We get lots of inquiries from Canadian merchants seeking information about obtaining a Canadian Merchant account, particularly online internet processing in Canada. To this end, we are pleased to announce our affiliation with the premier Canadian Merchant Account provider in Canada, MSI (Merchant Services Inc. of Canada), Included among the many benefits MSI brings to the table are:
Canadian Merchant Services
- Low rate guarantee. They ALWAYS quote the best rates and prices in Canada
- Superior personal service from expert LOCAL reps
- 24/7 support before and after the sale
- Fast, timely and dependable deposits of funds into merchant’s bank account
- Easy to apply for, install and use integrated full-featured internet ecommerce payment processing solutions
CLICK HERE to get more information about Canadian Merchant Services and Merchant Services Inc of Canada (MSI)
Many new ecommerce merchants are intimidated and confused by the perceived complexities of getting set up for ecommerce credit card processing. Not to worry–it’s really quite simple when you work with a reputable company like MSI experts to clearly explain everything and do all the work. Here’s a brief outline of the process:
The Basics – What is a Merchant Account?
Understanding e-commerce is easy. There are 3 things that make up an e-commerce transaction:
• A shopping cart
• A payment gateway
• A merchant account
The Shopping Cart
The shopping cart software is what keeps track of the products your customers want to purchase as they surf through your website. It is the software that powers the “Add to Cart” buttons that you have probably seen on many e-commerce websites. There are hundreds of popular shopping cart programs to choose from. Some are extremely easy to use, while others are targeted towards advanced webmasters. Picking a good shopping cart can be a daunting process if you are new to e-commerce and have just started your research. If you would like some help selecting a good shopping cart for your business don’t hesitate to contact us. The only trick is getting one that’s compatible with your gateway and merchant account–that’s what we’re here to help you with.
Some merchants offer services and do not have a product based website. Even if you don’t sell products on your site, you will still have some type of software that calculates how much the customer is supposed to pay you. Think of the shopping cart as the cashier at the grocery store who rings through your groceries. It is their job to figure out how much money you are supposed to pay. In an e-commerce website, the software performs this job and will determine how much you owe for the sale. Once the shopping cart has figured out how much you owe for the sale, it needs to send this information somewhere so the credit card can be processed. This brings us to the second part of every e-commerce transaction – the payment gateway.
The Payment Gateway
The function of the payment gateway is quite simple . When you go to a shoe store and pay with your credit card, the clerk swipes your card through a payment terminal. The payment gateway does the same job as that little electronic device, except because it’s an online transaction the credit card is not physically swiped through a terminal. Instead the shopping cart securely encrypts the credit card and order details and sends it off to the payment gateway to be processed.
The payment gateway will electronically contact the customers card issuing bank and check to see if they have sufficient credit to pay for the sale. If so, the card issuing bank will return an authorization and the funds will be debited from the customers credit card balance.
When those funds are captured from the customers credit card account, they must go somewhere. This is where the final part of an e-commerce transaction comes in – the merchant account.
The Merchant Account
When the payment gateway processes the transaction and the customers credit card is charged for the sale, that money has to go somewhere. Specifically, it needs to deposited into a bank account. Funds from credit card sales are deposited into a special type of bank account — called a “merchant account”.
That really is all a merchant account is – a bank account that is used to hold funds captured from your credit card sales. Then, the money is ‘settled’ or sent out of the merchant account, and into the merchant’s regular business bank account.
