It's my first time setting up a merchant account and shopping cart service and I am looking for feedback or suggestions. I am looking into Advanced Merchant Services and Americart.
I'm not looking for anything expensive although I don't mind set up fees for a merchant account, I just don't want to pay 5% on each transaction. Anyone have any suggestions on cheap to moderately priced services. Would like to hear prior experiences with either company. Thankx.

Try http://www.revecom.com
Just one to note :)

Do you use them now or have you in the past? If so, howwas/is your experience with them? I will check pricing right now from the link you provided.

Hi,

No we don't use them we have our merchan account with our bank (Used to use worldPay - Bad experience)

I've recommended revecom to my users and they have been satisfied and the pricing does seem rather good.

Let us know how you go.

Appreciate the feedback. I will take them into consideration. Anyone else have any suggestions?

I'm looking to sell tangible as well as intangible items. All I need is a merchant account and shopping cart service right? Are anymore add-ons necessary?

Also, what exactly is real-time processing and why would I need it?

Originally posted by wattaunojoe
Also, what exactly is real-time processing and why would I need it?

This where your client signs up or buys from your website store and their credit card is charged in real time - Accepting the payment or otherwise declining if insufficient funds.

Be careful to check every cc order, fraud is rife and chargebacks can be expensive. Good luck.

You could also checkout http://www.2checkout.com

For shopping carts I can recommend Better Basket Pro http://www.imediasoftware.com/products/bbpro/ . - unlike americart their are no monthly/yearly fees.

For payment processing you could look at either a service like Pay Pal (http://www.paypal.com) or Revecom ( http://www.revecom.com ) as others have suggested above or a merchant account with say an AuthorizeNet reseller ( http://www.authorize.net) - or WorldPay, who a many here use http://www.wordlpay.com.

Hope this is helpful ;)