Live credit card processing is the capacity for a website to interact with a payment gateway service to automatically authorize and process credit card transactions in response to orders placed through a website in real-time. In order to achieve live credit card processing, you must already have the ability to accept credit cards through your website (see our Merchant Account services).

Live credit card processing is an effective way to greatly reduce overhead and add functionality to your site. You are notified of an order only after a client's credit card has been approved and charged (for certain industries, such as software retail, the order can even be fulfilled automatically). As well, the client gains the immediate assurance that their order will be processed and receives a receipt for their purchase instantly. The money is then automatically deposited directly into your business checking account shortly thereafter.

Payment Gateway Services

Live credit card processing requires an additional service called a Payment Gateway Service, which interacts, on one end, with the ordering facilities at your website and, on the other end, with your credit card Merchant Account to process the transaction "behind-the-scenes". The ordering facility on your website can either be a simple order form or a shopping cart.

LFC supports payment gateway services for clients in the United States, Canada, Europe, and many other countries. All customers who have a merchant account with LFC have a payment gateway included free-of-charge with our MultiPay service through our partnerships with Plug'n Pay (United States and Europe only), a leading payment processor, and others for Canadian and international customers.

Please contact us for information on live credit card processing support in your country, or visit the Plug'n Pay website for more information. However keep in mind that a live credit card processing account through LFC is free-of-charge for merchant account owners, as opposed to the standard rates advertised on their website for direct customers. We are able to offer this special deal to customers of LFC through our special partnership.

For clients who already have a merchant account with another provider, we still recommend Plug'n Pay for their ease of integration with a shopping cart.

Live Credit Card Processing with an Online Shopping Cart

A shopping cart works by allowing your website visitors to travel through your site, adding products to their shopping basket, then "checking out" to complete the order. The shopping cart keeps track of the order and calculates shipping, tax, etc. automatically, and is the standard way of interfacing a website with a credit card payment gateway to achieve live credit card processing.

Included FREE of charge with all of our Business-oriented Hosting Plans is the innovative, versatile storefront builder and shopping cart software package, Simply E-commerce. Unlike most other software, which supports a limited number of gateways, Simply E-commerce (SE) is built on a unique, versatile model allowing it to be interfaced with all payment gateways.

Loose Foot Computing can build a gateway from SE to your payment gateway of choice. For clients using Plug'n Pay (either obtained through us, or otherwise), this service is done free-of-charge as part of our Simply E-commerce Shopping Cart Design Service. If you already have another payment gateway service setup, or wish to use a different payment gateway service for one reason or another, ask us for a custom quote on interfacing Simply E-commerce with your payment gateway service.