I have my own CC machine at home but I want to take automatic payments from ebooks sold online.
Who would you suggest. I was told a while back that Paypal gets a lot of chargeback from muppets who forgot what they purchased.
Google can freeze your accounts at a moments notice.
2checkout ?
So who else? Super easy ones to integrate
http://www.swreg.org/
Any good, any advice?
Use 2checkout without probs and have done for years - need to make sure your site is up to scratch, T&c, returns policy etc. Need to get each site approved separately.
I used to get a lot of PayPal chargebacks several years ago, even got an account banned. But been using paypal on dozen other sites for past 18 months. Took 100's of transactions and not had any chargebacks. Just make sure in the email you send the users it tells them what they've ordered, and what they are going to see on statements. Seems everyone has a paypal account these days, and know a lot of people feel safer using paypal to buy from sites they dont know/trust.
you could also try Google checkout, which may have other benefits in terms of showing the icon in SERPs and (likely) if lots of people transact a possible boost along the same lines of good sites using analytics. If you don't mind handing all data to Google. Tough one.
I'm using Paypal and just set up a site for a friend who's been using Paypal for years. No chargebacks, but we're not selling flatscreen TVs either.
One thing about Paypal is you get your Payment Gateway and your Merchant Account all in one.
Depending on your merchant account, that will often determine your choice of gateway (usually Authorize.net), unless the MA integrates with multiple gateways.
A site that I've found useful for looking into merchant accounts is
http://www.merchantmaverick.com
Funny, I mentioned the site in a blog post ans being helpful and got a note from him saying he had seen me talk at Pubcon and had introduced himself. Can't place him, but he seems like a real guy who is not a shill for one affiliate program.
As for payment gateways, beyond Authorize.net there's Intuit and Chase Paymentech. Also one to check out if you're doing decent volume is Braintree, which is integrated with fewer MAs, but has a nice looking system.
Also, for some basic background chatter
http://www.startupnation.com/NET_ROOT/Search/SearchResults.aspx?zoom_query=payment%20processing
Quote from: ukgimp on January 23, 2011, 06:55:50 PM
http://www.swreg.org/
Any good, any advice?
2.9% plus $1 as a base rate is at the high end. If you're selling a few high-ticket items, you're doing okay, as the 2.9% isn't too bad. If you're selling a lot of low-priced items, you're getting killed with that dollar - effectively adding a 5% cost to a $20 item.
Also, be sure to check what the rates are for
- rewards cards (i.e. cards that give cash back, mileage)
- business cards (often a full percent higher than consumer cards)
- "foreign" cards (which in your case may mean domestic cards)
If it's 2.9% across the board, that's pretty good for online processing ("card present rates can go a lot lower). If it's 2.9%
and up I'd keep looking.
If you don't want the hassle of setting up a store on your server and all that, check out Business Catalyst, recently purchased by Adobe and som others like that (Big Commerce??) that I *believe* (subject to verification) mostly handle the implementation details for your.
For digital goods I've heard e-junkie is good, but not sure about international pmts, etc.
There is another that was recommended at the same time I was looking into it, primarily to avoid pp chargebacks. If you're still needing more, I can dig for a bit and probably find it.
e-junkie isn't really a gateway, it's a cart system.
You can hook it up to whatever gateway you want - Authorize.net, Paypal Website Payments Standard, PP Website Payments Pro, etc - but you still need to find a gateway.
http://www.e-junkie.com/ej/features.htm#pp
Yep, looks like I got e-junkie mixed up with epassporte, which doesn't look to be a viable option anymore since VISA won't work with them.
I can't find the original info I went over a few months back, but seeing some recommends for moneybookers and digital river for digital goods, as they make it more difficult for chargebacks.
Not used them personally or know much about them yet but you may want to check out moneybookers, the checkout process is simple from a users point of view, like a standard merchant checkout and I have seen some reasonably large companies using them. On face value it looks like a very good alternative to paypal.
Thanks for the hints people.
I personally have tried
Netbanks (they took me to court)
Worldpay (expensive and inflexible)
SecrureTrading (really good people. good rate. £125 p.a and then talk to then about the transactional charge)
Protex I have heard good things about but never tried. Quite cheap, but a few years ago had a couple of uptime issues.
What about getting rid of the whole problem and just using Clickbank, Scubbly, or ???
Quote from: Rupert on January 27, 2011, 07:15:24 PM
Protex I have heard good things about but never tried. Quite cheap, but a few years ago had a couple of uptime issues.
Protx are now sagepay, which personally puts me in a quandry. I hate Sage, as a company, with a vengeance. However Protx was good and so far at least sagepay is a well. Rates are very good and it's is a professional set-up that doesn't make you look smalltime.
We now use sagepay or worldpay on pretty much everything, with paypal/google offered as additional options in some cases. Worldpay are very good but they do certainly know how to charge. However if your turnover is good the rates drop - as long as you pester them.
I have sagepay on five sites - only once had a (very minor) problem - I'd recommend it.
If you are flogging ebooks why not just do it via Clickbank?
It's cheap to get it on there and they take care of all the crap for you.
Just a thought.
>paypal
... Everything you need to know about is in here:
https://www.x.com/servlet/JiveServlet/downloadBody/3036-102-1-3412/PP_AdaptivePayments.pdf
Anyone else finding the levels of Paypal Sales going up? (as a % of sales)
I am planning a one click buy for UK sales on paypal, straight off the page soon. Just as it is soooo easy to buy that way. The old check out is a bit of a pain if you are used to Paypal.
Quote from: Rupert on January 31, 2011, 02:11:50 PM
Anyone else finding the levels of Paypal Sales going up? (as a % of sales)
I have a couple of mates one an electrician and one a plumber. Both take PayPal payments for invoices from their websites. They say it works well - they also don't have to have a machine which is about £50 a month.
Now that is a novel use. I never considered they might use it.
I've tried a few but always stuck with Secure Trading as you can create a fully customised payment page and send them the information over XML. Customer service is also excellent
Quote from: Rupert on January 31, 2011, 04:30:16 PM
Now that is a novel use. I never considered they might use it.
Neither did I - It started out with the Plumber who wanted to give up the machine and he got so many people willing to do it, the electrician saw the plumbers website and tried it and the electrician gets 7-10 payments a week by paypal. He reckons that most of his customers under 50 would have bought something from ebay so they will have a paypal account.
firstplumber.com and eh1electrical.co.uk
We invoice with Paypal for our rental as the normal course of affairs. There's even a plugin for Quickbooks that lets you send Paypal invoices straight from your accounting software with no need to actually even visit the Paypal site.
I looked all over for a provider that could provide a similar service at a similar price and it was damn hard to find. Intuit came back with a solution that required us to buy no fewer than three Intuit products.
Off topic...
I am a bit surprised about the plumber and electrician though because in my experience, small contractors in the building trades tend to avoid internet solutions.
Six years ago, we couldn't find anyone in the building trades in our area (rural California) that wanted to even use email - we had to buy a fax machine just to send and receive all that junk (estimates, invoices, etc). When we had some work done last year, everyone was emailing us PDFs and didn't want to deal with faxes if possible.
Of course, that means there's great opportunity for the ones that take just a bit of time - a few years back a simple (crappy actually) website I built for a friend ended up holding three of the top ten places for San Francisco Window Washing (until my friend's genius partner redid it 100% Flash).
Payloadz has been mentioned as well