I have been looking into getting a merchant account after getting taken by google checkout. There are just some things that aren't that clear to me. What is a payment gateway and why do I need that if I have a merchant account?

this was a little confusing to me as well until I found a company who was somewhat helpful and put it in laymans terms. the gateway acts as the "online terminal" (if you will) and approves the cards then sends it to the merchant account to be deposited into your bank.
If you ask me it's just a way to get us to pay for multiple services with compaines but it's a leap i had to go for to get away from my paypal nightmere.

I signed up with merchantinc and it came with the authorize.net payment gateway included in the price, only $7.95/month which I am happy to pay to not having to ever deal with paypal again. and the % taken off is only 1.99 so I will save a ton of money there compared to paypals 2.9%

Hi 49ers4ever, I am in the UK, but I guess the principle is the same. The gateway is the place where the card transaction is approved; the account is where the money goes. One of the reasons PayPal has been so successful is because the gateway and account are effectively in one place and the merchant pays just one charge for the service. When you separate the 2 functions it adds complexity and potentially cost. In the UK merchants have the choice between PayPal, Worldpay and Nochex for an all in one solution. Lots of businesses supply gateways only, but the real challenge can then be getting a merchant account. Hope this helps, Peter (I work for Nochex)

Thank you all for this info. Now it makes much more sense to me. I guess all that is left to do is to shop around for the best deal. Chrystal's suggestion sounded pretty good compared to what I have seen so far.

Oooooo yeah...google checkout...NOT such a very good Paypal alternative.Sorry to hear you had a bad experience with them

I had looked into google checkout but I really didn't like the fact that they release money....my money...on some sort of payout schedule which doesn't payout until like 14 days later. 14 days is a bit too long to hold onto money owed to me.

We all know paypal isn't a good option to venture to after being had by google checkout. Been reading a few posts about the merchantinc merchant account. Sounds like a good one to try out. Good luck

I heard complaints about google checkout as well. Merchant accounts can be a great way to go but do your research