People in online business want to be able to quickly process their online payments. They also want to appear professional and secure for their clients otherwise people won't be confident enough to trust them. For this reason, it's often wise to set up a merchant account quickly. There are a lot of reasons to get a merchant account including:

- You can increase your customer base by demonstrating professionalism with a professional looking online payment solution

- You'll have the ability to accept major credit cards such as Visa, MasterCard, Amex and Discover payments on a secure connection right from your website. Your customers need to feel secure in buying from you!

- You could get the ability to rent a terminal for credit card payments that need to be processed manually. The terminals are often included with your monthly membership fee and this can save you a several hundred dollar expense. This can help you with online and offline business.

- Have your online payments transferred to you by wire securely, quickly and safely.

- Included software enabling you to set up price lists and shopping carts on your website

- Transaction reporting and statements making your bookkeeping management much more seamless

- Fraud screening protection. A lot of online retailers have been the victims of credit card chargeback fraud where someone buys something from a site and then claims fraud later so that you are automatically deducted money but still out of pocket for the product provided. A merchant account could help you avoid this problem with fraud screening services included in the cost of having the account.

- Low fees. Compared to some services such as PayPal, a merchant account has much lower fees that enable you to have greater profit margin. While some have monthly fees, the low transaction cost and value added services can make the fees negligible in contrast to PayPal.

- 24/7 support is included in some cases which can help you with payment gateway problems that could happen. An open source program won't offer you any help so a merchant solution could be a better alternative, especially if you have (or want to expand to) a borderless business with many customers ordering in various time zones. If you're looking at several options, you'll want to take the amount of included support into serious consideration!

- Speaking of borderless businesses, a solid merchant service will give you the ability to accept payments in multiple currencies which can extend your ability to service more customers.

How do you set up a merchant account?

There are a lot of companies to choose from when you get ready to embark on finding a suitable merchant services company. Once you've done your due diligence and found someone suitable, you'll likely have to provide completed paperwork and an application form. Many high end merchant accounts now work to approve applicants quickly.

The account approval process will likely include request for a financial statement, banking information, a signed merchant agreement and copies of your photo ID.

Merchant accounts can be set up and software can typically be easily integrated into your existing website.