If you plan to sell products from your site, then you’ll need an eCommerce solution. Typically, this means a shopping cart script, as well as some type of Merchant account and payment gateway.
Shopping Cart: Shopping cart scripts can be as simple or as complicated as you desire. There are cart systems that you can customize seemlessly to blend with your site, and there are others that are more rigid, yet allow you to upload and control your products without any knowledge of website programming.
Merchant Account: A “bank account” established with a payment processor for the settlement of credit card transactions. Any merchant who wants to take credit card orders must establish a merchant account. Internet merchants need a “Card Not Present Merchant Account.”
Internet Merchants also need a payment gateway to process payments online.
Payment Gateway: A payment gateway is a service provided by a billing processor, which allows credit card information to be collected and passed over the internet. A payment gateway can be thought of as a digital equivalent to a credit card processing terminal.
For those just getting started PayPal can be a very easy alternative to the traditional merchant account and payment gateway.
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