Credit Card Overview

Accepting credit cards online is not too difficult, but it will help you immensely to understand the mechanics which facilitate these transactions.

There are 3 basic components which you will need and should know about:

Here is a diagram which show you how they all interact:

In the diagram, above, a buyer enters his credit card information on an ecommerce enabled website. The website then transmits his credit card information and transaction information to a gateway provider. The gateway provider attempts to charge the credit card for the amount of purchase, and sends the results back to the the website. If it's a successful charge, the gateway deposits the funds into a merchant account, where the money is made available to you.

We will examine merchant accounts and gateways more in depth in future lessons.