Payment Processing? Yo Thoughts?

[DJ5A]

Hello Everybody:

1 Million Questions! :-)

I'm in the Process of getting a web site ready for Payment Processing. At the time all will be services only sold over the Internet. Later maybe some E-Books!

I would like to hear any of your input on this of any kind?

I'm also wanting to know if any of you have any experience with these Processors:
Pay Pals New Web Pay method which looks a 1,000% better than the Old Pay Pal

Also what about Pay By Check Services? Doug you use these services I think & LOL 1 more thing. I was at Mal's free e-commerce & I noticed that it said there that Pay By Check does not allow Internet Goods? Now does this mean that they allow services but not downloads?

Does that many people pay by Check on the Internet? I've never really thought about this before.

Sorry for all the Mumbo Jumbo, I's Curious! :-)

[ihelpyou]

Okay.

Credit card processing:

I use www.authorize.net.

I swear by them and they are one of the largest and oldest in the world.

You cannot sign up directly with them as you have to have a merchant account which brings me to this:

Pay Pal is not very professional looking to me as you do not have to have a merchant account and fees are HIGH.

It is very cheap now to get one. A few that use authorize are www.charge.com, etc. Authorize.net has a list of merchants to get set up with.

Setup fees are low now and transaction and discount fees are VERY low.

You may pay between 2.5% and 3% per transaction and .30. This is cheap compared to up to 30% for some places that do not require a merchant account.

Yes. I use Pay By Check but not sure if even worth having it as almost ALL my clients pay by credit card.

It does not cost anything to keep and I pay like $1.50 per transaction and that is it.

Hope this helps.

[DJ5A]

Doug:
Thanks for the Info! Mainly about the Checks I wasn't sure about that. It seems like a lot of trouble if not that many purchase with checks.

That's like all the folks that go to all the trouble of building websites for people that are using Netscape? I don't think it's worth the trouble because in the past 4 years never had complaints from any Netscape users.

PayPals New Web Accept fees:

PayPal Premier Account*
Under $15 only 30¢
$15 or more is 2.2% + 30¢
These fees seem pretty reasonable.

Yes, when you say PayPal it does sound a little Cheap, but I looked at their On line Demo of Web Accept & it didn't look that bad. I'm also going to run it through a shopping cart.

Yes, I'm going the Cheap way, but I've learned from past mistakes. I've poured a lot of extra uneccessary money into web sites thinking I would make a bunch of money & it didn't work out that way.
If & when the Money starts coming in, I will make a lot of changes.

Hey these are just my thoughts.:-) That's why I'm here looking for Valuable Input from others as yourself!

[ihelpyou]

Real good DJ. I agree that sometimes you have to start out slow.

3 years ago the pay pals were not around so I had to jump right in. But, I am glad I did.

When the mucho starts rolling in you should consider your own merchant account soon after. ;)

[Blue]

DJ,

I have to disagree with your logic here:

That's like all the folks that go to all the trouble of building websites for people that are using Netscape? I don't think it's worth the trouble because in the past 4 years never had complaints from any Netscape users.

It's been my experience that, though the percentages are low, they are still percentages, and therefore are exponential. What I mean is that though the number of Netsc_r_a_p users are low percentage-wise, if you have a high traffic site those numbers are going to be high, thus you are losing traffic by designing for IE only.

Possibly you haven't gotten complaints from Netscape users because thay can't view your site correctly and hence don't care about what you have to offer.

I, too, dislike having to design for multiple browsers, but once you get the hang of it, it's not so bad. There's many sites out there to help in this arena.

Just my 2 cents...

[ihelpyou]

Thinking about this some more.....

The Yahoo editors all use Netscape 4 when reviewing sites for a listing.

Looksmart editors use the same, at least the last editor to review a site of mine used Netscape. This could be crucial to get into the directories.

I do agree though, building a site for all browsers is a big pain. They should all get together and have the same html validations.

[JuniorHarris]

Interesting note about the editor's use of Netscape...

[ihelpyou]

Yes, I am sure they do so cause it is much tougher to design for Netscape, so the editors know that if a site looks good in Netscape, it will look good for the others.

IE is much more accomodating.

[analog]

Just wanted to through in my 2 cents on the credit card thing.

I use ProPay.com for my processing. They take 3.5% + .35 each transaction. And you don't have to have a merchant account. On your customer's statement, your email address shows up as the billing company.

ProPay is way better than PayPal, if that is what you are looking for. They don't currently have eCommerce capabilities that I know of. You have to enter your requests by hand. So, they are good for low volume stuff.

[ihelpyou]

That sounds much better as an alternative. The fact that your email address is what is on the customer's statement is big.

[JuniorHarris]

Wow, the website tools (http://www.propay.com/website_tools.html) even allow an XML interface!~ :cool:

[analog]

Yeah, they just did a big upgrade.. I haven't had a chance to look at their new features yet.. I assume the XML interface would allow you to process cards directly from your own site?

Their support has been good too. I have used their Live Chat, and email. Both were responsive, polite, and helpful!

If you sign up, tell 'em I sent ya! That way, I get $5 :hi:

[JuniorHarris]

Accepting large volumes of credit card payments on your website has never been easier.

Sounds like directly from your own site!~