Step by step merchant account info needed

[Crescent]

Hello,

I'm new to accepting payments online. I'm finding many customers are recluctant to use paypal and some want to call us to give their CC # over the phone.

We are very low volume right now, and not very literate in the online merchant area.

I have looked at google but it looks like you have to have a google act to make payments thru it. So that would be out. Customers are balking at that.

What recommendations do you all have that would help me locate a provider that is:

1) low cost
2) good support
3) integrates well with blue host

Do I have to have a gateway also, or just a merchant account provider? I've heard zen cart recommended alot. What goes WITH it in a package to accept payments??

Thanks,
Very Confused At This Point

[farcaster]

I would recommend that you start here and learn about paypal.

[quickcrx702]

If you want an ecommerce package magento seems the way to go. There is even a simplescript for it now. It integrates with several credit card gateways as well as postal carriers like UPS/USPS/Fedex. You have to register with whatever credit card gateway like authorize.net and put the appropriate info into your cart's config so that it can talk to the gateway.

Prestashop also seems like a cool package with lots of integration features, but I haven't actually used it yet. I plan on testing this as it seems more lightweight and magento seems like overkill for some of my smaller clients.

[MrDelish]

What recommendations do you all have that would help me locate a provider that is:

1) low cost
2) good support
3) integrates well with blue host

By "provider" I think you mean a gateway. A payment gateway is the equivalent of a point-of-sale machine in a store - it processes the payment so that your customer's money is placed into your account. From what I've heard, Authorize.net and Paypal (the Pro account) are both well-priced and have good support. It's not really a matter of integrating with BlueHost, since all it really needs to integrate with is your shopping cart.

Do I have to have a gateway also, or just a merchant account provider? I've heard zen cart recommended alot. What goes WITH it in a package to accept payments??

Both a gateway and merchant account are important. The gateway processes the payment and the merchant account receives the payment.

I find Zen Cart pretty handy, though most of the standard e-commerce carts come with easy setup with the bigger gateways such as Authorize.net and Paypal (Pro account, of course). In Zen Cart, you basically install and set up a payment module for the method of payment you choose (it's easier than it sounds). I say install a few carts in test subfolders using Simple Scripts and give them a test drive to see which one you like best.