Research has shown that customers are nine times more likely to buy from a website if the site accepts credit cards. Everyone knows this but many website owners do not know how to go about accepting credit cards. It is much easier than you think, and does not have to cost a fortune either.

If your site is selling downloadable goods, like software, or pdf files you can sell them through Clickbank, with income being credited to your StormPay or PayPal account automatically. This is the lowest cost option. The card processor takes a percentage of the sale, but you have very small account running costs.

You have to sign up as a Seller at Clickbank. This means that you have to have a customer support system in place. The support system does not need to be very complex, just a web page with an email address where customers can be given non-automated replies and live answers to email queries within a certain time, but you would have that anyway.

If you are selling goods that need to be delivered, then your costs will be higher, but still less than you probably think. Check out for an excellent low cost package (it works out at about 30 dollars month).

You can go for the whole package of course, with Credit Card Merchant Account, but that will cost you much more, with charges for setting up the account, monthly charges and equipment rental charges, too. The percentage of each sale taken by the processor is lower if you have a Merchant Account, but the fixed charges are much higher.

Merchant accounts make sense if your sales are thousands of dollars a day, otherwise you should consider the lower cost options outlined above.