Does anyone have any experience with processing credit cards that can give me some advice on how to handle this situation? I am looking to create an online art venue where members can each have his/her own online store front. I want to be able to handle credit card transactions in such a way that each member can receive payment for the art that they sell. It seems that most credit card verification sites such as Authorize.net are set up so that you are the storefront. Im wondering what the best route is for managing credit card transactions for an array of storefronts all under your umbrella. Any input is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
So what's wrong with your having a merchant account, processing the payments and distributing the money?
That's what a brick-and-mortar gallery does. And it's a value-add for
your vendors who don't want to set up a merchant account of their
own, for whatever reason. Keeping track of who sold what shouldn't
be too tough 
FWIW,
Yea, thats what I thought, but I spoke with Authorize.net on the phone today and they are saying that the only way to distribute the payment is to go through email receipts by hand. I need an automated way of transfering these funds to individual checking accounts.
What?? That's ridiculous. When you submit a transaction, you get a confirming response back. You save that response in your DB and you've got all the information you need.
Yes, you probably want to review the final email confirmations for any after-the-fact rejections (I've never seen one).
But "go(ing) through email receipts by hand"? Nah.
Now getting electronic access to all your vendors' checking accounts
might be another story -- haven't tackled that one.
HTH,
H*
If you were to use Braintree (http://www.braintreepaymentsolutions.com/) for your payment gateway and you got ACH processing, you could collect the funds from customers via your merchant account, then disburse payments via ACH, directly to checking accounts, all via ActiveMerchant. This is exactly what I did in an app similar to yours for photographers: http://www.nextproof.com/
Thanks Benjamin, I will look into that. Does anyone have any experience with the same kind of payment disbursement with authorize.net par chance?