Article by Pierre Zarokian
The online business world is extremely competitive. We are constantly moving towards an economy where cash is never handled by either the customer or the retailer. The ability of an online business to be able to accept credit cards is absolutely pivotal if you want to be able to survive in the highly competitive environment. Understanding how something such as a merchant account works has never been more important to help your business survive.
Merchant accounts continue to grow in popularity in terms of being able to accept credit card payments. Merchant accounts work by being able to accept a credit card as a payment form from a customer. When the credit card information is entered into the shopping cart of a consumer, they make their purchase and hit confirm. When this occurs, the credit card information is not sent direction to Visa, MasterCard, and so on, but is instead sent to the merchant account operator. The merchant account operator is the one in which interfaces with the credit card companies. The merchant account processes the payment and in turn sends you the money, in exchange for a fee.
If you are new to merchant accounts, make sure to learn about chargebacks and how to prevent chargebacks or fight them. Having to many chargebacks could result in loss of your merchant account.