Deciding how to accept payments online can be confusing? Should you use PayPal? Do you need a shopping cart? How does a merchant account fit into the mix?

If you’re just starting out and don’t generate a large volume of income online, I recommend sticking with PayPal. It’s low cost, easy to use, and most online shoppers are comfortable with PayPal.

Once you’re generating regular income or want to offer payment options or collect recurring payments for monthly memberships, you’ll want to explore shopping cart and merchant account options.

There are many, many options to choose from. I just want to talk about a couple.

PayPal offers a higher level of service for a fee that allows for more flexibility. I’ve researched it myself, but it didn’t meet my particular needs. Let me share how I set up my online payment options for customers.

1. Shopping Cart – GoldbarOne (another popular option is 1shoppingcart)

These shopping cart services not only provide product options, but also autoresponder services and broadcast messages. Once you have the ability to create and sell products, you’ll need a service to process credit and debit card payments for you.

2. Merchant Account – Practice Payment Solutions

You have to apply and be approved for a merchant account. An account allows you to accept credit or debit card payments and serves as an agreement between a retailer, a commercial bank, and a payment processor (such as Authorize.net) for the settlement of commercial credit or debit card payment transactions.

The way these pieces fit together was very confusing to me at first. I was in business for probably 1 year before moving from PayPal to Practice Pay Solutions combined with GoldbarOne.