Comments on: Taking payments online – merchant account & payment processor fees

By: Processor Benchmark

Processor Benchmark — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:40:28 +0000

Sweet…. This is what I’m looking for

By: David M

David M — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:14:38 +0000

PayPal fees are much higher than getting a merchant account and their API was not available at the time I wrote this article. Whether it is as flexible as what we have now I don’t know. We can also keep the customer within our own payment pages, which is a big bonus for working on conversion improvements.

By: Marc Gayle

Marc Gayle — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:18:02 +0000

Did you know that you could use Paypal and they have a micropayment plan, where the fees are much less tenuous.

Typically micropayments apply for charges of $10 – $12 or less. For your service, it might work well.

https://micropayments.paypal-labs.com/

Would love to hear feedback on how this works out for you, as opposed to going through all of that hassle with the banks and merchant accounts.

By: ann

ann — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:59:41 +0000

Another useful comparison tool is on the Electronic Payments site – http://www.electronic-payments.co.uk/acquiring_banks.jsp

By: David M

David M — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 07:02:23 +0000

We have to be PCI compliant. We do not store actual card information other than the cardholder name and expiry date but even if we stored nothing, because we transmit the card details through our server (we host our “enter your card details” page) then we have to be compliant.

It is time consuming but there is a free wizard that takes you through the process, including free server security scans, at http://www.hackerguardian.com/hackerguardian/qa_sa_wizard.html

By: Laurent

Laurent — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:05:41 +0000

Hi,

Thank you for the information. It is clear and very useful.

One point not clear for me. I suppose your server never contains your customer’s credit card information because they are immediately transferred to the Netbanx servers through the API ?

So do you need to fill for the PCI compliance ? If so, is it a simplified process ? What are the costs and time requirements for this ?

Thank you,

Laurent

By: David M

David M — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:42:06 +0000

Looks like a good choice not to go with Proxt/SagePay – http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/09/sagepay_outage/

By: danpiro

danpiro — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:12:55 +0000

I completely agree with “Negotiate everything, and use the best quote you get to get other providers to reduce their fees.” Using our directory http://www.creditcardprocessing-r-us.com a merchant can apply with few merchant account providers. The comparison will not be apples to apples; it is more likely to be a job of understanding the tradeoff. I am sure any merchant can benefit from such a comparison exercise.

By: Dat To

Dat To — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:38:15 +0000

Excellent post. You are very clear, detailed and precise. I’ve been selling merchant accounts for over 5yrs in Canada and it’s been great meeting different personalities own such a range of different businesses. I’ve sold for 7 different companies and now have kept 2 of them as consistent suppliers.

In Canada, because Merchants don’t understand Payment Processing and Acceptance, they always lead with price. And what do these companies do in order to sell accounts? They give it to them and then stick them in the back end or don’t provide proper service because there is no money in the margins to get the deal.

Once some unwise or unethical company/sales rep introduces “low prices”, then the value of the services is lowered in the Merchant’s mind when a reputable company/ rep comes along. Then everyone is running around playing stupid marketing games.

There is one company that I know that offer the cheapest looking program in the country, and their customers end up paying MORE than a standard program. They also don’t have a dozen happy customers out of the 6000+ that they have. They have over 1000 small claims lawsuits against them. Everyone is locked into 4-5yr contracts and they keep recruiting more and more sales agents.

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Top Posts « WordPress.com — Fri, 22 May 2009 00:22:02 +0000

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