Merchant Accounts

How to Accept Money Online for Your Business

Starting your own online business is about more than having a website with your products displayed. It doesn’t matter if people love your products if they aren’t able to purchase them when they visit your site. Asking customers to call you or send an email to complete an order often takes people out of the buying mood. If potential customers want to buy your goods, you need to give them a way to do it immediately.

Any online business that sells its products online needs to have the ability to accept online payments. Coming to SolidTrustPay is one step in the right direction, but it’s not the only thing you’ll need to do in order to take your online storefront to the next level. Here are some steps you need to take before opening your business up to online sales:

Open a corporate bank account. If you want to allow customers to make check and charge credit cards to your business’ name rather than to your personal account, you need to open a business bank account. This is also helpful in keeping your business finances separate from your personal finances for tax purposes and to protect your own money against business losses or lawsuits.

Get a business tax ID number. Much like with getting a corporate bank account, having your own business tax ID number allows you to keep your personal finances separate from your business finances. In many states, this is a requirement if you have your own business — even if it’s home-based.

Start a merchant bank account. A merchant bank account serves as the step that allows your customer’s credit card payments to be processing and transferred over to your business bank account. While it was previously the case that merchant bank accounts were very expensive for smaller businesses, this is increasingly not the case. Many merchant banks such as Solid Trust Pay offer solutions that are targeted toward small businesses and start-ups with lower transaction volumes.

Find an online payment system. The last step in the process is to have an online cart system that allows customers to select the items they want and start the purchasing process. Working with a company to create a shopping cart for your site speeds the process of buying up, keeping customers happy and ready to buy.