GRrrr...Merchant Account

[Starting Big]

I was looking around online for a merchant account, but after finding a few and reading some of the limitations, it seems that a lot of places only offer their services to ecommerce sites selling tangable items as opposed to an online service. Does anyone have any recommendations for a good/well-known shopping cart/gateway that tailors to ecommerce service sites (other than google/paypal/etc.)?

Thanks

James

[Chris]

Stymiee may know someone, but in my experience intangible goods are so high a fraud risk that you end up having to use a place like paypal.

[Xander]

As Chris said, fraud is a big problem and you will need good fraud detection. Dan Grossman wrote on his blog about moving to paypal to help reduce fraud http://www.dangrossman.info/2008/02/18/results-paypal-as-a-primary-payment-provider/

[Starting Big]

When it comes to websites and ecommerce I am a virgin (but learning). With that being said, and after reading Dan Grossman's blog, I have a few questions.

1) Does the fraud happen because people want the service a website offers, and they don't want to pay, or is it just that they want to test out their stolen credit card numbers? If it is the former, I probably wouldn't have too much to worry about.

2) I heard my friend talking once about being able to do credit cards thru and along with Paypal. Is this true? And if so, does it still offer the same amount of protection that Paypal offers in regards to chargebacks, etc.?

3) Xander, you mentioned the term 'fraud detection'. What exactly to you mean by this; what Paypal does before finalizing the order/payment process, or is there special software available that helps in some way, or both?

My site will be done being built soon, and while I'm not in a rush to have it go live, I'm trying like crazy to cover all the bases, and this merchant account / gateway is where I'm at. Thanks for all your input!

James

[Gate2Shop]

There are many sources of fraud protection, and a good provider will be using them. As for "Merchant" accounts that will depend on who you use and the volume that you process.