As a vendor, especially a newbie vendor, have you encountered such two problems: how to sell and how to accept payment? If you do business online and sell software or other items, offering clients the most convenient way to pay for their purchases is the key. However, obviously, the payment methods are diversified. Well, today we mainly concentrate on credit card payment online which is a preferred payment method for most online clients.

Why Use Credit Card Payment Online?

1. Fast and convenient: credit card transaction is processed within seconds once your customer enters the details on your checkout page. Unlike other payments, the funds are deposited instantly to vendor account.

2. International clients: credit card payment is tremendously convenient if your customers are overseas. So it is advisable that you should accept credit card payment so as not to lose potential clients.

Methods of Accepting Credit Card Payment

There are two ways you can adopt when accepting credit card payment online on your site.

1. Your Own Credit Card Merchant Account. It needs a bank that will enable you to open an account. For this, it has different requirements in different countries and regions.

2. A Third party Merchant. Actually there are numerous payment platforms such as PayPal, RegNow, ClickBank and many others, which are also called "payment gateways".

Third party merchant is generally simple to use when you do not know how much you can make from your products. Also if you want to test the water to see how things are, this may be a great way to begin. Besides, if you utilize a trustworthy third party merchant, your visitors might be more willing to purchase your goods online given that they trust that merchant.

How a Third Party Merchant Works?

Here just takes the PayPal for example:

1. Open a PayPal account if you don't have one.
2. Build Products on PayPal.
3. Set up Thank-you page on your website. So clients would immediately know their orders are successful.
4. Receive payment notification email. When the client pays, you'll receive an email notification telling you that the client's funds are now available in your account.
5. Manually generate and then send serial numbers or download links to your clients.

The process seems very simple, doesn’t it? Actually during the transaction, you should concentrate on the IPN scripts which are crucial for the reception of order information and any error will lead to incorrect information. Moreover, demands for PHP knowledge make it difficult for vendors who had mastered some PHP knowledge, let alone newbies. Then how to simplify the establishment of credit card payment online? Now Sale Management X, the best choice!

Sale Management X provides you with a handbook, step by step show you the procedure on how to receive credit card payment. Much easier, more convenient!

Additionally, as what I have written before, the Thank-you page and IPN settings are very complicated. However, now with Sale Management X, no worry anymore! At the same time it can automatically generate and send serial numbers or download links to your clients.

Furthermore, the powerful background features can easily make vendors count and check for the sales via customer name, registration email, order receipt, country and order time, etc. no matter daily, monthly or even yearly sales information.

If you are selling things on the Internet, you really have not much choice but to accept credit card payment online. Now Sale Management X automates the whole process for you. You probably don't know what you have missed until you try it out.

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FXstreet.com's analyst Valeria Bednarik says in the article below that the UK "monetary independence is both a blessing and a curse", good point given the problems over the Eurozone periphery. It seems to be accepted by the market that the BoE is focused on inflation and not the recovery, as the BoE´s governor Mervyn King and Chancellor George Osborne have been busy these last six months.

Looking at the numbers, year-over-year inflation was up around 4.2% in June, leading to speculation of a rate hike which could threaten the economic recovery, as growth remains stagnant with the quarterly GDP at mere 0.5% in Q1.

What happened during the first half of 2011? Too much news and too many decisions from the market, What will happen in the second half? Valeria tell us in the article below “TUG OF WAR: Growth vs. Inflation”. This is the fifth issue of our FXstreet.com mid-year check up series, today delving into the situation in the UK with the Pound as the main character.

Tug of War: Growth vs. Inflation

By Valeria Bednarik, Forex Analyst for FXstreet.com

With the crisis the world is living through right now, if there is something to say about the UK it is that their monetary independence is both a blessing and a curse. Back in 2008 when the financial world collapsed following the US housing mortgage crisis, that economic independence had let the UK act in proper manner, and the BOE quickly reacted by cutting rates, creating the assets purchase facility program, and in general favoring a re-balancing of the economy. Problem is, things haven´t gone according to the plan, despite the huge devaluation the UK is still struggling to recover.

And with growth still remaining mostly stagnant, the recovery path seems harder day after day with overwhelming negative fundamental data and rising inflation.

At one point, we may wonder whether the UK is actually advancing or at the verge of a another financial collapse. Especially if things remain unchanged and Chancellor George Osborne continues to insist that the government hold its nerve by not deviating from his plans to cut borrowing, despite the increasing evidence that this policy may be damaging growth.

Economic Growth Stagnant

The United Kingdom GDP expanded just 0.50% over the first quarter of 2011, compared to the previous quarter. From 1955 until 2010 the UK´s average quarterly GDP Growth was 0.59% reaching a historical high of 5.30% in March of 1973 and a record low of -2.50% in March of 1974.
While among the worlds' most developed economies, it´s growth has never been close to outstanding, as we see from the previous figures, yet the main reason of the latest disappointing results may be found in a stalling manufacturing sector, a contraction in construction, and a sharp drop in oil and gas extraction. If something is giving support to the Pound these days, it is the strong oil near $100 a barrel. The bottom line is that when it comes to economic growth, the risk remains to the downside in the UK.

When it comes to the labor sector, the unemployment rate was 7.7% back in May. That's barely above the 7.22% average from 1971 to 2010, so despite it being not a positive figure, at least the sector is among one of the better all things relative. The latest reading in June showed the unemployment rate was down 0.1% over the quarter and 0.1% on the year. Still the report showed there where 1.52 million people claiming unemployment allowances which was an increase of 24,500 from May. In particular, the number of men claiming allowances increased by 15,000 to reach 1.03 million and the number of women claimants increased by 9,500 to reach 493,900, the highest figure since August 1996.

