What is a Payment Gateway and What Does Webstix Need in Order to Set it Up?

A payment gateway is a link from the online world to the banking world. It is what is needed so that your website can talk to your merchant account. So here are all the thing needed for e-commerce:

1. A Merchant Account - you can usually get this through your bank. It enables you to accept credit cards like Visa, Mastercard and American Express.
2. A Checking Account - funds taken from credit cards will be deposited daily into your checking account.
3. An Online Payment Gateway - this is done through companies like Authorize.net, Verisign or many others. More information on this below.
4. A Website with a Shopping Cart - we're providing this for you. Some programming is needed so that your website can talk to the payment gateway.
5. A Security Certificate (SSL Certificate) - this creates a secure connection between the server and people's computers so that the information is transmitted securely.

For the payment gateway, you have a few options. These are the ones we work with and by using these, there will not be any additional programming needed, so no additional costs to you:

• Authorize.net
• 2Checkout
• eWay
• iKobo
• iTransact
• NoChex
• PayMate
• PayPal
• PayFlowPro - Verisign
• WorldPay

Webstix suggests using Authorize.net since it's very good, has nice features and is easy to do programming for. Often, other payment gateways will set theirs up to be Authorize.net compatible, which tells you that Authorize.net does things well.

Webstix also offers a combo package that includes both a Merchant Account and the Payment Gateway. The sign-up cost is $79.00 (this cost will be reimbursed if you are working with Webstix on an e-Commerce project or shopping cart). You can sign up online here:

Sign up for Authorize.net Here

For the payment gateway that you choose, we'll at least need the username and password for the account. If you're using Authorize.net, then please provide the following so that we can create a transaction key and take the account in and out of test mode:

• Username
• Password
• Secret Question
• Answer to Secret Question

We will need these things in order to set up Authorize.net to work with your shopping cart.