Paypal vrs Other Payment Methods

gg1

Hi, I am starting a new business and plan to take payments on my website for my product. I want to be able to take payments from Paypal and directly from credit cards and laser cards as I know everyone does not use paypal.
Anyway when I spoke to a website designer they said the cost of getting the software to take payments could be more expensive than getting the website built to begin with and I should just stick with Paypal as it is much cheaper.
However I don't want to be excluding potential customers who don't use paypal or want to pay by laser card. Any opinions or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks
gg

fishy21

you will need a merchant account to accept credit cards directly. There is a good site that explains this called webpayments.ie, check it out.

Mr Clonfadda

I'm currently signing up with Sage Pay

aidan.connolly

Hi,

I was using Paypal but the big disadvantage is that they don't take Laser. I would not have a very large number of transactions ( unfortunately)
I then encountered another problem with Paypal which forced me to change.

If your customer does not want to have a paypal account, and want to pay by credit card, they can sometimes run into problems with the number of "guest " purchases they can make, before they ae forced to sign up.

I signed up with Sagepay and now I can now take all payment types. Because, as I said above, my transactions numbers would be small, they were able to get me a deal with Elavon that suited me.
It seems good but like with all of them you need a Merchant Account. I signed up with Elavon. Despite what I had heard about them before, they processed the application within about two weeks from start to finish.

I don't think it should cost too much more to integrate it with your website, but I am open to correction.

Good luck with your new business .

Shzm

Quick question.. to get the merchant account, did you need a business account with a bank, or was your own personal account fine?

aidan.connolly

I have a limited company, so we had a company bank account.
They looked for a for a letter form the bank confirming that I was who I said I was, that my account was in that branch and or course, that my account was been operated within the terms and conditions of my agreement with the bank

I would guess they would prefer a business bank account.

Herbalist

What bank are you with? You will need to contact your bank and try and get a merchant number if you want to be able to use online payment methods other than paypal.
Wether or not you get approved for a merchant account will depend on a variety of factors including the nature of the business itself. The best thing to do is to ask and see if they will approve you.

If they do then you will have a variety of payment options to choose from. One would be Sagepay which is very cost effective as it includes a high number of transactions with your monthly fee.

If youare not approved one option you would have is to use paypal for a while and apply again in a few months when you have trading history built up

Sposs

Use paypal and www.realex.ie to give your customers a choice of what they want to pay with , you will need a business bank account with your bank and a merchant account.

tombull82

search back through this forum. Same question a month or 2 ago turned up a company that offered the same as sage etc but you did not need a merchant acc

gg1

Thanks guys. Found all your replies really helpful.

dollydishmop

Does anyone have any experience using RBSWorldpay?