You Can Sell Online Without a Merchant Account
December 10, 2007
Obtaining an internet merchant account to be used for accepting online payments is more difficult than obtaining a ‘regular’ merchant account because the card is not present nor is a signature obtained.
Also, a merchant account is expensive and most of the times you have to pay a monthly fee even though your business is extremely slow in a particular month. Only medium to large volume online businesses would benefit from their own merchant accounts.
Fortunately there are several reliable third-party credit card processing companies who will take payments on your behalf and send the money to you. Here we recommend several of them to you.
- PayPal – A Personal Account allows you to receive and send money using your email address without paying a fee. However, you can apply for a Business Account that allows you to accept online credit card payments or even check payments (for US account holders). The starting service charge is only 1.9% + $ 0.30 for receiving funds. Free to use its Shopping Cart for one-time payments. Receiving recurring payments or donations are also possible. Free to open a Business Account. More info…
- 2Checkout – The service charge is 5.5% + $0.45 for each transaction. Money can be sent to you by check or deposited directly into your account (no fees for ACH deposits to US or participating Canadian bank accounts). Free Shopping Cart. Accept both recurring and one-time payments. One-time $49 setup fee. More info…
- ClickBank – This company charges a slightly higher service fee, $1 + 7.5%, because it has a built-in affiliate program. Their hop link referral system allows virtually all members in their network to be your potential affiliates. No Shopping Cart and one-time $49.95 fee applies. Not a good choice for sale of physical goods or recurring billing. The same ClickBank account can be used to sell your own products – if you have one or more to sell. That means the same account can make you both a vendor (for your own products) and affiliate (for all other ClickBank vendors). More info…
- Click2Sell – This relatively new one is a ClickBank alternative, just better. In stead of charging a percentage of your total sales, they charge a simple flat fee according to three levels of total sales: (1) $1 if sales is $19.99 or less; (2) $2 if sales is between $20.00 and $39.99 and (3) $3 if sales amount is $40 or more. Unlike ClickBank which allows you to sell only digital products, they allow you to sell physical products as well as subscription-based services and memberships. You can set any price for your product – no maximum. You can sell your own products or promote other products as an affiliate using only one account. You can contact your affiliates and vice versa. You can receive funds instantly – no more waiting for payments for weeks. Click here to learn all Click2Sell features that ClickBank does not have.
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I am a father of three kids with my dear wife Margaret. I started internet marketing since 2000 and now have gained enough experience and technical know-hows to share with you. Enjoy!
February 21st, 2008 at 5:33 am
[...] Note, the benefit of using ClickBank rather than PayPal or any other third-party payment systems is that ClickBank automatically make all its account holders (millions of them out there) to be your affiliates – they can promote your products without registering with you. Click here to learn more about and other payment systems. [...]