Hi Terry,
>Thanks - that is something I need to think about. Does Paypal authorize pretty much like a Merchant Account?<
Make sure you read this complete thread as Rick and Hank have given some important considerations.
Yes, PayPal is a Merchant Account, but without all the monthly fees or hassel(not sure that is spelled correctly). They have a number of great free Merchant Tools. You can open a Merchant PayPal account for no cost, and just test it if you wish. See the following link:
https://www.paypal.com/us/mrb/pal=BXKA5YLF7CY8EPayPal has shopping carts, email pay button links, etc.
The thing that really drove me to PayPal was I have had a merchant account with my bank for 21 years, and I wanted to do some stuff online. My bank fees were exhorbant using Authorize.net, so I checked into several other online merchant accounts who also used Authorize.net. I personally found the approval process anoying, whereas PayPal had it done in a couple minutes. One of the things I found annoying about some of the banks was they wanted to know what I was going to sell: if I said "I don't know all the products yet" they had an issue with that, whereas PayPal doesn't care.
Hank had a good point that I was not aware of in that PayPal can not process a AMEX corporate charge, but I don't get any of those anyway.
Also, I am helping a few small companies get online without 1,000's of online orders a day, so PayPal seems to fit the bill for them so far as they test the waters.
I suspect Rick has a good idea, and that is to offer both - but so far I am so pleased with PayPal I doubt I will go that way personally. However, for someone just testing the waters of online credit processing, PayPal is obviousely the cheapest and quickest way to go (at least the cheapest that I found).
All this is just my personal opinion, and obviousely I like PalPal and am biased toward it.
Mel Cummings
