Accepting credit card payments through website

xha1r

Hello,

It'd be great if I were to be able to setup a payments system for credit cards on my companies website. However, with myself and our webmaster having no experience with this, we are unsure whether to go ahead with it as we don't wish to cause any problems for the person paying.

Is setting up such a system difficult and does it more or less work itself? What companies are best for doing so? Is there a need for doing this? Or would most people just pay by cheque for example?

We will be setting up a Paypal option as it is relatively simple, but I would really like to get the credit card option in there to cover all bases.

Any replies are much appreciated.

Regards,
JB.

PS. I have posted this in both the B/E/F and Webmaster forum as I wasn't sure which it was most suited to.

EKRIUQ

Contact your bank and tell them you need a gateway system for processing internet payments. You'll have to get a merchant id to do so but your bank will have all the details.

tom-thebox

Speak to www.realex.ie if you are going to be turning over serious money or for a cheap fix check out www.2checkout.com

Might be worth while speaking to your webhost about this too.

xha1r

You have any idea of their prices tom?

tom-thebox

realex offer good rates, but theres a lot of setting up and paper work to get done, along with that you have to code your own system up to send them the credit card details (last time I checked)

Although I do hear they have a virtual terminal solution now so that might be worth a look.

Realex is about 2% of all charges, I think they have setup fees too

2checkout.com If you want a quick fix, it costs about $50 to signup with 2checkout.com they supply all the coding etc.. and the shopping carts you just need to input the buy now buttons into your site. No paperwork to get setup as soon as you pay your 50 bucks your account is live. They will send you your money every 2 weeks to any bank account you want.

2co card charges 5.5%

xha1r

Cheers tom, you've been very helpful.

fintan

I use 2checkout.com and yes its was easy to set up and works well. We don't have the volume to jusitfy the costs of getting a merchant account.

GP

xha1r wrote:

We will be setting up a Paypal option as it is relatively simple, but I would really like to get the credit card option in there to cover all bases.

PayPal does CC authorisation.

Eoin

I have been researching this myself. As GP said, PayPal does CC authorisation and your customer doesn't need a paypal account once you have a business account (or whatever their terminology is). The customers just enter their CC details as they would with any other CC processing site.

I looked into 2Checkout, and their rates did not seem great. They charge $6 per transfer to you. Also, I'm not too sure what to make of this:

Suppliers selling tangible goods should not expect payment until 2CheckOut can confirm receipt of goods shipped

fintan

The reason I chose 2checkout over paypal was simplicity.

The intial page a potential customer sees when you have a paypal system is confusing asking you to register / log-in and then tucked away was the continue without registering option.

Personally I felt it was creating an unnecessary barrier. As people could easily get confused, do i need to reigster? what am i registering for? why should i register etc etc

eoin_s what happened with me when i started with 2checkout was, they contacted a random selection of customer for the first month to double check that everything was ok with there order. I talked to a few customers about it and they all said the people were very polite and they had no problems answering the questions.

Obviously it is not an ideal situation (but it was only for the first month)and a merchant account is the way to go, but by the time 2checkout ring, the order has been processed so its not creating a barrier between customers and paying.

Im not advocating one system over another, im just explaining why i made the decision I did which may be helpful to some people, as this type of questions gets asked a lot.

Cheers
Fintan

5 Times

contact magicosoftware

E-mail paul@magico.ie

Winners of a Golden Spider for best Web Development Agency 2006. They work with Fintrax, Alphyra, realex etc and are your best option in my opinion.

trap4

We give our subscribers and advertisers three options - Paypal, 2CheckOut and Worldpay. We've been using 2CheckOut for nearly 4 years now and have been very happy with them.

___________________
-James.
EirePreneur.com

davil

I hear some time ago that Paypal are not federally insured. Is there still truth to this? If so, what does this mean to users of Paypal such as yourselves? I presumed it's only the few people who are scammed on Ebay that are at risk but when I think about it I realise I don't know anything about the intricacies of the system. Can somebody please enlighten me?

To be honest, from what I'm reading on this thread though I'll probably go with 2checkout

professore

eoin_s wrote:

I have been researching this myself. As GP said, PayPal does CC authorisation and your customer doesn't need a paypal account once you have a business account (or whatever their terminology is). The customers just enter their CC details as they would with any other CC processing site.

I looked into 2Checkout, and their rates did not seem great. They charge $6 per transfer to you. Also, I'm not too sure what to make of this:

PayPal really sucks - see www.paypalsucks.com. They don't check for fraud and freeze your account if you get "done". It happened to me. Now I use 2checkout, and recommend it or a merchant account to customers depending on volume.

Realex: Keith

Realex Payments provide a range of very cost effective solutions. Our credit card authorisation solution takes place in real time (approx 2-3 seconds) and the funds for the transaction are settled directly into your bank account within 24hours, unlike most of our competitors. We offer a range of pricing bands to cater for all of our customers, both large and small.

We also have a range of other services such as our virtual terminal and our fraud prevention system, that are provided as standard when you sign up for an account.

If you would like to receive some further information, a confidential quotation or have any questions about our services, please feel free to contact me. www.realexpayments.com

Kind regards,

Keith

Keith McCabe ; keith.mccabe@realexpayments.com
Realex Payments
Ph: 01-2808559