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How We Can Help You SucceedWelcome to the wonderful world of e-commerce! E-Commerce can be confusing. If you went out on the internet to find out how to get your merchant account, you would be hit with literally thousands of ads and promises with enough fine print to cover the earth several feet high. We have cut through all the fluff and bull to present the very easiest and least costly way of getting your online store working. Basically, InternetConnectUSA.com carries the load and handles all of the technical problems. Explaining merchant accounts and our costs should make it much easier to understand. Merchant Accounts There are two different kinds of Merchant Accounts. The first is a brick-and-mortar account. A Brick and Mortar account is provided by a financial institution for credit cards that are brought to the store and swiped on the spot and the cardholder is verified by asking for identification and obtaining a signature for the purchase. Financial institutions generally offer a lower transaction fee (like 1.5%) for these low-risk transactions, and while they allow a certain number of non-swiped transactions which allow merchants to accept over-the-phone orders, they generally charge twice as much (3%) for a non-swiped transaction. An internet compliant merchant account is designed to take transactions over the phone, the fax and now the internet and as such cannot be swiped. Non-swiped transactions are considered a higher risk by merchant account providers and as such have a discount rate of 2.3% - 2.4% for transactions. In the beginning, a retail business that decides to go online to sell their product could use their brick-and-mortar merchant account – but this should be discussed with your merchant account provider first to discuss fees and possible penalties. It is easy! Through our partnership with 1stCommerce.net and Merchant Commerce, it is easy to get an internet compliant merchant account and gateway. There is a 99% per cent approval rate on merchant account applications submitted and the entire process from application to connection to your website will only take about 72 business hours. 1stCommerce.net can be found at http://1stcommerce.net or you may call them directly at 910-321-1372, or by Fax at 910-321-1390. But we are also very happy to make the introduction for you. Call us and we will call 1stCommerce.net for you and have them call you! Now, that is service!!! Costs $100 application fee - This is the one time setup fee for your merchant account. 2.35% Discount Rate - Visa & MasterCard and the processor take a fee for every transaction. It works like this. On a $100 sale, the discount rate of 2.35% would deduct $2.35 from the $100 sale. There is a 25-cent transaction fee charged to each order and a 5-cent AVS (Address verification service) fee. Therefore, on the $100 sale, the processor would keep $2.65, giving you, the merchant, a net of $97.35. Note, some banks deduct this fee at time of sale, while most deduct it as a total of charges at the end of each month. $25 Minimum Monthly fee - In the example above, you, the merchant, would pay $2.65 in total transaction fees on that order. The bank has a minimum of $25 per month in transaction charges. So if you did not do another order for the month, they would charge you the additional $22.35 to cover the $25 monthly minimum. The easiest way to describe this is that you will pay $25 per month OR discount and transaction fees collected, whichever is greater. $.25 Transaction Fee plus $.05 Address Verification Fee. These fees are charged for each transaction as described above. $10.00 Monthly Service Fee - This fee is charged to your checking account for the monthly statement that is sent to you each month itemizing all of your transactions, much like a bank statement, that you will use to reconcile your month's sales. You will also be able to access your account at any time at a website address given you by InternetConnectUSA.com. In addition, there is a monthly fee for the secure gateway which connects your merchant account to your website for real-time and manual transactions. We charge you for a pro-rated year in advance and we pay the monthly. This represents a nice discount to you because by doing it this way, we don't have to bill each month. If you discontinue service in the middle of the year, the balance of the year's cost is pro-rated back to you. So it is a win-win situation for our customers and us. 
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