minimum threshhold.  You’ll get better rates there than you will with processing companies that cater to the small sellers.
2. Where are you going to do most of your selling?  If you are selling on eBay, for example, you have fewer payment methods available to you because eBay limits what their sellers can accept.  On the other hand, if you have or are launching your own ecommerce website, you may want to consider an online merchant account that includes some type of shopping cart software.
3. What kinds of payments do you want to accept?  If you want to give customers more options, you might consider taking electronic checks or allowing customers to mail in checks instead of using a credit card online.  For this you will need to look into a merchant account that includes check processing services.
4. What fees do the services charge?  Once you narrow your search down to the services that offer what you are looking for, be sure to compare their fees.  Estimate how much you will be getting in payments every month, and how much you will be charged in fees for that amount.  This is important because different tiers may make your total fees add up to less than you would expect with one service, and more than you would expect with another.

Like any other part of starting and running a business, it is important to decide carefully when choosing a payment method for your ecommerce website.  Research providers, compare fees, and have a good idea of your business goals and realities, and you should be able to choose the best payment method for you.

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