Ecommerce | Ecommerce News

You, Electronic Payments And The Global Economy

As markets get bigger, marketplaces get smaller, right? Today, we regularly purchase products from other countries, sometimes without knowing we are. The internet has made it extremely easy to do a day's worth of shopping in about an hour in front of your computer; which is often a lot more shopping than you would do normally, due to our busy lifestyles. Online merchants are finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with their online customers and electronic payments, which, in some cases, leads to sacrifices to their local storefronts and their community. As online merchants, we all know the wave of the future is keystroke marketing, online transactions and electronic payments.

Many of you who still maintain a storefront, often contemplate closing the doors and eliminating a lot of your overhead and focusing your time to grow your online business. While this is scrutinized on a daily basis in town board meetings and by small town folks, the fact still remains that businesses need to turn inventory, make a profit and grow. In some areas, the cost of maintaining a storefront is just getting to be too much to bear. In others, online business is more convenient and cheaper than traveling to the store and paying more. In almost every scenario, making purchases over the internet is easier, cheaper and more convenient. As online merchants, your electronic payment solution is very much the driving force keeping your virtual storefront afloat. Much like websites have added dimensional sizing charts, virtual inventory and proprietary chatrooms; online banking and the use of electronic payment companies have helped our customers overcome many of the hurdles that, in years past made it difficult and frustrating for them to grow their online business, while maintaining a storefront.

Merchant service providers are companies worldwide that offer services to both domestic and international ecommerce vendors. For many of you, your current electronic payment service provider is your local bank or credit card processor (which can be anywhere in the world); both of these options leave you, the vendor, with limited options, many times just one. If you could draw a comparison between your electronic payment options today versus the way they were at the inception you would be left with a one size all merchant account. That idea offered by payment processors did not work and still does not work. Leaving the merchant left tailoring their business to fit into the processing solution offered by the payment processor. Now the merchant has options. Your merchant service provider offers the merchant multiple solutions to fit their needs, not the needs of the credit card processor. You will have multiple payment options to choose from, as well as payment processing solutions can be tailored to fit your businesses needs. Some of the highly sought after services that merchant service providers offer are online merchant accounts, retail merchant accounts, multi-currency processing, high risk merchant accounts, multiple payment cycles, both domestic and off-shore. Some of which include credit card virtual terminals, and unlimited processing volume.

In today's marketplace, identity theft, chargebacks and online fraud are common pitfalls for both storefront owners and online merchants; our customers need to be prepared to deal with these issues and still get paid. Unfortunately, for the old guard, businesses have changed and adapted to the wave of internet crime that gets between honest vendors and their money.

Today, more and more people that process credit cards and accept checks online and over the telephone are bringing their business to merchant service providers versus going directly to their bank. These types of companies work tirelessly to achieve a custom tailored solution to the merchants online processing needs. Merchant service providers can help you process your electronic payments in US dollars, Euros and many other foreign currencies. If you are an international business and want to concentrate on foreign non-European markets or expand to European and US markets, Stradafee.com can help you process in over 125 currencies worldwide.