how to setup an ecommerce site to take credit cards??

[Ender510]

Hi, i am in the process of designing a site so we can do some small ecommerce.. how do we setup the credit card functinoality?? Do we need to get a merchant account?? what is the process in this? What sites would host our stuff (ISP) AND also have the credit card purchasing availability? What type of costs are involved in this? Per transaction? Per month? Thx in advance..