GlowHost E-commerce How-to Guide

Merchant accounts, gateways, virtual merchant accounts, third party payment processors, SSL, https, shopping carts.....Have you confused? Here is a quick rundown of what each is, and the steps you need to take when considering your online, e-commerce enabled site.

Merchant Accounts and Gateways

Simply put, a merchant account allows you to take a customers credit card and/or online check information, have their cards and checking accounts verified for legitimacy, and funds dispersed to your banking account. The traditional way to do this is to swipe a customers credit card through a terminal, just like the ones you see at any department store, and the funds are captured and released to your bank account. This whole process takes anywhere from 24-48 hours to receive funds in your bank account. With the advent of the Internet however, a method was needed to get a customer's credit card data from the World Wide Web to the merchant account provider, and thus, the Gateway was born.

An example of a merchant account is E-OnlineData.com

An example of a gateway is Authorize.net.

GlowHost offers special pricing on an E-OnlineData and Authorize.net account which is a substantial savings were you to buy them separately. Learn more here.

Virtual Merchant Accounts and Third-Party Processors.

A third party processor or virtual merchant account is a company that typically:

Provides a gateway (no gateway fees)
Has higher per transaction fees.
Has no monthly fees.
Takes longer to receive funds to your account.
Provides SSL and or a shopping cart.

A few examples of a third party processor would be PayPal or 2checkout.com

Shopping Carts and SSL

A shopping cart is an easy to use system that lets you add products to it for sale on your Web site Most every shopping cart made, including the free shopping carts that we offer will plug into either a real merchant account/gateway or a third party processor with a simple setting from the shopping cart's administration panel. When a real merchant account is used, typically you will need to use SSL, which locks the browser so the users data can be safely typed in and transmitted to the gateway. When a virtual account is used, many providers will include the SSL for free.

If you choose to use a real merchant account, we can, depending on your package, supply you with a free shared SSL certificate. This is 128-bit encryption and is virtually impossible to decrypt, and has 99% browser compatibility. Learn more on our free SSL offering here. You may also purchase and install any certificate from any signing authority that you prefer.

Take advantage of the many benefits of being a GlowHost customer....