Merchant account has been a necessity for the retailers in order to accept credit cards from their customers online on their websites. Usually you must go to your bank, they evaluate your risks and only then after thorough checks you are allowed to open a merchant account. Opening a merchant account takes a lot of time lots of paperwork is needed, your credit score should be checked, your websites are checked thoroughly. The acquiring bank can easily decline your application if your product seems a bit risky to them. Such things happen especially when you try to sell your digital products online ebooks or software. So it can be a quite hard to start processing credit cards online. But today, it is not the only option for the business which is just on the start up move. There are a number of services which does not require merchant account for accepting credit cards. All you have to do is just to signup on one of these companies, add your product details to the system and place payment buttons on your website. They will resell your product your customers will be able to buy your product with credit cards or Paypal payments and you will get your earnings paid out directly to your bank account or Paypal.
In order to accept credit cards online without a merchant account you have to:
1.Search for the existing credit card processors online that would process payments for you. You have to find whether you need a processor to accept cards both in online and offline mode. Then you need to locate whether the processor allows your special product type to be accepted.