Everyone who has strong awareness of e-commerce should be familiar with payment gateway and merchant account. Although those two terms convey a relatively similar meaning and function, they are different in some ways. E-commerce enthusiasts should be aware of such difference and should know how to make use of each of those e-commerce facilities effectively.

E-commerce is a trendy term nowadays and it has been that way since the first time people knew the internet. E-commerce gives reliable facilities to sellers who want to sell their products and to finish their deals fast and profitably and it also gives facilities to buyers who want to buy particular products conveniently and quickly.

By utilizing all facilities that e-commerce provides, both parties can make use of the internet for commercial purpose very efficiently and effectively. In a nutshell, without e-commerce, internet will never become an enormously expansive marketplace where people buy and sell an extremely wide range of products, ranging from key chains to real estate property.

There are many facilities that e-commerce provides; merchant account and payment gateway are two of the biggest and most useful ones. For sellers, both facilities help them process their deals and transactions with their customers. Although both facilities seem to have a somewhat similar function, they remain different—sometimes completely—in some ways.

Merchant account is usually utilized by business people who allow their customers to pay on credit. This account is tied into their checking account so that any credit payment made by their customers can easily be processed. Payment gateway, on the other hand, is a tool that allows online transactions to be carry out securely.

Both facilities are considered necessary because a seller has to know that some of his/her customers prefer buying on credit and all of those customers want to make sure that any transactions that they carry out online are secured.