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So here's the issue, I need to accept credit cards on my site, but I don't want to go through a merchant service, I want to go through visa/ amex/etc directly (it's a long story..). Now, to even get a quote, they need to know so many details, name, address, estimated income (how can I estimate income if I don't know what % is going to be taken by the CC company?).

I guess one question is, has anyone dealt with this before?

The other question is, (maybe it deserves its own thread)... In what order have you guys been doing things? I have someone who is goingto develop my site, but I don't have a name yet. I have ideas for names, and bought a couple potential domains, but haven't chosen. Do I need to register my company? Do i need legal entities this early in the game? All I want are quotes!! How can you see if this is going to work if no one is going to talk to someone who doesn't exist yet?

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Please break this into two questions. As far as your first question, it would help to understand why you need to go direct. – Dror Apr 9 '11 at 1:29

4 Answers

up vote 4 down vote

Regarding credit cards:

You cannot deal with them directly. You will need someone--a merchant account, payment processing service, or gateway to actually process your credit card payments given that credit card companies are basically banks. I would advise you to go with a more traditional merchant account, regardless of whether or not you plan to do business online as their rates are usually better.

Regarding your second question: Please do a google search of the IRS website for some "Business Plan" PDF files. They are usually a pretty informative read, and will allow you to sketch out a plan, which hopefully will allow you to think a bit more systematically and not be so overwhelmed. Trust me, once you get going you'll be overwhelmed enough.

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up vote 1 down vote

Check out PayPal. They have a program that allows users to pay with any type of credit card or PayPal account. It's easy to qualify and it's easy to add their checkout capability to your website. Good luck.

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up vote 0 down vote

Look into http://www.fastspring.com/ type of service, they are slightly more expensive per transaction, but no monthly fee. So if your volume is low, they are pretty good.

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up vote 0 down vote

I find Google Checkout is becoming a popular alternative to PayPal, however I believe it is restricted to US residents only.

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