Payment Processing:
PayPal offers a quick and easy way to accept online payments with no monthly or setup fees. You just pay a transaction fee to PayPal for each purchase. Transaction fees range from 1.9% to 2.9% depending on the number of transactions each month.
Unless you are a high-volume seller, PayPal is a good place to start, though the customer needs to have a PayPal account (which is free, but not everyone has one).
A merchant account takes longer to get started and typically involves a setup fee and monthly charges for providing the electronic payment processing service in addition to individual transaction fees. Merchant accounts can have lower transaction fees if you conduct a sufficient number of transactions each month.
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E-Commerce Web Hosting:
Yahoo! Merchant Solutions is one reputable provider of web hosting for your online store. Services include domain name registration, e-mail accounts, shopping cart, check-out pages, an order management system, marketing tools, and payment processing through PayPal or a merchant account.
Unless you have thousands to pay a design company to create a custom shopping cart and check-out pages for you, this is a sound choice (though there are many others). See a Yahoo!-hosted gift shop designed by Pixel Perfect: Eureka Gift Baskets.
Note: an online store takes time to gain recognition and a customer base. Promotion and marketing are the keys to building traffic and sales. Contact Pixel Perfect with questions or to request a free consultation.
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