Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Ecommerce Hosting & Discussion : Possible? One merchant Account, Multiple Websites?

I'm relatively new to merchant accounts at the moment. If I host multiple ecommerce websites, can I get one merchant account and have it able to accept payments from multiple websites?
I'd hate to open up multiple merchant accounts...
Also where do you even begin to look for a merchant account. I did a quick google yesterday and found tons of them! I hear you can open one up at your local bank, but I almost feel like my bank is the middleman (hoping to cut them out if possible)... Also I see references to payment gateways.. Do payment gateways directly interact with merchant accounts?
Where are the cheapest lowest fee merchant accounts or are they all pretty much comparable give or take a few tenths of a percent?
Just curious on what others use for their websites... When I talked with my bank my gut gave me a bad feeling that my banker was just upselling and trying to pitch/mark up stuff I didn't need...

[EvilMan]

Banks are NOT the middle man, they are the ones that allow you to process visa and mastercard.
As far as the multi site goes, the answer is going to be basicly no for most banks. I personaly use CDGcommerce

[twhiting9275]

CDG commerce is a very good recommendation. As far as "can you do this", I don't see why not. If it's all being processed under the same business name, there is no reason why this shouldn't be possible to do, it's done all the time. Just make it VERY clear to your clients that you are processing under your business name.
Of course, the only one that is going to be able to truly answer that question is your provider, not us. As provider's rules differ massively, you may find that you do in fact have to open multiple accounts for one, but not for another.
Alternatively, you can use multiple domains to handle links to one central ordering area, which will require just one account. Maybe a bit touchy there as well though.
Again, ask your provider, or your potential provider before doing this!

[Failsafe Payments]

If you are one merchant but with several websites, using the very same company and sell the same type of products, then it is allowed to process several websites through one MID.
However most banks and processors insists on one website, one MID.

Failsafe is saying right

[LinuxStandard]

be sure you check with the provider, because most of them do not allow multiple websites.
I didn't knew until I asked for it 2 years ago. I don't know about present, though. I highly doubt the policies are going to change.

[stymiee]

No serious merchant account provider is going to establish one merchant account for multiple websites. The chargeback potential is too enormous to do so. The fact that only one website will have the proper name shown on the other statement means that the one that won’t have their name on the customer’s statement will experience a high rate of chargebacks just from customers not recognizing the DBA on their statement. This doesn’t even take into consideration the high rate of chargebacks internet-based businesses experience anyway.
And, if you want to try to avoid that by putting the corporate name on the statement you make the problem even worse. Now on both websites your customers will not recognize the business name on the statement. You might think you can put the corporate name prominently on each website or saying on the checkout page, “Your statement will say ABC Corporation” will mitigate that problem. Not true. Customers associate the business name with their purchase and having the wrong name on the statement is a proven way to get lots of chargebacks.
The bank, and the merchant, will want to have separate accounts as if one experiences a high rate of chargebacks (greater then one percent) that account will be closed but the other one will be unaffected. If both accounts are rolled up into one, if the chargebacks from one get too high and bring the collective total over one percent they both will be shut down. Obviously bad business for the merchant.
Additionally, each website is judged on its own merits. One website might be readily accepted by a merchant account provider but the other might due to its elevated level of risk.

Low cost Ecommerce solutions
To be honest with you, when i first read about receiving free ecommerce web design and development quotes from www.tentopquotes.co.uk, I thought it would be just like other services available on the internet and still I thought to give it a try. I, with very less expectations, filled out the quote request form and to my utmost surprise, they called back to gather details about my ecommerce web site project which happened to be an online shopping mall. And that is not all. I actually received quotes for my ecommerce website from UK based companies that actually existed. It seemed as if they had a setup larger and more organized than I had previously assumed. My website is almost complete now with the exact functional specifications. The quotes were surprisingly reasonable and all my functionality specifications are met accurately. I am happy and I am sure if you have an ecommerce web site in your way, you can definitely use www.tentopquotes.co.uk for your needs.

[e-onlinedata support]

Hi Legend,
Interesting question...
Are you selling under the same DBA with the same bank account on each site? If so, there are instances where we have approved a single account for a merchant, (photographers for instance who may have several targeted marketing sites but one DBA). Your underwriter can work with you to determine the feasibility of this option.
Best of luck!

Yes, my initial plan was to have...
a few websites (less than 5) with completely separate products. Their would only be one entity "ABC Company" and one checking account for ABC Company.... ABC Company would be considered an "Internet Ecommerce Company" and have multiple websites underneath it.
I planned to stress during the checkout process that credit cards statements for xyz.com will appear under ABC Company because xyz.com is an ABC Company...
That is very interesting on the amount of chargebacks that may results based on this...
It just seems rather inefficient to create multiple checking accounts and multiple merchant accounts to make this happen. It would be more costly, and more of a headache to be honest in remember where what goes where...
Granted the biggest benefit I see from seperating all the websites is ease in accounting use (Easier to decide how each company is doing in terms of sales)

[Failsafe Payments]

If it is separate products it is not possible as each product is coded differently with VISA/MC and as such some products will be coded wrong.
The upside with having it separated is also that the descriptor identifies where the customer bought the product much better than just one general descriptor for all websites which can result in chargebacks as the cardholder will not recognize the descriptor.

[EvilMan]

Actualy for the Merchant Account, you cna have multiple web sites and have the transactions go still to the 1 checking account.
3rd party processors like paypal doesn't like this happen due to paypal regulations which state that you can only have 1 personal accoutn and 1 business account, and oyu cannot share accounts.

hello,
dear friend you can process from different through one mid,all you have to do is get a mid from bank.

[Losvre]

Hello there
I am not an expert in ecommerce but why do not you try to have a link to your original e-shop in each of your website, considering that you sell the same products of course.

[Jag]

Yes you can do it. Websites do not matter to a merchant other than you already having one before getting an account for an online merchant. We do something like this for Hostingzoom, Resellerzoom, and Modvps.