Along with your merchant account, you'll need a secure payment gateway. This is basically software that connects with your website or point of sale and the credit card companies.

With both Authorize.net® and LinkPoint® bundles you get an e-commerce payment gateway that is secure, versatile and will help your business to grow. You can use this electronic processing in one of two ways:

a) You can accept online payments directly from your website.

b) Credit card payments are put through a virtual terminal.

Virtual terminals are a great low cost way of accepting credit card payments from your customers without having to be face to face. With an internet payment gateway, orders taken over the phone or via email can be processed anywhere you can get access to the Internet. You're given a special user ID and password to enter your customer's credit card information. The information is then sent to the credit card processor for approval and processing.

How a Payment Gateway Works
Although processing credit card payments usually takes no more than 3 seconds, there is a lot going on behind the scenes. Let’s say your e-commerce business sells one-of- a- kind cuckoo clocks. Your customer wants to pay for their new clock with a credit card. Here's how a typical transaction through an internet payment gateway works:

1. You or your customer will submit the customer's credit card information through a secure website connection.
2. LinkPoint gets the transaction information and then passes it on to your merchant bank.
3. The merchant bank submits the information to the Credit Card Interchange (a financial network that processes, clears and settles credit card transactions.)
4. The Credit Card Interchange (CCI) then sends the information to the customer's credit card company.
5. The credit card company then either approves or declines the transaction and the funds go back to the CCI.
6. The CCI relays the results to the merchant bank.
7. The merchant bank sends the results to LinkPoint.
8. LinkPoint stores the transaction information and sends it to the person who did the online ordering.

Your customer has just bought a new cuckoo clock using their credit card and the whole thing went through the payment gateway in about 3 seconds!

The LinkPoint Secure Payment Gateway®
Linkpoint has many features that make it another popular choice as an e-commerce payment gateway. If you have a product or service that requires recurring billing, Linkpoint offers that service free.

For a firsthand look at how Linkpoint works, why not try our free online demo? To ask about merchant accounts and which payment gateway bundle best suits your business, call us at 888-760-1700.