Taking payments online...

When it comes to taking payments online there are various options you can consider, from the cheap and cheerful Paypal right up to a scalable end to end payment processing solution.

At the top end of the market you might integrate your merchant account and use something like protx as the payment gateway.

What ecommerce solution do you use and what have you found to be the pros and cons? Would be useful to get your learnings

Tim

Re : Taking payments online

Hi Tim

Paypal is ideal for small sites that have few transactions - as soon as you have a steady number of orders I think most people move to Worldpay or similar.

Dan
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Web Design

Re : Taking payments online

Hi Guys

I read in another forum that it was better to use Worldpay than Paypal, as apparently Paypal looks unprofessional and puts a lot of people off?

Would be good to know what people think of this, as far as I am aware everyone on ebay for instance uses Paypal so does it really put people off? Also Worldpay is very expensive and I know that they keep your money for about four weeks too!

Sasha

Re : Taking payments online

Hi Sasha

I think views vary on this from person to person. The general opinion seems to be that on sites run by individuals and those with modest sales levels, people almost expect to see something like Paypal used as a payment solution as it is so prevalent.

The issue seems to be more with business websites, where some say they feel more re-assured if a meatier solution along the lines of Worldpay is used. As always the most important element is still have an intuitive and simple to follow sales process that makes it easy for the customer to find and buy what they want from your site.

Cheers

Dan
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Web Design

Re : Taking payments online

Thanks for your views, all.

I broadly agree that there seems to be a general sentiment that Paypal is fine for personal and smaller sites, but for larger sites and ecommerce ones people tend to expect some more sophisticated solution.

Cheers

Tim

Re : Taking payments online

Another piece of input from me who knows very little about this - I have heard that Google now also has a payment solution out there, so might this be worthwhile or a viable alternative to Paypal for instance?

Sasha

Re : Taking payments online

Hi, my opinion is we don't like to do Paypal, it's a America company, they have some inconsequence rule in China, not suit for every country.
we'd like Western Union and money gram for small account and sample order.
for big order, we'd like bank transfer or L/C.

Re : Taking payments online

Worldpay is probably a better option than Paypal all round, if you can live with the costs - the great benefit of Paypal is that there is no monthly fee associated with the account.

Tim

Re : Taking payments online

I have been using Paypal and find it hassle free, I have just signed up to Paypal Pro, so far so good I'm lovin it. I find the other merchants to have High charges and why do they want to hold your funds for 4-8 weeks, okay if you are a big company, not for small businesses.

Ashley
http://www.shopforcomponents.com
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Ashley

Re : Taking payments online

Hi Ashley

What's Paypal Pro... presumably that's something different to normal Paypal?

Thanks

Thomas

Re : Taking payments online

Interesting series of posts here - thanks guys

Sasha

Re : Taking payments online

I have been using paypal for a year now. I have considered moving due to the fact that when a customer checksout if they use the same credit card that is linked to a paypal account it wont let them. I have posted a section about this on my checkout page and have managed to save a few sales contacting the customer. Don't Worlpay keep hold of your money for 30 days??

Tracey :-)
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www.littlestorkbabyboxes.co.uk

Re : Taking payments online

Tracey

Why does Paypal do that? I mean, when it sees its the same card number it could say to them "this is already connected to an account - please login" and then processs their payment. Just to refuse it seems a little stupid?

Unless you are doing decent levels of trade then the worldpay fees will be too much - if you are doing around £500/month business or more then worldpay would be a reasonable expense.

Re : Taking payments online

As Tim has said, the great virtue with Paypal is it being so simple to set-up and the lack of an ongoing monthly fee which solutions like Worldpay have, of standardly around £30/month plus VAT.

Dan
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Web Design

Re : Taking payments online

I started out using PayPal but quickly switched to Nochex - at least it's a UK-based company, and I found them quite helpful on the phone. Unlike PayPal they don't try to push customers to register an account with them, which a lot of people find quite off-putting.

Nochex charged a one-off set-up fee of £50, but their charge per transaction is lower than PayPal (2.9% + 20p, versus 3.4% + 20p for the volumes that I'm currently processing).

I've been accepting payments through Nochex for 3 months now and don't see any reason to change so far.

Emma
http://www.vikingkids.co.uk

Re : Taking payments online

Does Nochex allow payments to be taken from outside the UK?

Re : Taking payments online

We usually suggest to our clients (depending on size and product)that they use use worldpay as it is around £200 set up fee and £30 a month but with that you get full payment processing, editble payment page, and the refund functionality is quite quick and easy.

The problem with paypal is that you have to have a paypal account already or it takes you away from the online store which increases the risk of the user just giving up and not buying.

It also gives the impression of a bigger and more organised company.

Ian
http://www.debugdesign.com
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Ian Garstang Debug Design Limited T: 01473 207000 M: 07989 555535 E: ian@debugdesign.com W: http://www.debugdesign.com

Re : Taking payments online

Anecdotally I hear more and more of my friends are starting to move away from Paypal because of this or that... interesting to see if they will have to charge as well in order to introduce better functionality, though I guess they must still be making a fortune!

Chris