If you are selling your products online, your customers will want to pay for their goods online not through other payment methods, such as checks or money orders. Offering your customers the ability to pay for their purchases with the credit card of their choice is essential in e-commerce. There are many other advantages of accepting credit cards

1. Fast turnaround time. When your customers pay be credit card, you get paid in days -- not weeks. Merchants that accept only checks can end up waiting for the customer to send the payment, waiting for the post office to deliver the payment, and waiting for the bank to process the payment. When you have a merchant account, this entire process is circumvented and the funds transfer is almost immediate. You can usually expect to receive your funds from your merchant account provider in less than five days.

2. Instant gratification. When you offer your customers the ability to purchase an item instantly, they are much more likely to follow through and buy. The easier you make it to buy, the more often it will happen.

3. Increased impulse sales. These are related to, but distinct from, instant gratification purchases. Impulse items are usually cheaper, like the magazines and candy bars you find at a grocery store checkout stand. Although each individual item is cheap, they can quickly add up.

4. Automatic currency conversion. If you have customers in different parts of the world, or just over the border, currency conversion can be a serious hurdle. However, credit cards instantly perform this conversion, making the entire process seamless -- neither you nor you customer has to do any extra work.

5. Move big-ticket items faster. Expensive items can be the hardest items to sell. But buyers who use credit cards know that they will be able to spread their payments over several months. Accepting credit cards lets you use this to your benefit.

6. Wider appeal. Although many people still rely on checks as their main purchasing medium, the vast majority of Internet shoppers do have credit cards. And many of those shoppers prefer to pay by credit card. If you do not accept credit cards, you risk losing this segment of customers. And that's just bad business.

Source: http://www.allbusiness.com/business_advice/articles/11197.html

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