2 Make a Website          

If you want to sell a product directly on the internet there are some things you need to know:

• What Types of Payments Should you Accept?
• Types of Credit Card Processors
• What you Should Know about Accepting Credit Cards

Types of Payments  

If you sell a product you are going to need to accept credit cards.  Some people just tell buyers to mail in a check or money order.  While that's a nice option you are going to lose a lot of business because people like the ability to pay right away.

Ways you can accept credit card payments

1.  You can accept credit cards through PayPal.  PayPal is free to use if you have an account with them.  If you don't have one, you can sign up and get one.  They charge 3% of the total sale price and a .30 transaction fee for transactions from your site.  Pay Pal is owned by ebay and is a reputable company.

PayPal can be used if you use a website builder or if you have your own software. 

2.  You can use a third party gateway.   A third party gateway is a company that has a merchant account (an account that allows them to accept credit cards.)  For a small fee they let you use their account for your transactions. 

3.  You can get your own merchant account.  This allows you to contract directly with a bank or financial place so you can accept credit cards.  You usually have to sign a contract and there is a lot of fees involved. 

To justify the expense and hassle involved you should only get your own merchant account if you do at least $5,000 of sales a month.  You also need a great deal of web experience or you should hire a web designer.  These are complicated to implement and maintain and are not for beginners.  

You should only use a merchant account if you have your own web building software and know what you are doing.  If you don't it can turn into a real nightmare for you.

What you Should Know about Accepting Credit Cards

If you accept credit cards you need to be aware of fraud.  There are some bad guys on the internet who just love to rip people off.  How it works is that if a bad guy enters a fraudulent credit card and if this fraud is not caught at the time the transaction is processed or soon thereafter then the money that goes into your account from the transaction will come back out. 

If you have already shipped the goods, too bad.  You are out the product and the shipping costs as well.

Thankfully, PayPal and 2checkout have pretty good fraud mechanisms in place.  While they aren't perfect, you don't need to be anywhere near as vigilant as you do if you get your own merchant account.  If you have your own merchant account and don't know what you're doing you can get ripped off for a lot of money. 

Once they send you a notice that the payment is approved then there is a good chance the order is legit; however, as I said, they aren't perfect.  You still need to be aware of potential fraud.

One thing that you should be aware of that could be a sign of fraud is if you get a huge order.  For example, if you normally sell 1-2 orders a day and suddenly have a sale for a large number of your product items or a large quantity of one item then that may be a sign of fraud. 

If you get a transaction approved notice from your payment processor and have a huge order then it's usually a good idea to call the person who ordered so you can confirm the order.  If it's a legitimate order they will usually appreciate you calling and making sure that they were the ones using their credit card.

If you are shipping a product do not under any circumstances ship an item until you get the transaction approved notification from your processor.  It's not worth the risk. 

If you have a dispute with a customer that paid by credit card and they ask for their money back, give it to them.  If someone is unhappy with your product or service and they ask for their money back, give it to them.  If not, they can request a chargeback from their credit card company.  If they do that the credit card company charges a fee of around $20 which will be passed on to you. 

If you have shipped goods to a person then request the items back and ask them to mail it to you insured mail.  Which by the way, if you ship items ALWAYS get insurance for the item or send it by UPS or FedEx so you can track the item and have a record of when they received it.  Otherwise some people will claim they didn't receive the item even if they did and will want their money back.

If you are dealing with electronic items like an ebook, etc. then just give them their money back.  It's much easier.  You won't ever win a chargeback case.

I hope this site has been helpful to you.  I wish you the very best of luck with your new website! 

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