Payment Gateway

[Huzza]

Anyone can suggest any 3rd party payment gateway that is cheap, secure and user friendly?

What happened if someone purchase my product at my store and used a fraudulent credit card?

Any suggestion or tips before i kick-start my online store?

Thank you!

[larush]

PayPal seems to be the payment method of choice on eBay, and many other e-comm sites. They handle all the transaction details on your behalf, and then send you payment right away.
They also offer excellent consumer protection & merchant protection in the even of fraud.

Check them out at www.paypal.com

[Huzza]

My opinion on paypal: they maybe easy to use, but the process of making a payment takes too much time. They required customers to login into their system before anyone is able to make a payment.

I personally think that the process takes time, although its only a couple of min or lesser, and the signing up process may deter customers from making a payment.

I believe that not only an online stores should be user-friendly with excellent layout, they should also minimize the time customers spend on your website and able to make payment and checkout within 10 sec or lesser, without any doubts or worries.

Any other suggestions beside Paypal? Thank you!

[karlabaum]

Huzza,
I don't know a lot about this but here is a list of ones I came across looking for a new merchant account this week:
Nova, Authorizenet,Ipayment,Global, and cornerstone.

And one more, skipjack.com ; it is a lot of research work looking for the best of this type of thing. I also found another site that is suppose to provide you with quotes via email from their competing vendors: www.merchantselect.com (you have to register) I believe they had gateways as one of the choices.

We use CSI as a credit card processor/merchant acct provider and the gateway is included. They are raising their rates, so I am looking for alternatives.

Good luck to you!

[pbeemer]

Huzza

As a PayPal user (buyer, not seller!) I would suggest that you consider offering PayPal as an option, in addition to having a merchant account for credit cards.

I have no idea what they're charging these days; however, as my wife says I'm a paranoid -- I'm extremely loath to send my credit card info to someone I don't know, which means any place I've never done business with. Admittedly, I'm an outlier in the field of potential customers, but I would be much more willing to make a first-time purchase if I could do it with PayPal.

PayPal, incidentally, doesn't have my credit card info either; I feed them real (electronic) money. Do they have different merchant fees depending on whether it's a cash or credit transaction?

[kankohi]

Huzza,

I definately agree with you about PayPal. I would say it is for those who do not trust the Net just yet. And as such, I do see a decline once the intial fears subside. And I would worry about those customers you lose to the PayPal delay.

However, don't discount the number that use PayPal either. I would suggest you have both, a merchant account and a paypal account to accept payments on your site. Here's the link to PayPal Business www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/sell/index-outside

and for merchant accounts http://www.merchant-account-4u.com/ or QuickCommerce

Best of luck to you,
kankohi

[karlabaum]

Hi Huzza,
Here is an alternative to Paypal; and also some information about how decide if it would be more worthwhile to get your own set up depending on the volume of transactions you plan on:
- it mentions cc bill, which is like paypal-.

Merchant accounts and accepting payments online or otherwise:
http://selfpromotion.com/credit.t?CO...3984&UTC=77300

[gih]

I wrote an article on International Credit Card Processors last month, and touches on the questions you ask. It has been posted with a few e-Zines. If you have trouble locating it you'll find the original on my web site under the FREEBIES section.

Gary.

[canfone]

It really depends on what you are doing, and where you are based out of. If you are a U.S. based business, you can get your own virtual terminal from PayPro.com.

There is another one, I have lost the link to, that offers a decent alternative to paypal, however there is a setupfee of $40, and then each transaction fee is a little high.