What you don’t know can truly hurt your online business.

This has never been more true than when you set out to choose an Internet payment systems.

It’s not so much that making a wrong decision can harm your business irreparably (although, it can); it’s that there is so much information to process before you commit to a payment gateway and merchant account provider.

John Bodine, the vice president of sales and marketing for Authorize.Net, says business owners should choose a provider in much the same way they would any other vendor.

“Get an understanding of who you’re dealing with,” he said.

We did just that and came up with a list of common criteria businesses use to make payment gateway/merchant account decisions:

1. Does the payment system require a conventional merchant account?
2. What type of fraud protection does the vendor offer?
3. Does the vendor make it easy for your business to brand the payment system interface to look like it fits on your website
4. Is it possible to integrate the payment system into an existing billing mechanism?
5. Can your payment systems provider handle global currency?

Practical Ecommerce