How to choose a Payment Gateway and Merchant Account

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To help e-tailers who aren't sure exactly what they need when setting up shop, or for those who are considering switching or adding services, we've outlined the basics you need to know.

There are many options for both merchant accounts and payment gateways, but they do differ greatly from one to the next. Before we lunge headlong into a search for either, though, we need to understand what they both do.

What A Payment Gateway Does
When a consumer clicks on the "pay now" button and submits his or her personal and financial information, these details are passed through your secure server to a payment gateway. Essentially this is the same as a till, or POS (point-of-sale) system in a brick-and-mortar store and acts like a middleman between banks. The transaction details are encrypted and passed from the payment gateway through to the merchant account bank...

full article: http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solutions...hp/3656541