Do you wish to sell products online? After determining what ecommerce platform to use for your shopping site, like OsCommerce or others, it is important to choose the right merchant account provider. 

A merchant account provider is one who processes credit card payments on a store.  This payment system is to be installed and integrated in your website so that each product is linked to a payment facility that so credit card payments can be processed. 

A website where there are products and prices serves only as a catalogue or a marketing tool, and not a money making website if it doesn’t have a merchant account.