Securely accept credit cards online

To do this you'll need three things:
1. a shopping cart,
2. a gateway, and
3. a merchant account

Firstly the shopping cart.  This is included in all ecommerce accounts at turnkeywebsites.  The shopping cart is what prepares and summarises the order ready to process through the gateway.  This is essential for every ecommerce website.

Secondly the gateway.  When you setup your gateway you can do it 2 ways:

(i) You can seamlessly setup the gateway to process through your shopping cart, or
(ii) You can create a link on your site for every product which directs your customer to the payment page within the Verisign website paying for each product separately

The preferred setup is of course the first option as this means your customer will not leave your site, which is how most website businesses operate.  This means the customer will choose their products, click checkout, and then enter their various contact details and then enter their credit card details.  For Australian customers Verisign PayFlow Pro has been setup as the seamless gateway to integrate into the shopping cart and connect the shopping cart to the merchant account.  We recommend Verisign because we found them to be reliable and easy to deal with, which helps a lot when you're trying to figure out a complicated thing like online merchant processing!

For the second option, to create a links setup for each product, Verisign have a product caled Verisign PayFlow Link.  This is reasonably cheaper than PayFlow Pro, but the problem is that who's customers are going to want to buy products this way?  The answer is not many.  This is really only applicable when the customer is likely to buy only one product per visit to the website.  Otherwsie they'll be directed back and forth between your site and the payment page.

Thirdly the merchant account.  This is currently obtained through your preferred bank.  If you call the help line and ask for "Online merchant facilities" you will be directed towards the right people.  Make sure you specify that you're after an internet merchant account as banks also offer normal merchant accounts for products sold via shop fronts.

Contact or email us if you need any more help setting up your credit card processing.