If you want to take credit card and other forms of payment online and you do not have a merchant account, you can use a third-party payment processor.

These companies let you use their process payments via their merchant account and then transfer the money to your own bank account.

The advantage of this is that there is usually with very little setup required in terms of providing paper work and business documentation.

The downside is that it adds another layer of processing to your payments and therefore the commission charged for each payment is sometimes higher.

The best known third-party payment processor is PayPal.

A payment gateway is an online service that authorises credit and debit card payments for your web site.

The payment gateway provides secure processing of your customers' card details and then deposit the funds in to your merchant account.

An internet merchant account and payment gateway are often set up in one process through the same company such as World Pay.

IMA, stands for Internet Merchant Account and is one means for web site owners to accept payment for goods and services from their web site.

Most off line businesses process credit and debit card payments using a Merchant Account. Merchant accounts are mostly used in scenarios where the buyer is present, e.g. in a store or at a trade fair.

To process credit and debit card payments online, organisations also need to have an Internet Merchant Account. You can apply direct to your bank for one or if you are signing up with a payment processing company such as World Pay, they may help you apply for an IMA.

Some methods of taking payment online such as PayPal, do no require you to have an IMA.

Many online stores sell directly to their customers and via agents. These agents are called affiliates.

Most affiliates schemes are highly automated meaning that the affiliates sign up for the scheme online and can start trading without having any direct contact with the actual trading company.

On of the most well know affiliate schemes is run by Amazon. Anyone can sign up for their affiliate scheme and sell books and other products from their web site.

The affiliate does not need to stock any of the items for sale or process any of the orders. They simply refer customers to the merchants web site and take a percentage of the sale.