The Minister for Employment Chris Grayling said this month: "There continue to be some encouraging signs in the labor market figures, particularly with the continued rise in private sector employment. It's really important that we continue to support the economy and encourage businesses to invest and create jobs. However, we do not underestimate the scale of the challenge that we face to help people into employment.”

Inflationary Pressure on the Rise

While the UK has cut down their interest rate benchmark to 0.50% where it has remained steady since March 2009, inflation keeps rising above the BOE´s tolerance limit and was last reported at 4.2% in June over the year. From 1989 until 2010, the average inflation rate in the United Kingdom was 2.72% reaching a historical high of 8.50% in April 1991 and a record low of 0.50% in May of 2000.

While back in May this year, the BOE's governor Mervyn King said that inflation was “uncomfortably high,” and officials signaled they may need to raise interest rates later this year even as the economy struggles to build momentum. Interestingly however, the fact is that just one month later the central bank turned back towards it´s prior dovish stance, with 7 out of 9 members voting to keep rates on hold. The flip from hawkish to dovish, has come after the committee lost its hawkish member, Andrew Sentance, in May this year.

And while the idea of keeping rates low to jump-start growth remains, inflationary pressure keeps rising. The thing is that the BOE would rather focus on containing inflation, rather than stimulating employment or growth. If inflation keeps rising towards 5.0% as Governor King expects, the BOE will may have no choice but to rise the benchmark in an attempt to control it. At the same time, economic growth will hardly gain traction without the help of the central bank, while the UK continues applying their assets purchase program, or QE, as they can't remove it but only extend it: the quantitative easing program is another inflation generator for the economy. Up to this point, the tug of war the bank is trapped in will not result in a positive outcome no matter which side wins.

The BOE will have no choice but to sacrifice growth to contain inflation. While a rate hike may be expected by the end of this year, and we usually understand rate hikes as positive for a currency, I won't be expecting too much strength for the Pound, not even after a rate hike. Unless some signs of recovery start improving the sentiment over the UK economy, the Pound is set to extend its losses over the second half of 2011.

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Repeat: China Offl PMI Seen Resilient Despite Weak HSBC

BEIJING (MNI) - A sub-50 reading for a China flash purchasing managers index released Thursday doesn't mean the government's index due for release on August 1 will also suggest that Chinese industry is in contraction.

While it wasn't a vote of confidence for the health of the Chinese economy, analysts said the weakness seen in the HSBC flash PMI today probably won't be reflected in the PMI that is issued by the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing.

Risk currencies and equities sold off immediately after HSBC said its flash purchasing managers index for July fell to a 28-month low of 48.9 and points to a reading under 50 when the UK-based bank reports the final reading on August 1.

The official PMI, a collaboration between CFLP and the National Bureau of Statistics, dropped to 50.9 in June from 52.0. Its last sub-50 reading was in February 2009 and fell to as low as 38.8 in November 2008, at the height of the global financial crisis.

Markets would likely react negatively again on August 1 if CFLP announces the first reading below 50 in 28 months (the PMI is released at 0900 Beijing-time 0100 GMT.)

But analysts said that's unlikely to happen, arguing that the official PMI tends to survey larger state-owned firms, which are in better health than their smaller, often-privately held, peers captured by Markit, which compiles the PMI for HSBC.

"We don't believe that the official PMI would fall below 50 in July," said Ken Peng, a Beijing-based economist with BNP Paribas.

Even HSBC urged caution and dismissed concerns about a hard landing. Economist Qu Hongbin acknowledged that 70% of the HSBC survey panel comprises small and medium-sized firms and argued that the reading below 50 still points to industrial output growth of around 13%.

"Don't panic. Despite the slowing of manufacturing activity, resilient consumer spending and continued investment in thousands of infrastructure projects will continue to support GDP growth rate of almost 9% for the rest of this year," he told clients in a note.

At the same time that HSBC was releasing its survey, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology spokesman Zhu Hongren was telling reporters that industrial output will grow by 13% to 15% in the second half of this year, compared with 14.3% in the first six months.

He acknowledged that small enterprises faced "outstanding difficulties" owing to financing problems, but denied there were waves of closures in southern China.

Today's data revived concerns about a hard economic landing in China, just a week after the government said the economy grew by a stronger-than-expected 9.5% y/y in the second quarter, powered by 15.1% jump in industrial output in June.

Both HSBC's Qu and BNP's Peng said the June data reflected easing electricity supply after the government allowed tariffs to rise. Peng said slightly easier credit conditions and better trade numbers also helped quarterly growth.

"Both the power and the trade boost should fade in coming months and that could tighten business environment further," he said, arguing that data support selective policy easing.

Despite the industry ministry's bullish outlook, pressure is mounting on the central government to further relax at least some of the slew of measures it has introduced since October to battle inflation.

Today's PMI reading may reflect seasonality -- Societe Generale's Wei Yao noted that the PMI last July also fell below 50 -- but it is also evidence of the pain being felt in more vulnerable parts of the economy as liquidity dries up and financing becomes increasingly hard to come by.

The credit availability index in the Market News International China Business Sentiment Survey fell to 33.33 in June, the third lowest on record (the China Business Sentiment Flash Survey is scheduled for release at 0935 Beijing time, 0135 GMT on July 22 and the final survey on July 29.)

Analysts said that Beijing could be forced to respond if the CFLP reports a lower-than-expected reading on August 1.

"No doubt, the growth momentum continues to soften. We expect the official PMI to come in at 50," said SG's Yao. "If official PMI comes in below 50, PBOC will probably be very cautious in tightening further."

beijing@marketnews.com ** Market News International Beijing Newsroom: 86-10-5864-5274 **

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