e-Commerce Merchant Account vs. Payment Gateway

An eCommerce gateway is a component of every credit card payment processing web-based merchant account. It connects the website's shopping cart with the merchant's processing bank and transmits the transaction information between them (see pricing details here). It serves the same purpose that physical terminals do. Every major payment processing gateway today comes with built-in fraud prevention services and AVS and CVV2 verification capabilities. It also stores credit card processing information for future reference and can be customized to produce transaction reports.

In order to set up a web-based small business merchant account you will need a functioning website and a shopping cart. Then you need to send out pricing requests to several credit card processing companies and review their offers. All of them will offer an eCommerce payment gateway as well. You can also buy the gateway from a third party and have it set up with the merchant services credit card processing provider's system. You should not pay application or set up fees and your monthly maintenance fee should not be higher than $15.