Following are several merchant account providers you may be interested in contacting:

www.paypal.com

PayPal allows you to accept payments instantly without need to set up special accounts or sign long-term contracts. You will want to strongly consider using this one if you are processing less than $1000 per month.

www.totalmerchantservices.com

Total Merchant Services is one of largest resellers of merchant accounts both on and offline, and are trusted by literally tens of thousands of businesses of all sizes. They use First Data as their back-end processor.

www.merchantexpress.com

This is a well-respected processor that services both on and offline businesses.

www.expandyourbusiness.com

CardService International provides a very helpful eBook that you can download for free

Some Issues You Want To Consider

Generally speaking you will be more concerned with up-front and recurring fees rather than discount rate that processing companies will quote most prominently. The hidden fees generally eclipse discount rates – especially for low volume start-up businesses.

Try to accurately estimate your business volume when you fill out your applications. The risk department at your processing company can put a freeze on your account if your volumes move significantly outside estimates you have provided them.

If you do experience a sudden spike in orders, you should contact risk department of your processing company to make them aware of spike BEFORE it hits their system. They may want to have you send them details about orders and provide proof that orders are legitimate. As inconvenient as this is, it is far better than getting your account frozen.

Make sure you understand what fees you will be responsible for if you need to cancel your account before end of your contract. You may find that you need to shut down your account for a variety of reasons, and you don’t want to find out about exit fees after you get bill!

In conclusion, you should start off your search for credit card processing by making a realistic estimate of your processing needs. If you believe you will be processing less than $1000 per month, then you will probably want to work with a third-party processor like PayPal. If you will be processing more than $1000 per month then you will want to work with a traditional credit card processing company (see list of processors above). You should be more concerned with upfront and recurring fees than with discount rate. Once you have selected a processing company, you will want to make sure you have your business license and business bank account. Finally, you will need to make sure that your shopping cart system supports your processing company.

RECIDIVISM

Turnover. In prison you want them leaving early and never coming back. Within your company you want them staying forever. How can both be accomplished? Prisons need to stop being all about incarceration, and nothing about rehabilitation. Companies need start caring about personal lives of their people. Since diversity in workforce is an HR issue, I will conclude with something that is very close to my heart. An ex-con can be your most dedicated, grateful and hardworking employee. If you have one within your company you know what I’m talking about, if you don’t, it’s time you discovered this truth. But before this can happen on a large scale, our prison systems across country need to give offenders a chance to succeed. Because of budget cuts most institutions are forced to spend their precious funds on security related issues, and that leaves almost nothing for vocational and educational programs. Let’s do some simple math. It cost $35,000 per year to house one inmate (and this is a conservative figure). It would cost a fraction of that to educate that same inmate. I have seen studies, which show that re-arrest rate of those who come out of prison with at least two years of prison, an Associates Degree, is 10%. Those who come out with no schooling at all have a re-arrest rate of nearly 60%. The numbers speak for themselves. Hire an ex-offender and contribute to a human being once again becoming a productive member of our society- you may just find that they prove to be your best employee(s)- especially if you let them know you care about their internal prisons.

Troy Evans is a Professional Speaker and Author who resides in Phoenix, AZ. He can be reached at: The Evans Group, 3104 E. Camelback Road, #436 Phoenix, AZ 85016, 602-265-6855, troy@troyevans.com and his website is www.troyevans.com