2. How Does a Merchant Account Work?
It's pretty much automatic. Once your merchant account is approved, your shopping cart will work automatically with Authorize.net to process the credit card transactions. Your merchant account comes with a "virtual" terminal.

3. Why wouldn't I just use something like Pay Pal?
You can. But remember that the fees are a LOT higher if you plan on making money on the internet.

4. How Much Does a Merchant Account Cost?
This depends on your merchant account provider. Some charge a lease. Some charge a huge application fee. Some make you sign a LONG-TERM contract. At Digital Women we scoured the Internet looking for the best deal for you, eliminating a lot of those costs! Digital Women offers you a merchant account provider that charges no application fee, no long term lease to sign, and very affordable rates on your standard fees. (Only $99.00 for your merchant account. This is a one-time charge)

5. How much are the "fees" and what are they for?
Tere are standard fees that you will incur no matter what merchant account provider you choose. Some of these fees are:

Monthly Statement Fee- this is a standard fee imposed by the service provider that you use. This fee usually runs about $10 to $15 a month depending on what service provider you use. This is for your end of th month statement.

Gateway Fee- This is a standard fee with all merchant accounts that is imposed by the virtual gateway that youe service provider uses. You have secure access to your virtual terminal provided by this gateway.

Transaction Fee- This is a standard fee that the credit card companies impose. It can be anywhere from 25 cents to 30 cents per transaction depending on your service provider.

Discount Rate Fee- This is a charge that the credit card companies impose per sale. They want a small percentage of every sale you make. These fees can cost anywhere from 2.19% to about 3.75 % depending on your service provider.

AVS Fee- This is a fee that the gateway provider charges to do an address verification on the credit card that is submitted. This provides a security feature for your customers and for you. This fee is usally very small.

If you don't make one single sale, your total fees would be approximately:

$10. Statement Fee
$10 Gateway Fee
$25 (minimum) Discount Fee
====================
$45 approximately

Well let's say you have 10 sales at $100 each totaling $1000.00  Your fees would then be:

$10 Statement fee
$10 Gateway fee
$25.00 Discount fee (2.19% x 1000.00 in sales = $21.90 but there is a minimum of $25)
$2.50 Transaction fee (10 transactions x 25 cents)
$2.00 AVS fee (10 avs checks)
======================
$49.50 Total fees approximately

I ALSO realize that people are more likely to want to "charge" a sale rather than give me their checking account information! 

Digital Women are eligible for our special discounted rates! Click HERE to apply today!
Digital Women Special Rates

AuthorizeNet Gateway Merchant Account  $99 (one time purchase)
Discount rate  2.17% of sales
Transaction & Batch Fee  $0.23 per transaction
Statement Fee  $10
AVS Fee  $0.10 per address verification
Gateway Fee  $10
Merchant App  FREE
24/7 Support  FREE

I NEED  a merchant account if I want to do business professionally on the Internet. SIGN me UP! (click here)

I can see my special Digital Women discounted fees above.

About the Merchant Account Provider that Represents Digital Women

Authorize.net is the easiest to use of the Internet transaction protocols, also know as a "gateway".  Authorize.net offers a powerful Internet-based software tool that simulates the behavior of a standard credit card authorization terminal in a secure, real-time environment. Authorize.net integrates with a merchant's web site and shopping cart system; and may also be used in a MOTO (Mail Order/Phone Order) environment from the merchant's own web site.
Features

REALTIME PROCESSING allows a merchant to accept credit cards in a real time environment directly from their web site. Connect via a variety of ways through the shopping cart program of your choice. Sales typically are approved within five seconds and complete online reporting is available.

VIRTUAL TERMINAL allows merchants to manually enter their phone or mail order sales into the system. Virtual terminal supports multiple users and can facilitate a merchant¹s recurring billing needs. Internet access is all that is required.

eCHECK.NET allows merchants to accept "electronic" checks from either their web site in real time or through the Virtual Terminal. eCheck.Net also supports recurring billing. Checks are normally funded in about five business days.

Requirements:

Merchant must be online with a web site that advertises the products they wish to sell and products must adhere to guidelines.
 

How it Works:

You can use Authorize.net in conjunction with the shopping cart of your choice or you can connect directly via a secure link.

If you decide connect directly, you can have your own payment page with your logo and business name. Any consumer who clicks on your secure form link will be presented with a customized order form that matches your web site but that is located on an Authorize.Net hard drive. The transition is seamless and invisible (except a hard-to-notice change in the referenced URL address) to the consumer. Once a consumer completes the fields of the order form, all of the information is encoded for secure transmission through the gateway for authorization.
Benefits:

Authorize.net integrates with the merchant's web site, which means that Authorize.Net stores and maintains all of the software necessary to run its program. There is no downloading of software to the merchant's system, no large hard drive requirement, and no language-compatibility issue.