Shopping Cart & Gateway compatibility

Different merchant account providers use different gateways, and not all gateways and merchant accounts are compatible. When choosing a gateway or virtual terminal for use with your merchant account be sure to use a gateway that is compatible with as many different merchant service providers as possible.

Gateways and Virtual Terminals

A gateway and virtual terminal are two different elements of the same software. A gateway is the portion of the processing software that allows a merchant's web site to obtain online credit card authorizations without any human intervention. The virtual terminal is what a merchant logs in to, using any computer with Internet access, to manually enter a customer's credit card information in order to manually obtain a credit card authorization. A gateway/virtual terminal are essentially the virtual version of a physical credit card machine.

Gateway and Merchant Account Compatibility

Some gateways are compatible with the merchant services offered by a number of different third-party processors and banks, where other gateways are only compatible with a single processor or bank.

Gateways that are only compatible with a single processor are called proprietary. If you purchase proprietary equipment in order to utilize the services of a single processor, you will need to purchase new equipment if you ever wish to change merchant service providers.

When obtaining a merchant account it is always best to purchase a gateway that may be reprogrammed through another provider. This allows you to switch providers in the future without having to purchase a new gateway.

Before purchasing a gateway be sure to ask if the equipment can be reprogrammed through another provider if necessary.

Gateway and Shopping Cart Compatibility

A shopping cart is the software that tells a gateway how much to charge a customer's credit card. There are literally hundreds of different shopping carts available. Like merchant accounts and gateways, shopping carts have compatibility issues as well.

Different gateways ad shopping carts may or may not be compatible. If you already have a shopping cart integrated into your web site, you want to be sure to obtain merchant services from a provider that offers a compatible gateway. Otherwise, you may have to re-do your entire web site with a compatible shopping cart.