Card not present. It’s a different category of payment transactions – when you, the merchant, doesn’t see the card, can’t ask for the cardholder ID, can’t swipe that card or dip that chip.
No matter what you’re selling online – hard goods like purses or books, intangible products like training, subscriptions, or software – the biggest difference between your business and your brick-and-mortar counterparts is that they see the card and you don’t.
If you’re doing business online, you need an online solution that works for the way you do business, whether an e-commerce payment solution or a solution specifically designed for your online subscription business.
Special Requirements for Online Selling
If you’re doing e-commerce business through your website, you’ll need a payment gateway to work with your e-commerce platform – a requirement that doesn’t exist for brick-and-mortar businesses. EPS works with an ever-growing list of payment gateways, including Authorize.net, eProcessingNetwork, and USAePay to handle the complex infrastructure and security necessary to ensure fast, reliable, and secure transmission of transaction data.
Does a Payment Gateway Charge a Fee?
Most do, yes. These fees are typically charged within each transaction and will not appear on your credit card processing statement. While EPS has no control over your payment gateway, we’re happy to help you evaluate your options and choose the right payment gateway for your business.
What About E-commerce Payment Security?
Payments processed through your e-commerce solution, to your payment gateway, and through to EPS are fully encrypted and secure. Because e-commerce transactions by their very nature are card-not-present transactions, the opportunity for fraud does exist. We work with you to develop best practices for reducing chargebacks as well as returns.
EPS Quick-Notes
It surprises us every time we hear of a credit card processor who requires merchants who will never see a credit card to purchase or lease a payment terminal. Do they do it to simply make more money? Or because they don’t know how to deal with online merchants? Either way, you’re not the winner. We’ll never require you to purchase a terminal for your online business. That’s just silly.