eCommerce Tycoon

**TWD** · 02-25-2009, 10:06 AM

I've never understood the "you will need a Merchant account to take credit cards" line of argument.

Its always seemed pretty obvious to me that you can pay with your credit card WITHOUT opening a PayPal account.

Check this link if you dont believe me
http://processjunkie.blogspot.com/20...l-account.html

**magicvw** · 02-25-2009, 10:13 AM

You can pay, but you can't receive payments without a Merchant account. It's a way to try to stop fraud.

**Moxxnixx** · 02-25-2009, 10:20 AM

Vicky is correct. You don't need a merchant account to buy goods with a credit card.
But if you want sell goods and accept CC payments, you need a merchant account.

**chrishirst** · 02-25-2009, 10:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TWD

I've never understood the "you will need a Merchant account to take credit cards" line of argument.

Its always seemed pretty obvious to me that you can pay with your credit card WITHOUT opening a PayPal account.

You are confusing two different things.

You can use Paypal as a payment gateway without a merchant account, and people can pay you with credit cards using a paypal account.
It's about 2 years or so ago that Paypal brought in the no account needed, credit card payments for US credit cards on the US paypal site.

IF however you want to accept credit card payments directly or process payments over the phone you do need a merchant ID

**TWD** · 02-25-2009, 11:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrishirst

You are confusing two different things.

You can use Paypal as a payment gateway without a merchant account, and people can pay you with credit cards using a paypal account.
It's about 2 years or so ago that Paypal brought in the no account needed, credit card payments for US credit cards on the US paypal site.

IF however you want to accept credit card payments directly or process payments over the phone you do need a merchant ID

So,

If I only want to sell goods online (I dont have a bricks and mortar business) and I dont want to take phone orders , a PayPal account is sufficient to process credit card payments?

According to this you only need "Premier" Level account type to take credit cards.
https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/we...tTypes-outside

**chrishirst** · 02-25-2009, 12:00 PM

Quote:

If I only want to sell goods online (I dont have a bricks and mortar business) and I dont want to take phone orders , a PayPal account is sufficient to process credit card payments?

Yep.

Paypal have also ugraded their Website Payments Pro system to include phone, fax and mail ordering and for the US there is the "Virtual Terminal", an "online" version of a swipe card machine.

**TWD** · 02-25-2009, 12:21 PM

Thanks.

That's what I figured.