Accepting Credit Cards on Your Website

Are you thinking of selling things on the web? If so, you will probably also be considering some way in which you can accept credit cards on your site.
Why Do It?

Credit card payments allow you to take advantage of the following types of customers:

1. Impulse buyers. After reading your advertisements and hype on your site, buyers would be all fired up about your product. If they have a means of making a purchase immediately, you've secured that sale. If you only allow cheque payments, the additional time it takes for them to get their cheque book and mail out the cheque may be a deterrence. They may also have second thoughts later.
2. International customers. Credit card payment is a tremendous convenience if your customers are overseas. It automatically takes care of the problems of currency differences as well as the time it takes for a cheque to travel to the vendor. You will lose a large number of overseas customers if cheque payment is the only way you can accept payment.

Methods of Accepting Credit Card Payments

There are actually two ways in which you can accept credit cards on your site.

1. Using Your Own Merchant Account. To do this, you will need a bank that will allow you to open a merchant account. Requirements for this will vary from country to country, and you should check with your local banks for more information on this.
2. Through a Third Party Merchant. There are numerous companies around that are willing to accept credit cards payments on your behalf in exchange for various fees and percentages. These are also known as "payment gateways".

Which Method Should You Use?

The initial costs of opening your own merchant account is usually higher than when you use a third party merchant. Indeed, some third party merchants have no setup fee at all.

However, the transaction fee (which is what you pay the bank or third party merchant for each sale) is much higher when you use a third party as compared to when using your own merchant account.

A third party merchant is usually convenient to use when you don't know if you can actually make much out of your product or service. If you just want to test the water to see how things are, this is usually a good way to start. It is also convenient in that the merchant takes care of everything for you. You just get a cheque at the end of each payment period (if you have earned enough) and concentrate on your products, services and customers.

Having your own merchant account accords your business with a certain amount of professionalism. And, as mentioned earlier, your transaction costs are usually much lower. However you have to be careful to minimize your credit card risks since you'll be processing the credit card payments yourself. This is not to say that there are no risks attendant in using a third party merchant.

What To Do When All The Good Domain Names Are Taken

Decent available domain names are becoming harder to find these days. Nearly 25 million ".com" names have been registered, and over 23 thousand are purchased every day. It also means that you're more likely to win the grand prize lottery then find a great domain name.
Owning a domain name that helps to successfully "magnetize" a flood of incoming traffic is like gold to any online business. But the increasing scarcity of domain names that are simple to remember, short and suggestive have turned them into red hot commodities.

Just take a look at some of the recent domain name acquisitions:

· business.com sold for $7.5 million
· asseenontv.com sold for $5 million
· altavista.com sold for $3.3 million
· loans.com sold for $3 million
· autos.com sold for $2.2 million
· wallstreet.com sold for $1.03 million
· forsalebyowner.com sold for $835,000
· drugs.com sold for $825,000
· cinema.com sold for $700,000
· art.com sold for $450,000
· engineering.org sold for $199,000
· fruits.com sold for $160,000
· perfect.com sold for $94,000

However, while some of these domain names may have been sold for millions, corporate buyers backed by large bank accounts are not alone in the domain name game. Even entrepreneurs are making a great living in purchasing and selling their own domains.

Not a day goes by, that a domain name sells for as less as $100 or as much as $1 million on public auction sites. For example, eBay.com recently featured actual bids for as little as $500 for "golegs.com" to as much as $20,000 for "arlington.com" -- and thousands more drifting anywhere in between.

Some people seem to know where to get these "nuggets of gold." In fact, a small handful know about an untapped goldmine that lies discreetly tucked away in the dark corners of the vast Internet. And the awareness of this source has helped these "lucky" individuals earn either outrageous fortunes or monstrous levels of traffic for their website.

The goldmine to which I'm referring is the pool of recently expired domain names. While only a few knows it exists, regardless it is expanding with every passing day. There are literally tens of thousands of unclaimed, non-renewed and expired domain names that become available on a daily basis.

An expired domain name is one that was registered previously but was not paid for in time for the renewal date, thus returning it to the listing of available domains. There are many probable reasons for non-renewal (e.g., forgetful owner, no more interest in site, no longer in business, no longer active or didn't pay for whatever reason).

However, you may be asking, "Sure, but I'm never going to find good domain names before some other person snatches them up." For a long time, being "lucky" also meant being alert for the numerous domains that become available, and being quick in registering them before anyone else does.

New tools are becoming available, making the process of searching, finding and registering great domain names much easier. In fact, some of them assist you to become aware of the near expiring domains, giving you an advantage over your competitors that permits you to grab names seconds after they've been dropped.

Nevertheless, a compelling domain name can help an online business become more visible, credible and accessible. And it will help someone earn a rather large fortune. While in the past, finding one was very prohibitive, with the help of tools that are now at your disposal, you now can be a part of the gold rush, too.